Her cheeks are still stained that appealing, embarrassed red, almost as red as her hair.
I love all her contradictions. I love that she wears sexy, revealing outfits, has tattoos and piercings, swears like a sailor, and knows Krav Maga, but a single kiss can undo her. I love that she’s brilliant and bold and mercilessly independent, but manages to make me feel like a king when she blushes. I love all her sharp edges and all her soft, hidden spots and if you don’t watch yourself, idiot, you’ll find yourself with a much worse problem than a perma-boner!
Inhaling a sharp breath, I pull away.
Tabby turns her head and searches my face with big, dark eyes. She whispers, “No holding back, remember?”
Jesus Christ. She knows what I’m feeling. I can’t decide which is worse, having the feelings, or having only one night with a woman intuitive enough to guess at them.
Breathing raggedly, I lower my forehead, rest it between her breasts, and close my eyes.
I feel her fingers stroke my hair, and it’s wonderful. Soothing. I turn my cheek to her chest and listen to the wild clamor of her heart. She takes my face in her hands and forces me to look at her.
“Tell me.”
My voice is raw and unsteady when I answer. “I don’t know if I can have only one night.”
She says tenderly, “Don’t wuss out on me now, jarhead, a deal’s a deal,” and kisses me.
I slide my open hand up her thigh, over the crest of her hip, up her rib cage, and over her breast until her jaw is cupped in my hand. My other hand tangles in her hair. We kiss deeply but with no hurry, luxuriating in it, our breathing falling into rhythm, our bodies fitted together. She makes a slight movement with her hips, and I groan, lust flaring hot inside me.
“Maybe I should be the one telling you not to come,” she teases, drawing away with a soft, pleased laugh.
“You could tell me to do anything and I would.”
It’s out before I can stop it, a bald admission made even more plain by the tone of quiet vehemence with which it’s spoken. Tabby’s gentle smile slowly fades. We stare at each other, the moment stretching out past retraction, past any chance of reclamation with forced laugher we can hide behind and tell ourselves it means nothing, it’s only a stolen moment, soon to be forgotten with the morning light.
“Then, do anything,” she whispers, holding my gaze. “Do it all.”
I feel like a flock of birds has taken flight inside my chest. To distract myself from the imminent possibility that I’ll open my mouth and deliver this true but entirely emasculating line, I slide my hand down her body and slip my fingers into the tight heat between her legs.
“Wet,” I growl as she arches, gasping, her eyes gone wide. When I slide my fingers up and stroke them over her swollen clit, she moans.
It breaks the spell I’m under. Her moan takes me from swooning Romeo to snarling caveman in two seconds flat.
“You will not come,” I command, slide down the length of her body, spread her pussy open with my thumbs so that glistening pink nub at the top is exposed, and apply my mouth to it.
I suck. Greedily.
Her back bows from the bed. I push her down by her hips and hold her still like that, stroking my tongue over and around, sucking, making a meal of it and not caring at all how carnal it sounds, how loud it is in the stillness of the room. Tabby’s hands fist in the bedspread. Her entire body trembles beneath my hands.
When I feel her pleasure plateau, that inevitable flattening that reveals her brain is in a snarl, I lift my head and direct, “Flowers, Tabitha,” then go back to sucking.
She exhales a long, shaky breath. “Girassol,” she whispers.
I have no idea what that means, nor do I care. Here, at the core of her, she isn’t sweet. She’s salty and tangy and a little like the ocean, or grass. Grass drizzled in crack cocaine. It’s fucking intoxicating. I hear myself making animal sounds deep in my throat, like a bear neck-deep in honeycomb.
A delicate shudder works its way through her. “Tulipa.”
A sudden dazzling bolt of lightning illuminates the room, and the lights flicker. The sound of thunder rolls through the walls. I slide a finger inside her, feel her muscles contract, add a second finger.
“Orquídea.”
With my teeth, I tug gently on the small silver stud in her clit, pressing my fingers deeper inside her, and get the immediate and gratifying feedback of the roll of her hips paired with a long, low moan.
“íris, jacinto, ervilha doce,” Tabby pants, writhing.
“Don’t. Come.”
She makes a small, pleading sound, her lips pressed flat together, her chest rising and falling, her pelvis flexing, riding the strokes of my tongue.
It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to sit up and sink my throbbing cock as far as it will go into her delicious cunt and start pounding. I’m out on the ragged edge of my own restraint, watching her fall apart, stunned by how beautiful she is, how brave, and by the force of how much I want from her.