Eight Ways to Ecstasy (13 page)

“Lie back,” he said, the gravelly darkness of his voice surprising even him.

Pulse roaring, he followed her to the seat, rearranging her legs, lifting one knee and pressing it hard to her chest. Getting her open and ready for him.

And shit, he had no leverage in this position, but he didn't care. Tugging her underwear aside, he dragged the tip of his cock up and down the slick gash of her cunt, little nudges to just barely press himself inside before shifting up to circle her clit, over and over until his head spun. He nipped at her lips, kissed his way across her cheek and to her ear where he scraped his teeth across the lobe, and it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough.

Not until she was his.

The fire from back at the gallery filled him, sending filthy thoughts, needy words bubbling up into his lungs.

Groaning against her ear, he slid himself harder against her, so close to but not quite giving them what they both needed. “Tell me you want it,” he ground out.

She whined, angling her neck to the side in sheer invitation. “I already—”

He shook his head. “You told me you were ready for it. Tell me you want it. You want my cock, want to get fucked, want
me
—”

He bit off the word. Because that was what he needed. What he'd always needed. Someone to want him. Not his money or his power or what he could do for them. Just him.

Just like she had.

Once, back in a different life, she had.

“Tell me,” he insisted, and it was a command and a plea.

“Rylan.” Her voice walked an edge of desperation that made his skin go shivery and tight. Wrapping a leg around his hips, she reached down and into his waistband to clutch at his hip and yank. God but that would've done it for him, if he weren't so intent on getting her to ask.

He gritted his teeth, held firm at the cusp of her entrance. He was so hard it hurt, but no way he was giving in. She had to be aching, too, had to be so close to begging him for it. “Aren't you empty, baby? Say the word. Just say it—”

“Rylan,” she repeated, and this time she threaded her fingers through his hair. The sharp pull made his eyes burn, but he rose up. Braced a hand against the window above her head, and she was gazing at him with these hazy, lust-drunk eyes. There was clarity behind the desperation, though. Like she saw right through him. Like she knew.

“Rylan. I want you.”

Something in his chest clicked into place.

He drove inside in one long stroke, buried himself in wet heat, and he could have cried. Shuddering, he moaned her name and fell back over her. Their lips met in a not-quite kiss as he fought past the shock of being surrounded by her, consumed in her warmth and her words. The hand at his hip gripped him harder, and he rocked forward, clenching his jaw against the pressure already gathering, the need to pour himself into her.

And he should wait, slow down. Make it last. But this energy vibrated through him, reaching a fever pitch. He snapped.

“Hold on,” he managed to grit out.

Scrambling for purchase, he drew his hips back. After a bare second's pause, he drove forward, and his vision whited out, it was so good. He'd scarcely bottomed out before drawing away again, faster this time, and he couldn't stop.

His rhythm was punishing, so much rougher than he ever would've dared with her had he been in his right mind. He'd make it good for her regardless, only this fucking car…There wasn't any room to get a hand on her, to even ask her to touch herself, but he'd try, goddammit all. He shifted, working to get an arm free.

But his foot slipped, jamming into the door, changing his angle, and a low, whimpering sound made its way out of her, her fingers digging into his skin, and
fuck yeah
, he loved it when she used her nails.

Except. Shit.

He buried his face in her hair but didn't slow, panting hard. “Too much?”

It was beyond too much, and it would never be enough. Here he was. Pounding into her, taking her like an animal, using her, because he needed to lose himself in her body. Because
he
needed, not because she did—

Fuck, he had to stop.

But she shook her head and arched up into him, meeting his strokes, and it was a burst of lightning in his brain.

“It's good,” she insisted.

The thunder of her pleasure deafened his senses.

“Yeah?” Oh God, he was in so deep. Speeding his thrusts, he drove into her again and again, but he needed her voice. Needed to know she was still with him. “You like it hard?”

Her nails dug in. “Yeah.”

“Tell me. Tell me you like it when I fuck you.”

“I—” Her voice cut off, this throaty sound escaping. Shooting straight to his balls. “I love it.”

I love you.

He bit down on his tongue hard enough he feared it would bleed. All his life, he'd seen how love could be used, how easy it was to discard, but it was welling up in him with such force now. Threatening to drown him.

And all he wanted to do was give it to her. For her to take it.

“Tell me you're mine,” he choked out, and this wasn't the time. She wasn't his. She'd barely agreed to see him, still seemed reluctant more often than not. She'd been so
angry
at him—

“I'm yours. Rylan—”

And that was it. Climax took him by surprise, surging through him and turning him inside out. With the first gasping pulse of it, he opened his mouth to warn her, but she was pulling him into a kiss that tasted like heaven and her, and he lost himself to it. Shuddered inside her hands, inside her body. He emptied himself until there was nothing left, his legs and arms and lungs all giving out on him.

When he came back to himself, he was splayed out on top of her, his mouth open and damp against her throat, her fingers petting stiffly at his hair. Groaning, he worked to get an arm under him to take some of his weight. He had to be crushing her, and worse, he'd come before she had and then practically blacked out. Pathetic. But he'd do his best to rectify it.

He withdrew from her with a low grunt, only to have his knee lock up on him as he fought to rise. The awkward angles of his limbs and the crick in his spine he hadn't cared about as he'd been careening toward orgasm suddenly made themselves painfully clear. He spit out a low curse and she laughed.

“Car sex always sounded like such a good idea,” she said, voice tight.

“Especially in a car as sexy as this.”

“Not as good in practice, though, is it?”

Not
good
? Any better and he might have broken a hip.

“I don't know about that.”

He'd prove it to her in a minute. Just as soon as he got his breath back.

With effort, he lifted himself off her, all but collapsing to the floor in a heap. He tied off the condom and dropped it into a handkerchief before setting it aside. He licked his lips, more focused now. Ready to do better. But by the time he twisted back around, it was to find her struggling to sit up, tugging her skirt back into place. Like she thought they were done.

Well, fuck that.

A growl rose to the back of his throat. “What do you think you're doing?”

She looked up at him, eyes wide, hands freezing at the hem of her skirt. “Um…”

The male center of pride in him quaked. “Did you or did you not just tell me you were mine?”

“I—”

“I take care of what's mine.”

With a fresh burst of energy, he took her by the wrists and shoved her hands out of the way. Flipped her skirt back up.

Fuck, but her panties were soaked.

Ignoring the way she squirmed, he got her sitting up, arranged her in the middle of the seat, and spread her legs wide. Hooked his hands under her knees and hauled her forward so her ass sat at the edge of the seat.

“Jesus,” she said as he dove in.

He sucked at the wet panel of her underwear, scraping his teeth over her clit through the fabric. It was even more awkward of a position than he'd imagined earlier when he'd wanted to get his mouth on her, but he didn't care. Slinging a trembling thigh over his shoulder, he tugged her panties to the side, exposing all that sweet, ripe flesh.

Her breath stuttered as he slicked a thumb down the length of her slit. “Oh God.”

“Hold on to that thought,” he murmured, spreading her open and leaning in.

The taste of the condom mingled with her sweetness, but he worked past it, pursing his lips around her clit. It was his own fault anyway—too impatient to do this for her before he got inside.

But there were benefits to her having already gotten fucked. She was so close to the brink, legs trembling around his head as he dove in, kissing her wet and sloppy, pressing his tongue inside before laving hot stripes over her clit. And she was open for him, too, taking three fingers easy. He fucked her with them as punishingly fast and hard as he had with his cock, and she cried out his name.

He glanced up her body, and his cock, spent and done, gave a painful, wrecking throb. God, she was gorgeous. All pretenses at restraint and decorum gone. No protests on her lips, because he had taught her how to accept this. How to give herself over to it.

With one hand, she helped hold herself open for him, while with the other she yanked at her hair. Her head was thrown back, sweat painting the exposed tops of her breasts, and he could do this for her forever. He would, so long as she would just…

“Give it up,” he said. “Give it to me.”

Her pleasure and her body and her fucking
life
.

When it finally crested over, she screamed, and he hoped the whole world heard it, that everyone for blocks around knew he was ruining her, bringing her to heights no other man ever had or ever would. Chasing the pulsing clench of her pussy around his fingers, he licked and licked, until she reached down. Put a hand on his head.

With one last kiss to her clit, he slipped his fingers free. He pressed his brow against the inside of her thigh and closed his eyes.

The space around him spun.

He'd had sex so many times before, and in far more comfortable locations. But it had never been like this—not with full awareness of how he felt and of what he stood to lose. It made something hot curl up inside his lungs, pressing too hard. Like it was aching to break out.

When all he wanted to do was stay here. In this safe, defined place. With her.

Kate still hadn't quite gotten her balance back by the time they pulled up outside her building. Rylan shifted the car out of gear and turned to her. His blue eyes glinted in the dim light coming in from the streetlamps, and his throat bobbed.

“So,” he said.

She dropped her gaze, staring down at her hands as if they could hold the answer.

By a lot of standards, it had been a good night. She'd gotten to see a lot of art and do a little bit of networking. She'd tried a new restaurant.

She'd had incredible, strange, intense sex in the backseat of a car she was never going to stop having extremely inappropriate thoughts about. And it had been…different. Rylan's touch on her skin had held a whole new kind of power as he took what he wanted from her, be it her body or her words. And then, when he'd been done, he'd come back to her. Made sure she got as much from it as he had—maybe more.

Maybe less.

The possessiveness in his hands and in his eyes had shaken her to her core.

His.
He'd begged her to tell him she was his, and in that moment, surrounded by him, speared by him, her flesh melting beneath the heat of his stare, she'd felt like she was. She'd given him the affirmation he'd seemed to need so badly. It was only after, while she was coming down, his face hidden against her thigh and their breathing loud in that tiny, silent space, that it had all come crashing down around her.

She was her own. She had to be. She'd let him have her so completely back in Paris, and it had only brought her heartbreak. When she'd agreed to let him try to win her trust again, she'd promised herself she'd keep some part of herself. She'd sworn she'd guard her heart.

But he wanted it all. And that was a problem, on so many levels.

Starting with the shit show that had been his behavior around her friends.

She'd held her tongue about it all on their silent ride home. But they had to talk about it. There were so many things that couldn't go unsaid this time around.

Picking at her nail, she took a deep breath. “So. Do you want to tell me what all of that was about?”

He huffed out a dry echo of a laugh. “Which part?”

“Liam is just a friend.” She had to emphasize that point. She was under no illusions that Rylan's jealousy hadn't been at the heart of the way he'd acted tonight. “Yes, he's interested, and under other circumstances, maybe I could've been, too. But for now at least, that's all there is to it.”

“For now.”

She shrugged. “Things change. I'm not going to promise I'm never going to consider him if this”—she gestured between the two of them—“doesn't work out.”

“I want it to work out.”

“I know.” A part of her did, too. A bigger part still couldn't trust it, though. Couldn't trust his assurances. Couldn't trust herself.

She'd thought he was different the last time around, and just look where that had gotten them.

She met his gaze for the first time since he'd parked the car. “I'm not going to stop being friends with him.”

“I wouldn't have asked you to.” The bitterness to his tone said he wanted to.

“Really?”

He lifted his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know I acted like a caveman tonight—”

“Yeah, you did.” And it hadn't just been that. “You were rude to him and you were…
insane
around me.” Hadn't her mother warned her about precisely that kind of crap? Jealousy seemed flattering and sexy at the time, but when it cut you off from your friends…When it served to leave you isolated and dependent…“Don't get me wrong, it was hot. But it wasn't okay.”