Eight Ways to Ecstasy (18 page)

It was the photograph he'd taken of her naked smile, the one he didn't know yet if he'd get to keep. But damn him if he wasn't going to try.

Encircling her in his arms, he kissed her deep and wet, losing himself in it. In this moment.

In her.

It all changed so fast.

One moment Rylan had been gazing at Kate with this quiet sort of adoration, and the next he was kissing her within an inch of her life. Her head spun, dizzy, as the scent of him surrounded her, the weight of him. She grasped at his shoulder and his hip, just for something to hold on to. But it wasn't enough.

Her breath caught as she let him bear her down into the mattress. The softness of it welcomed her, the cool slide of the sheets a contrast to the heat of his skin and the slick press of his mouth.

“Fuck.” He scraped his teeth across her lip and worked his way toward the point of her jaw. “You don't know.”

She tipped her head to the side in invitation. “Don't know…”

“How bad I've wanted you. Here.” His words set off a pang inside her chest at the same time that the wet kisses he laid against her throat sparked a low, warm roll of arousal, heavy in her breasts and pulsing thickly in her sex. “In my bed. First thing in the morning. Wanted to sleep beside you. Wake you up with my mouth on you.”

Biting down, he fit a hand to the underside of her thigh and pushed it wide. She moved with him, making space for him between her legs, and he fit himself down into it. The rough fabric of his jeans rasped against her bare skin, and she arched up into the pressure, until the hard line of him pressed right where she needed it. Moaning at the spike of pleasure, she threaded her fingers through his hair, dragging his mouth back to hers to muffle the sounds he choked out of her with the grinding of his hips.

And yet there was more to it than the heat of his body or the electricity zipping through her at every glancing brush of skin on skin. There was an intensity to him, warmer than the possessive way he'd taken her in the car behind the gallery. Fuller than the shallow way she'd laid back and allowed him to have her upon his return. It was his words and his touch, combining and echoing, and it reminded her—

She scraped her nails down the length of his spine.

God, it was like their first time. Right after she'd drawn him, when she'd still been shaking from the realization of how deeply and how fast she'd fallen. Every kiss and every touch had been bright with possibility, yet shadowed by the looming specter of the fact that they had always been doomed, and there was just that sharpness to them now. That knife's edge they skated upon.

How many times had she gone back to that moment in her mind? Even in the depths of her fury, she'd held fast to that one golden afternoon. Imperfectly remembered, all flashes of need and the rush of finally giving in. Surrendering and receiving everything from him in return.

She wanted to remember it better this time.

“Wait.” The word came out breathless, her chest heaving beneath the hot touch of his hands, throat thick and lips stung.

Freezing, he groaned aloud. He lifted up to stare at her, and the concern on his brow alone made her heart swell. Unable to explain, she fumbled blindly at her side until her hand connected with the cool metal of the camera. She curled her fingers around the strap, tugging it closer.

His gaze followed her movement, and his breath caught. When he looked at her again, it was with his eyes going molten and dark, Adam's apple bobbing hard.

“Kate. Fuck.” He hung his head for a long moment before seeming to get himself back under control. “Always knew you had a little bit of a voyeur in you. Remember that first night you let me make you come?”

Deep in her sex, she pulsed. “As if I could forget.”

“You told me about your roommates fucking in the bunk across the room from you. Your cheeks went all pretty and pink.”

The same kind of warmth bloomed over her face right now. Shot down her spine and into the space between her legs.

His voice deepened, liquid sex rolling through his every breath as he skated his fingertips up her thighs. “You like to watch, pretty girl?”

“I like to watch you.”

His thumbs brushed the edges of her panties, and her whole abdomen flexed. For half a breath, she squeezed her eyes shut tight. She could just give in to this. Let him touch her and make her come.

Forcing her eyes open, she fought for focus.

Somehow, she got her hand around the body of the camera, bringing it up toward her eye. But before she lost the view of him to that of the lens, she worked her jaw. Summoned her courage. How many times had he told her to ask for what she wanted? Proved to her that it was her right, in bed and in every other part of her life? She darted out her tongue to wet her lips, then skated her gaze down his body.

Her voice scarcely shook at all as she said, “Take off the rest of your clothes.”

The space between them seemed to vibrate as his chest rose and fell. He sat up straighter, rising onto his knees between her spread thighs, muscles tensing.

And then he brought his hand to his throat.

God but the man was lethal. Fire raced through her, her mouth going dry as he dragged his fingertips over his collarbones. His smooth skin gleamed in the morning light, golden and perfect. He traced the edges of his pectorals, flicked a thumb against his own nipple, and let out a huff of air, and wasn't that just an idea for later? To touch him there and see if it made him pant the way it made her.

Then his hand drifted lower. The points of her breasts went tight, her sex slick and hot.

Exhaling hard, she brought the viewfinder to her eye, and it put him both closer and farther away. Made it easier to breathe at the same time that his teasing coiled the tension inside her to the point where she felt like she might break.

She snapped the shutter with his hand flat against the dips and ridges of his abdominals. Again as he swept over to touch the crest of his naked hip above the waistband of his jeans.

And then he tucked into the denim. Made as if to stroke the hot flesh underneath, and she couldn't stop the whine of need that escaped from her throat.

“You want me to touch myself?” Gravel roughened his tone. “I'm so hard for you, Kate.”

No. Yes. She wanted that, and for him to be on top of her already, pushing her open and pressing inside. Wanted his mouth and his hands and his cock, and how was she possibly supposed to decide?

Well, there was one place to start. “Show me.”

In slow, dragging movements, he withdrew his hand. He circled the button on his jeans for an infinite moment, swirling a single fingertip around the metal, and it took her too long to recognize the motion. She jerked her knee up, brushing her foot along his calf as her center throbbed. It was the way he liked to slip his finger along her clit, the way he got her warm and ready and wet for him.

And then he was popping the button free, pulling the teeth of his zipper down one by one. Heat bloomed in a fresh rush when he spread his fingers, palming the long line of himself through the fabric, and he made a low groan as the heel of his hand rubbed over the tip.

“Show me,” she said again.

And it was a heady ache when he did. He hooked his thumbs under his waistband at his hips, pushing the denim down maddening inch by inch, taking his boxers with it. Revealing coarse, dark hair and endless skin, and she clicked the shutter. Advanced the frame.

Then the base of him came into view. With a shudder, he reached in and pulled himself out. His cock was thick and flushed, glistening at the head as he curled his palm around himself and took a slow stroke forward, forcing a noise of pure need from his lungs.

“See how hard you make me? How much I love it when you tell me what you want?”

She fumbled with the camera in her haste to set it aside, but he was there, taking it from her. Bracing himself with one arm, he collapsed back over her, capturing her mouth, and how had she gone without this for so long? Survived for even a second without kissing him? It was cool water to the inferno between her thighs, and a conflagration to her flame, stoking her higher even as he eased the need within her, helped her keep it banked and contained.

Beside their heads, the shutter clicked, registering only dully in the back of her mind as she scraped her teeth over his tongue, met his lips again and again. She wanted to touch all the places he'd had his hands, wanted the hot length of him against her skin. Moaning, she skated her palms across his chest toward the center of his hips. When she brushed the wet tip of him, it punched the breath from him, but then he was there, pushing her hand aside.

Sliding down her body with the hot glide of his mouth.

He took a picture with his tongue on her breast and another sucking a kiss beside her navel. She choked on his name when he dipped lower, running his nose along her slit through her underwear. Scrambling, she rushed to get the fabric off, to get him closer to her bare, slick flesh, but again, he caught her hand. Pulled it to his mouth and sucked her fingers between his lips. Then he was pushing her own hot hand into her panties, glancing up at her with eyes gone black with lust.

“Show
me
.” It was almost a growl, the way he said the words.

And who was she? She barely recognized the scared, repressed, naïve girl he'd had to coax into touching herself in front of him at all as she slipped her fingers through her wetness, probing just inside before gliding back up to circle around her clit. The shutter fired off again, and Jesus, she'd have to develop these in the middle of the night, would have to barricade herself inside the darkroom, because no one was ever seeing this.

No one else could ever see her. Not like this. Not the way he did.

The camera hit the mattress with a bounce. She pushed up into his touch as he set his palms to her thighs. Eased the panel of her underwear out of the way only to dart in with his tongue, grasping at her wrist to keep her right there. A whole new kind of heat shivered through her as he licked around her fingertips, dipping into her opening and then kissing higher to suck hard at her clit.

Her eyes slammed shut as she shattered, clenching hard around nothing, and God, those were tears beading at the corners of her eyes. “Inside,” she pleaded, “I need—”

He filled her just as the second wave of it hit, fingers pressing exactly where she needed them, tongue hot and wet as it lapped at her clit, coaxing her through the tremors. Through the searing flashes of darkness washing over her and pulling her down.

She came back to herself what felt like decades later, groaning and letting her leg fall to the side. He kissed a line across her sex to the point of her hip, then tilted his head up, a sultry softness to his shining lips as he stared at her. Still hazy from the pleasure, she slipped her fingers from her body and brought them to his face. Pressed them into his mouth where he scraped her knuckles with his teeth.

Without a word, he let her hand fall away. He stalked his way up her body like a man possessed. On all fours over her, jeans still clinging from his hips, he pinned her with his gaze.

“Those pictures.” He swallowed, throat working, muscles straining. “I want to see them. All of them.”

She managed a bare nod. The heat in his eyes had her body thrumming again even as the aftershocks from her previous climax echoed through her.

Something cracked in his expression. “They're going to be beautiful.” He lifted a hand and pressed it to her cheek. “You're so beautiful.”

And her stomach dipped. He kept telling her that. She'd never doubted that he believed it, but it butted up against all the things she'd always been told about herself. The messages that had been thrown at her over and over again, to the point where they'd sunk in.

For the first time, his words sunk deeper. She
felt
beautiful. Like he made her beautiful, just by looking at her.

She reached for him. Curling her hand around the nape of his neck, she pulled him down. He tasted like sex and like her, and she could drown in his scent, in the warm way he hovered over her. Falling to his forearms, he pressed his chest against hers, and she couldn't get enough.

She'd been trying so hard to hold him at a distance. But he'd invited her into his home. Had taken her to the place where he'd grown up and introduced her to his family. Had asked her to help him
make
his home. And now he was here. Sharing a camera and a kiss she felt down to her toes, making art with their bodies and with film, and distance was stupid. Distance was a waste. Every inch of space she'd kept between them all this time collapsed.

Every muscle in her body went soft. As if he could sense the change, he moaned into the kiss. Cupped her breast and lowered his hips, letting the hot line of his cock graze her skin.

“I want you,” she breathed against his lips.

She wanted this. She wanted it to work.

Time went strange for a minute, melting the way her resistance had. The rest of their clothes seemed to fall away, pushed from their skin by eager hands. She almost told him to go ahead and press in bare, but before she would get the words out, he rolled on protection and she parted her legs.

“Like this?” he asked, dragging his tip over the ridge of her clit.

The familiarity of it made her dizzy. “Exactly like this.”

Like their first time. Face to face and skin to skin.

He held her gaze and entwined their hands.

The first hot slide of him into her body turned her inside out. It was all fullness and the pressure of his hips, the shaky warmth of his breath against her lips. He kissed her wet and deep as he drew back, and she curled her legs around him as if she could keep him there. Inside her. In this room where it was only her and him and this sun-filled space. Forever.

For the longest time, he moved inside her. The low roll of arousal in her abdomen flowed into every thrust, and she kept her eyes open. He did, too, until it was this complete circuit between them.