Eight Ways to Ecstasy (2 page)

“I'll keep that in mind.”

The first firm pressure of his mouth on her was a rolling thunderclap, a deep rumbling burst of pleasure that held the promise of so much more. Even through the cotton of her underwear—the normal everyday ones she wore when she wasn't expecting billionaire moguls to show up at her door—the intensity of the contact had her hips bucking, thighs tightening as if to close around his head. To push him off or draw him in until she was a shivering mess of satisfaction beneath him, she couldn't decide.

“Easy.” His lips pursed around her clit, a gentle nibble that just wasn't fair. He fit his forearm across her belly, holding her down. “Stay still for me.”

She shook her head. How could she?

And then he tongued at the fabric. Everything got wetter, the swelter between her thighs too much. She grasped at the sheets, reaching for her pillow for something to hold on to.

The first time he'd done this for her, it'd been this impossible sort of journey to her peak. No man had ever managed to make her come before, and she'd wanted so badly for him to be the one, but her mind had fought her. It'd been stop and start, the edge of oblivion a taste at the back of her throat, darting close only to fall away from her again and again, until she'd been ready to cry for it. When the pleasure had finally washed her away, she'd been left forever changed, her world tilting on its axis at this whole new realm of possibility.

Her orgasms had come easier every time since then, and that last lazy morning before everything had fallen apart, she'd found her pleasure with hardly any kind of effort at all.

But that was when she'd been on the receiving end of Rylan's attentions daily—sometimes more than daily. She'd gone
months
without that now. It should've had her tensing up, her mind and body warring again.

And yet when he slid a finger over soaked cotton, teased at her opening through the panel of her underwear, and closed his lips around her clit and sucked—

Her eyes snapped open, and she arched off the bed. How could she be— Was it even possible to— Reeling, she dug her nails into her palms and fought to keep her hands where they were, where he'd told her they should be as climax ambushed her, quick and sharp and almost violent, and she pulsed and pulsed and pulsed. Empty, and suddenly more ravenous than she had been before.

Rylan didn't quite manage to hide his shock as she struggled to lift her head. Mouth slack with surprise and lust, eyes hungry and dark, he met her gaze. And then, slowly, his expression shifted, morphing into the worst, most shameless smirk, so sexual, so overconfident, she wanted to wipe it off his face. Or maybe ride it.

“Oh, baby,” he all but crooned. “You're just primed for it, aren't you? Dying for it.” He traced a single finger down the still-throbbing line of her slit. “Ready to give it up with barely a touch.” He pressed his lips to the fabric again. “With barely a kiss.”

Rolling her eyes felt like too much work when she was shivering with aftershocks like this, but she gave it her best damn try. “Don't let it go to your head.”

“Believe me.” His eyebrows slanted meaningfully. “It's going to my head.”

Her fingers twitched. What she really wanted to do was swat at him. Or press him down. Get him to do that to her over and over.

“It's practically a crime,” he said. More soft, lingering kisses brushed over her, cruelly teasing glances of licks when she was wriggling, was writhing for the full-on embrace of his mouth. “You being so neglected like this.”

And there was still that hint of a pang. She'd been all alone because of him. Too wounded to go out and find someone else because of him.

She'd known what she was missing because of him.

He slid his finger along the edge of her underwear, across the inside of her thigh, and her body gave another little tremor. God, she was slick even all the way over there, his touch so easy as it glided across her flesh.

“I won't let it happen again.” His finger slipped a little deeper beneath the cotton. “I'll eat you out every night and every day if you want me to.”

She'd almost forgotten he could be like this. Shameless. Unreal.

She let her head fall back against the mattress. “You can start by”—she faltered, then closed her eyes and soldiered through it—“by eating me out right now.”

He chuckled, but it wasn't mean. If anything, it sounded painfully turned on. “Look at that. Kitten's grown claws.” He kissed the inside of her thigh. “But since I offered…”

Her whole body strained as he tucked his thumbs into her underwear and inch by inch dragged them down. Cool air hit heated skin. Naked from the waist down, she spread her legs. It was wanton, wasn't it? Slutty? Opening up for him, asking this of him.

Taking this, when she had no idea what they were to each other anymore. Didn't even know what she wanted them to be.

But then he ran his nose all the way from the inside of her knee to the juncture of her hip and thigh. “You don't know how much I've missed this.” And he dove in.

Jesus. She'd thought the touch of his lips to her through her panties had been intense. The first hot stripe he licked along her lips was like coming home, soft and wet, this broad stroke he painted with the flat of his tongue. He fit his whole mouth to her, and she didn't even have a chance to be self-conscious.

“You taste so fucking good,” he said with a moan. His tongue traced circles all around her clit, never touching it, and this was torture, was heaven. “How many times do you think I can get you to come?”

She'd managed three in one day before, but that had been with her very best vibrator and then with her hands.

But this was better. This was insane.

She was breathless, eyes clenched tight, hands curled in shaking fists. “I guess we're about to find out.”

“Hell yes, we are.”

And it was so visceral—so obscene. Spreading her with his thumbs, he licked inside and all around, cupped her thighs as those clever hands of his rose, pushing her legs up and apart. One clothed shoulder came to meet the underside of her knee, and she had to look.

The vision had her on the edge of coming again right then and there.

Because it was almost too much. Shirt and vest still on, basically all his clothes still on. Hell, he even had his watch affixed to his wrist. And his hair was all tousled, dark and messy, his bright eyes fixed on her, her thigh draped over his shoulder.

He finally pressed a finger inside, flicked his tongue fast and strong against her clit, right where she liked it, because of course he would remember that, of course he still knew—

Her body shattered with a whole different kind of strength this time, practically pulling her inside out. His moans against her sex were another layer to the symphony crescendoing through her, were a match for her own, and she had to bite down on his name. It wanted so badly to be let out.

In that moment, screaming and undone before him, she wanted so badly to let him in.

But no. No.

She lowered her hand to push him away, oversensitive and done, but then he raised his head from between her legs, eyes fierce, and he practically growled, “Leave them where they are.”

It made her freeze in her tracks.

His eyes flashed with need. “I am so fucking far from being finished with you.”

And he drove back in, thick fingers filling her, curling up and pressing just the right side of too hard to that spot inside. With warm, wet strokes of his tongue, he coaxed her straight back up to the high plateau of arousal she hadn't imagined she'd be able to climb again so quickly after coming twice already. But there she was, the twitchiness of post-climax giving over beneath the heat of his mouth, that hunger and that rush for more returning.

“Oh my God.” She shook her head back and forth, dropping her hand to her forehead where she was flushed and feverish. Sweat pooled at her lower back, and her nerves were screaming at her, her throat parched.

“Give it up again, beautiful.”

And she couldn't—there was no way she could. Except he'd never given her a chance to come down, and so she was still soaring, air beneath her fingertips, and she would fall someday. She had no doubt. But for now…for now she'd take what he was offering, and she wouldn't look back.

She arched her throat and closed her eyes, lost to it, ready to fly apart, all her barely recombined pieces tearing at their seams.

Then his thumb nudged farther back, a grazing touch between her cheeks, and her eyes flew open. “What are you—”

“Trust me.”

A steadier pressure, not quite in, not taking this other way to be inside her, but close, uncomfortable in a way that was more than physical. Dirty and weird and nothing she'd ever felt before, and that alone sent another rush of wetness flowing over his tongue, even as she twisted away, because it was too much. It might hurt.

“Don't overthink it,” he said against slick flesh, lips brushing her clit with every syllable. “Just let it feel good.”

“But—” But what if she didn't like this?

He shook his head, silencing her with that alone, and her ass gave beneath his slow, steady pressure. She choked on a breath as the very tip of his thumb, wet with her liquid, dipped inside, and there was no question about whether or not she liked it. Illicit fullness, a raw hint of a stretch, painless in the way that it burned right through her, and she
loved
it. The fingers in her sex thrust harder, and he did something with the point of his tongue.

And this time, she just about blacked out. The first wave overwhelmed her, made her shudder and curl, and she tossed her head to the side as it crashed into her. Without her leave, her hand found his hair and dug in deep, nails rough against scalp as she held him where she wanted him, kept his mouth right there—just there—

How was it possible she could still be coming? Her third climax flowed straight into her fourth, and it hurt and it felt unreal, and how did he do this to her? Push her boundaries and convince her to try? To let herself have things she'd never imagined could be for her?

By the time she came up for air, she was shaking, and she really did tear his mouth away from her before he could try to kill her any more.

Only there was way more than one kind of death that could be had at this man's hands. He came willingly enough, let himself be dragged up the length of her body, pushing her shirt up as he went, smearing her skin with what was left of her desire on his lips. When he met her mouth, he paused, hovering for just a moment.

Dimly, it struck her that he'd used his tongue to make her come and touched her someplace no one else had ever touched her before, but they hadn't kissed. Not once. A nervous little shiver curled through her, because did that mean something? Would letting his lips meet hers, now, mean even more?

She had only the span of a breath to worry about it. His eyes dipped closed. And then he kissed her full-on, pushing her own taste into her mouth, pushing her reservations away. It was all wet musk and bitter salt, and she swallowed them down, because he'd asked her to, and how had they gone so long without this? How was this not the very first thing they'd decided to do?

“Please,” he said against her lips. It was the second time he'd begged her for something tonight, and she was lying down, but her knees went weak all the same. “Please.”

He surrounded her wrists with his hands and pressed them back above her head. Her heart rate skyrocketed. Because she couldn't take any more, but she would. For him, she would.

And then he reared back, and he had never looked so powerful above her.

“Please tell me I haven't fucked this up so bad you won't let me be inside you.”

Rylan was pushing his luck. Their first time around, it'd taken him days of tender care, of proving to Kate she didn't owe him anything. He'd waited for intensely enthusiastic consent before asking her to so much as touch him then.

A lifetime of being told she didn't deserve to be taken care of, followed by a bad one-night stand and a worse relationship had left her too shy to ask for what she wanted in the bedroom. Even before he'd known the details, he'd made it his personal mission in life to make her see that sex was for her, too, not only for the morons who wanted to get their dicks in her—and sex could be amazing, when it was done right. Patiently. Tenderly.

And now here he was, his mouth and chin and fingers wet with her, and patience was a thing of the past. He was so hard it hurt, his body singing for it. She'd come so hard that last time, with both her ass and her pussy clenching around him. He'd never so much as grazed her there before. It'd been more than enough work getting her comfortable with the attention he liked to lavish on her pussy, but it'd always been on his list of things he'd hoped she'd let him try.

Sure enough, she'd loved it. Watching and feeling and hearing her had been the hottest experience of his life, and he needed her
right the fuck now
, before his dick fell off or his brain ran out of blood.

Months. It'd been months since he'd had this, and part of him had thought he'd never get to have it again.

His skin itched and his jaw ticked as he searched her eyes. She gazed back at him, brow furrowed. His stomach dropped.

Shit, he really had pressed his luck. He should've known better than to ask for this so soon, but he was desperate, and she felt so good.

“I don't know.” She curled her fingers to stroke the tips of them against his wrist. “You did screw up pretty badly.” The words made his heart threaten to stop, but a subtle smile twisted her lips, one eyebrow lifting.

Wait, was she—was she
teasing
him?

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, desire threatening to overwhelm him. With the shift in position, his clothed cock brushed her thigh, and it sent lightning flooding his spine.

She dragged her foot up the back of his calf. “But not
too
badly, I suppose.”

Oh thank fuck.

He wanted her naked, wanted her spread out under him. Wanted to watch her face as she came on his cock, to savor it and memorize it and then fill her up. Make her his all over again, for real this time.

He wanted to keep her.

With a groan, he lifted back up onto hands and knees. The torture of not being pressed against her, of losing that friction where he was throbbing and leaking for her, was offset by the miles of creamy skin he revealed as he shoved her shirt up. She helped him pull it over her head and took it from him, tossing it aside as his fingers found her bra strap. He fumbled with the clasp in his eagerness, but then it gave, and he tore that, too, away.

Her bare breasts felt so right in his hands. He bent to lick at them and suck at them, nipping at one and then the other. Her hips shifted restlessly beneath him, knees coming up on either side of his waist as she pushed up into his mouth, egging him on.

Only there were too many things he wanted. Her body was a feast, and he was a starving man. He'd managed to keep it together while he'd had his mouth on her, but now that his own libido had been given a bit of rein he was spiraling out of control. He slid a hand down her side, skirting all those naked curves.

Someday, he'd have to get her to draw herself for him. A nude self-portrait, and he'd put it in his study, once he found a place for them to live. A big, beautiful place close to her school and the Bellamy offices, one with gorgeous light and a spot for her easel and her paints.

Shit. He was getting ahead of himself again. The touch of her hand against his chest grounded him, reminded him where they were right here, right now. Sneaking between their bodies, she gave a tug at the topmost button of his vest.

Where they were, right here, right now, was getting undressed.

Rising up on his knees, he tore the rest of the buttons loose, sending one pinging off the wall as its stitches gave beneath his overeager hands. He got it off and threw it aside. Wrinkles be damned, anything but getting all of him pressed skin on skin to all of her could fuck the hell off for now. His shirt and watch followed, and suddenly she was sitting up, one delicate, paint-stained hand sliding over the front of his slacks, lips level with his hips, and he just about lost his mind.

He reached down to grab her wrist—too hard. She flinched and darted her gaze up to his. Forcing himself to loosen his grip, he closed his eyes and held her there, soaked in the warmth of her through the fabric.

“Sorry,” he gritted out.

She wriggled her hand inside his hold, and it sent more spasms racing from his dick to his balls and all through him. “Is this all right?”

“More than.” Slowly, reluctantly, he let go. His pulse thrummed, his throat tight. “I've just wanted this for so long. Wanted you for so long.”

One of her brows quirked up. Her voice rose right along with it. “What a crime. You being so neglected like this.”

That was a smirk, flirting with her lips. Because he'd said those words, three hard-earned climaxes of hers ago, when she'd been on a hair trigger, flushed desire-hot and desperate for him.

He smiled, an aching, raw thing that had no place here. “Don't let it go to your head.”

“You know, I think I just might.” Unencumbered, she tucked her fingers into his belt buckle and gave it a questioning tug.

At his nod, she worked the leather through the metal. She left it dangling, unfastened at his hips as she undid the fasteners and dragged the fabric to his thighs, taking his boxers along for the ride. His cock, screaming for her hand, her mouth, anything, sprang free, and the sudden lack of constriction had his eyes rolling back in his head. As if from outside his own body, he watched as she trailed a single fingertip from the gleaming crown all the way to the base where she finally gripped him. Angled him toward her mouth.

“Kate. Fuck, don't tease me.”

But she did exactly that. Tilting her head to the side, she examined him, and there was a barely veiled wonder to her expression.

His chest expanded. “You see what you do to me?” His voice came out gruff, as rough as he felt inside.

“I thought it was only me.” She caught herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth, glancing up like she'd surprised herself, admitting that.

He reached out to cup her cheek, fingertips gentling her jaw, and he wouldn't push. But she was so close, her lips perfect and pink and full. She licked them, and another hot drop of fluid beaded at his tip.

“Will you?” he asked.

And who'd have known she had it in her? She was still the same girl he'd taught to touch herself in front of him, still easy to blush when he talked about her pretty cunt, but it was like seeing her superimposed on herself. A time-lapse image, and there were changes. There was this new hint of a sex kitten to her mouth, and it filled him with pride and terrified him at the same time. It was only barely dawning on her, but she knew better now the power she had. She'd taken his lessons to heart.

She was using them against him, and fuck, he couldn't wait to see where she would go with them.

Gaze fixed on him, she leaned in. Darted her tongue out and took a soft, glancing stripe of a lick, wet and warm and centered right along his slit.

“Kate…”

With one hand, she held him, and she took him just barely inside the heaven of her mouth. He bared his throat, letting his head fall back. Then with her other hand, she skated up his abdominals, fingers threading through the coarse hairs on his chest. Her palm came to rest above his heart, where the absence of his father's ring was still a presence he could feel in his bones.

She pressed right there, while with the same breath, she hollowed her cheeks and
sucked
.

It was like being turned inside out. She was touching his heart, newly freed, and taking him in, giving him this.

He let her go on for almost a minute before the pleasure started to gather. He grabbed her by the hair and had to remind himself to be careful. As he drew her off, she let him slip from between her lips with a wet sound that made him twitch harder.

“What do you want?” he asked, breathless.

Uncertainty flashed across her eyes. “What do
you
want?”

“To fuck you. Desperately.” He fought to fill his lungs. Wrapped a hand around hers at the base of his cock and gripped it tight just to contain himself. “But this isn't all about me. What. Do. You. Want.”

Her mouth half-open, she stared up at him, gaze trailing from his face to his aching cock and back.

She uncurled her hand from around him.

And then, as he watched, she turned around. He nearly swallowed his tongue as her hair slipped from between his slack fingers. He tried to look at anything except her ass, round and firm and lush. Dropping herself down onto all fours, she flicked her gaze over her shoulder at him.

“How about like this?”

It had been Kate's least favorite position, back with Aaron. She'd never come with him in any case, but at least in missionary there'd been a little pressure against her clit, a little relief.

Worse, it was more or less how things had gone that one awful night. She'd consented all right, but she'd been so drunk and lonely she hadn't fully realized what was happening until he'd dragged her hips up and shoved inside.

She'd always wished she'd had a chance to reclaim it while she'd been with Rylan. If anyone could've ever made her enjoy herself like that, it would've been him. Now they had this second chance, and who knew how many times they'd end up falling into bed with each other—if they'd even make it the seven nights he'd convinced her to give him. This wasn't going to be another thing she wished she'd gotten around to trying.

Best of all, letting him have her from behind—it made it so she wouldn't have to see his face.

They'd made love a whopping total of twice in Paris. That's how long it'd taken her to get over her fears and learn to trust him with her body. It was the only thing she
didn't
regret trusting him with, in retrospect. He'd made it so, so good for her—almost too good. The first time, she'd only just realized she'd been enough of an idiot to fall in love with him. The intimacy of the act had rocked her to her bones, taking her feelings and magnifying them a hundredfold. She'd stared into his eyes as he'd pressed inside, and her heart had ached with how beautiful he was, how safe he made her feel.

Already, he was lulling her down another path to heartbreak, but she wasn't going along so easily this time. She could protect herself and her sanity. She could find a way to keep him from looking too deep.

Anyway. It wasn't as if the man was looking at her
face
right now.

She cleared her throat and worried the fabric of the sheets between her fingertips. His gaze darted from her bottom to her eyes, and he shook his head until his expression looked a little less glazed. But then his forehead scrunched up.

“Just so we're clear here.” He set a hand on her hip and stroked his thumb across her skin. “You're not suggesting I fuck you in the ass right now.”

Her head jerked up. He thought— She didn't— “Wait. What?”

Letting go, he raised his hands in front of himself. “Just checking.” He smirked, the lines across his forehead going roguish instead of confused. “You did seem to like it an awful lot.”

Her cheeks burned, and she dropped her face into the mattress. Of course. He did…
that
to her, and then she gets down on all fours in front of him. What else did she expect him to think? She turned her head to the side with a groan. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Warm lips pressed to her spine, and then lower, tracing the curve of her rear. His voice deepened as he kissed a line toward her hip. “I love seeing you like this.”

“‘Like this' as in accidentally implying I wanted anal?”

“Oh, you do want it. I promise.” He palmed her ass, and God, there was his thumb again, pressing right against the center. It felt as weird and as illicit as it had before—maybe more so, without the added stimulation of his mouth on her. “Someday, I'll have you begging for it.” Rubbing more firmly, he dragged his lips up her side, kissing each and every rib. By the time the tip of his thumb teased inside, he was speaking right beside her ear. It sent a tremor down her spine as that same teasing fullness blanked her mind. “I can imagine it. Get you all naked and rub you down maybe. Eat you out for a while but keep you right on the edge until you make that little noise you do.” A breathy sigh passed through her lips as he scraped his teeth across her lobe. He chuckled, dark and sexy. “That's the one. The one that means you're too turned on to really think. Then I'll open you up.” He pushed a little deeper, and she closed her eyes against the hint of a burn. “Get you all wet and easy inside. Oh, Kate.” He swallowed, the sound loud. “If you think you like a hint of thumb, you're going to love it when I fuck you here.”

A warm, molten clench fired off inside her.

Jesus, how was this possible? Her body was showing these token signs of protest, her sex feeling tender and sore, but that throb was there, made deeper with every word he spoke. Every glancing brush of his chest against her spine, the scratch of his pants—oh, hell, he still hadn't finished taking his pants off—against her thigh. She shivered, her clit pulsing as he played with her rim, making one last circle around it before withdrawing, leaving her suddenly bereft. Empty.

And then, of all things, he had the audacity to kiss her cheek.