The Prince (35 page)

“You’re so quiet,” she whispered as she arched beneath him. He loved the way she moved when he slowed down his thrusts. She’d stretch out like a cat in the sun and sigh luxuriously. “Something wrong?”

Wesley kissed her cheek, her neck, her mouth.

“I’m inside you. There’s nothing wrong. Anywhere. Ever.”

Nora laughed and he gasped a little as her inner muscles tightened around him. He’d never known that…never known the vagina tightened when a woman laughed. What else didn’t he know about Nora? If he had to he’d spend the rest of his life discovering the secrets of her body. He’d spend the rest of his life discovering the secrets of her body even if he didn’t have to.

“Nothing wrong anywhere? Spoken like a man getting laid.” Another thing about Nora during sex…her voice dropped about an octave and everything she said came out all husky and breathy. He’d never heard anything quite like it. He felt her words as much as heard them. They rubbed against his skin like velvet.

Wesley dipped his head and kissed her shoulder, moved lower and sucked on her right nipple. Slowly he moved his mouth from her breast to her chest. She loved having her chest kissed; she said the thin skin there made every touch tickle.

“I’m not getting laid. That’s not what this is.” He closed his eyes as a wave of pleasure passed through him from knee to neck. Having sex made him aware of his own body like never before. He’d never known that the slightest shift of his hips could take him from comfortable enjoyment to the very edge of orgasm in seconds. Before his first time with Nora, his arms had existed merely to hold things and move things. Now the muscles in his arms were there to hold him up and over Nora, keeping his full weight off her so she could writhe beneath him. He’d never given his shoulders much thought until Nora had bitten them, never considered his back until she’d scratched it during a particularly heated kiss, never given a moment’s notice to his rib cage until Nora had lain across his chest after sex and ran her fingers over every line of it.

“Then what is it, Wes?” She looked up at him as he pushed deeper into her. “Are you making love to me?”

He buried his face in her hair and whispered a “yes” in her ear. “Only because I love you.”

She whimpered in the back of her throat, and Wesley immediately stopped moving.

“Did I hurt you?” He still hadn’t gotten quite used to how intense sex could be. Sometimes he’d push too deep and Nora would flinch or gasp. She never complained, never told him to stop, but he always panicked at the very thought of hurting her in bed.

“No.” She raised her hand and caressed the side of his face. “Not in the bad way, anyway.”

Wesley smiled as he slowly relaxed down on top of her. Sometimes he’d let his full weight rest on her body. She seemed to like it, although he couldn’t imagine why.

“I should have been doing this for years,” he said into her ear. “Or at least doing it since the first time you offered.”

“Back in the pool?” she asked, pressing her hips up into his. The first time they’d had sex tonight had been quick and hard. Now, with one orgasm out of the way, he could move slowly and leisurely in her. At the moment he felt he could last all night. But if she kept doing that thing with her hips, he’d come whether he wanted to or not.

“Back then. Maybe not in the pool. But right after getting out of the pool.”

Wesley remembered that night near the end of his first semester at Yorke. Nora had called him out of the blue and practically dared him to meet her at the natatorium. He’d gone alone and found his creative-writing teacher in her racerback swimsuit standing on a starting block. A few days before that he’d complained to her that his only gripe about Yorke was their lack of a swim team. He had a killer freestyle that was going to waste, and Nora mentioned she’d been on her swim team at New York University. So she’d surprised him by challenging him to a race. He’d won, of course. Male versus female. Age eighteen versus age thirty-two. Six feet tall versus five-three. Of course he’d won. But just barely. He couldn’t believe how close behind him she’d stayed. That night in the pool he’d seen as much muscle on her petite body as he’d seen curves. He’d mentioned his surprise at the tautness of her arms and shoulders, and she’d said that she had to be tough to beat up on all her little bad boys and girls. He’d thought it was a joke. And then she’d asked if he wanted to have sex with her. But that, he knew, hadn’t been a joke.

“Why did you tell me no back then?” she asked as she pressed her breasts into his chest and lightly scratched his back from hip to shoulder.

“You could have gotten any guy on the planet.” Wesley kissed her forehead as he pulled out of her until only the tip remained, before sliding all the way back in again. “I mean, you’re Nora Sutherlin…and you write those wild books and you’re so beautiful and sexy. I just didn’t want to be another guy to do. Another, I don’t know…”

“Notch on the bedpost?”

He nodded. “Something like that.”

“You would never have been a conquest to me. I adored you, Wes. Even then.”

“So it wasn’t just about sex?”

Nora shook her head. “I wanted to be with someone like you, someone sweet and gentle…maybe just out of curiosity, since I’d never had that before. But it wouldn’t have been just about the sex. You were never about the sex. Except now. Right now is just about the sex.”

Wesley got the hint and began moving harder and faster inside her. He loved the wetness of her, the warmth that surrounded him. She felt like flower petals on the inside…so soft, but slightly textured. Next, he might simply lie between her open legs and explore her with his fingers for an hour or twelve. He wanted the rest of his life to get to know her body, but with Nora…who knew? He might have only tonight.

He grabbed her legs and moved them over his thighs. He loved her so open like this, so spread out and relaxed underneath him. He dipped his head and wrapped his lips around a nipple, sucking gently as she moaned and dug her fingers into his shoulders.

“Nora…” he panted, and she kissed his cheek.

“It’s okay. Don’t wait for me.”

He nodded as he buried his head against her chest and came, after another thrust. He pulled out and felt the rush of wetness as his semen poured from her onto the sheets.

“I’m sorry,” he said, laughing as he lay on his side. “I’m new at this.”

“Sex is a skill, Wes. You’re just starting to learn how to do it. Don’t feel bad.”

He rubbed his face as Nora rolled onto her side.

“It’s just…” He paused for courage. The whole thing was so embarrassing. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask me anything. You know I have no shame.”

“You also have no orgasms. At least…not with me, right? You haven’t yet?”

Nora winced. “I’d kind of hoped you hadn’t noticed that.”

“You thought I wouldn’t notice that in the ten times we’ve had sex, I’ve come ten times and you’ve come…zero?”

“A lot of men don’t notice those sorts of things.”

Wesley sat up and looked down on her. So beautiful, his Nora. After sex, with her hair all wild and her skin flushed and her eyes glowing, she looked more lovely than she would in a five-thousand-dollar dress with ten layers of makeup on.

“I did notice. What am I doing wrong?”

Nora sat up and scooted back against the headboard. Tucking the sheets up to her neck, she tamed her hair and gave him a smile so kind and so pitying that he almost hated her for it.

“Wes, haven’t we discussed how you shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to?”

“But I want to know. For your sake.”

“You’re barely twenty. And you were a virgin until a couple days ago. You have no idea what you’re doing in bed. You don’t know how to touch me, don’t know how to fuck me. You’re so terrified to hurt me that I barely feel anything. You get me very revved up and then…nothing. Which is fine. I’m certainly adept at giving myself orgasms.”

Wesley felt himself shrinking with each sentence. “You mean, you give them to yourself? When?”

Nora shrugged. “After you fall asleep.”

“You do that when I’m asleep? Why?”

“Don’t want to get blue balls, right? Or blue…uterus, if that’s a thing.”

“But…I want to do that for you.”

Nora exhaled through her lips, blowing out the air like the horses did. It got a laugh out of him. A very small laugh.

“I want that, too. I can show you some things that’ll work. You put one finger inside me. I need three. I need my clitoris touched, a lot and for a long period of time, if you want to get me off. Harder thrusting is good. Different positions. I can’t get much clitoral stimulation in missionary position.”

“I think I should write all this down. Anything else? What works for you?”

“Oral helps. Going down on me.”

“I love doing that, but you know…if I’ve already come in you it’s…” Wesley winced.

“You don’t like tasting your own semen?” Nora batted her eyelashes at him.

“No. Does any guy?”

“Do you want the list in alphabetical order by first name or last name?”

Wesley scrubbed his hands through his hair in amused frustration.

“I am so bad at this. Do I want to know what else works for you or should I quit while I’m behind?”

“Kink works.”

He glared at her.

“You asked, Wes. You can skip a lot of foreplay with me if there’s good kink going on. That works better than anything. Not saying we have to do it. Not now, not ever. You asked what works for me. That’s the answer.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what—”

“Just come here and pay attention. I’ll show you where the clit is. It’s lesson three. Or C, more accurately.”

Wesley rolled his eyes but did as he was told. He hated that he didn’t know how to make Nora feel as good as she made him feel.

He spooned up next to her and Nora threw her leg over his hip. Taking his right hand in hers, she guided it between her legs.

“The clit is like the eye,” she began.

“That’s the grossest analogy I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“That’s not what I mean, twerp.” She gave him a quick kiss. “I mean, you don’t touch the eye directly. If you need to touch it, you touch the eyelid. So you don’t touch the clit directly. You touch around it and over the clit hood. It’s very easy to find on me, as I have a shiny piece of metal in it.”

“How handy. Literally.”

“Exactly.”

Nora pressed two of his fingers around her piercing and started to move his hand in gentle circles.

“Right there is a lovely place to hang out and linger for a while.”

“I’m definitely not complaining,” Wesley said, feeling something starting to swell under his fingertips. “I could live here.”

“You might have to. I don’t orgasm super easily. Takes a bit of doing.”

“Did it take a long time for Søren to figure out how to…you know…make you come?”

Nora turned her face up to the ceiling.

“Why do you ask?” Her response was casual, annoyingly casual.

“I don’t know. He was—
is
—a priest. You told me that before you and him…well, you said he hadn’t had sex in a long time.”

“He hadn’t. He beat people—consensually—but no sex. He was celibate from age eighteen to thirty-four.”

“I guess he was as bad at this as I am, right?”

Nora didn’t say anything. Her silence said it all.

“Damn,” Wesley breathed. “Didn’t think I could hate that guy any more than I already do.”

“Wes, you don’t want me to talk about this.”

“No, I do. Tell me. He was celibate for sixteen years and he could make you orgasm? Even at the beginning?”

Nora nodded slowly. “Even then. The first time. The first night together…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes turned black, and he knew he’d lost her to Søren again.

“I haven’t made you come once in ten times. How many times did he the first night?” Wesley pulled his hand away from her, suddenly not wanting to touch her, not with Søren between them.

“I don’t remember.”

“Nora, don’t lie to me, please. You have the best memory of anybody I know. Just tell me.”

“You sure you’re not a masochist, kid? I told you, I don’t remember how many.” Nora sat up again and grabbed her shirt and panties off the floor.

“That’s not true and you know it. You—”

“It is true. I don’t remember how many orgasms Søren gave me the first night he fucked me. I don’t remember because after the fourth orgasm, I lost count.”

I lost count.

Three little words that hit him harder than a riding crop on the flank of a racehorse.

“That’s why I don’t remember,” Nora continued, yanking her clothes on. “And that’s why you should finally learn not to ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

Nora left the bedroom, and Wesley threw on his jeans and followed her. Damn, the girl could walk fast when she was in a mood. She’d already disappeared from the hallway. Wesley checked the guest bedrooms. No Nora. The bathroom door was open. No Nora there, either. She tended to be an emotional eater. Kitchen. Of course.

In the guesthouse kitchen, he found Nora sitting on the edge of the table in front of the stone fireplace. Without a word he came to her, threw a couple logs in the fire and set them alight.

“Wes, it’s August.”

“It’s cold in here and you don’t have much on.”

Nora laughed tiredly and shook her head. “Goddammit, Wes Railey, will you stop being sweet to me for just one second?”

Wesley stood in front of her and she rested the top of her head on his chest.

“Nope.”

She pulled back and looked up at him.

“This is a good look for you, by the way. Shirtless and wearing only jeans? You’ll pull it off better than any man on the planet.”

“Finally, I’ve got something up on Søren.”

Slowly, Nora ran her hands up and down Wesley’s chest and sides. He shivered, but not from the cool night air.

“You remember that night in the kitchen at our house? That day you got so mad at me for flirting with Zach?”

“That was not flirting. That was seducing. Which I know you’re really good at. I just never had to watch it in our own house before.”