Quiet Nights (8 page)

“Fuck.”

He gave me a smile that said I was dumb and dear at the exact same time.

“Man, Britton Lassiter must think I’m a psycho,” I muttered, pulling away from him to walk around the couch and flop down on it. “Not to mention you.”

He chuckled as he followed, and I watched as he took a seat beside me, loosened his boots, one after the other so he could toe them off, and then finally stretched out on the other end of my couch, pushing at me with his socked feet until I had to stand up.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, my mouth dry, looking at him rumpled and comfortable sprawled below me.

“Take off the jacket and the vest and the shirt,” he ordered gently.

I followed directions quickly, and he watched intently until I was naked from the waist up, shoes also off, hovering over him

“Now lie down here,” he finished, patting his chest so I’d know where he wanted me.

I crawled over him and he didn’t move, letting me settle, drape my body over his, press him down under me. My head over his heart, I heard how fast it was beating, like a drum, even though his voice flowed like syrup on a warm day.

“So I need you to forgive Britton, since he was actually innocent of being a dreambreaker,” he mused, nuzzling his face against my hair, lifting his knee, wedging his thigh between mine as he grabbed a handful of my ass to bring me even tighter against him. “Douche bag, yes. But he was not Prince Charming in the flesh.”

“Why’re you caring about Britton?”

“Because I don’t want anything or anyone between us,” he explained as he tilted my head up so I could see him. “I want to be the only one in your head and in your heart and… just… you know.”

“In me?” I teased.

His glower was hot. “I’m trying to have a fuckin’ moment here and—”

“Shut up,” I said affectionately, smiling as I stared at him, memorizing every line on his face, the clench of his sharp, square jaw and the mostly blown pupils. “I may have been mulling over the past, but I’ve been securely standing here, in the present with you, for a very long fuckin’ time.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, jolting under me as I sat up, dragging my ass over his groin before I straddled his hips.

“That means there’s only been room for you for years.”

“Yeah?”

“I promise,” I said as I leaned over and kissed him, feeling lighter, freer, and more than anything, full of voracious, consuming need.

More than anyone else, I wanted Cosimo Renaldi. Britton amounted to a childhood crush in comparison. To have Coz under me, wanting me, already my best friend and poised now to become my lover, nearly overloaded me with happiness. It had to be what winning the lottery was like, except it was a win for my whole life, every part.

I kissed him hard and deep, wanting all of him, feasting, claiming, and biting when he tried to pull away even for a heartbeat.

“Fuck, I knew you’d taste good,” he gasped, rolling me to my back, powering me down, letting me feel the strength in his long, muscular body before he took control and delivered one ravaging, drowning kiss after another.

I lost time because the end of wanting, of yearning, was buried down so far that excavating it, dredging it from the well of my heart made everything else fade to nothing. There was only his hot, hungry mouth and his hand tugging at my belt, working open the fastener on my suit pants and sliding down the zipper. When he slipped his hard, callused hand under the elastic of my briefs and wrapped his long fingers around my length, I bucked into his grip, wanting more.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he husked, stroking me as he kissed up my throat to my jaw and up behind my ear. “Your gold skin and your big beautiful eyes that I hate to say are green ’cause that’s not enough when I tell people, and your mouth and your perfect round ass.”

Oh dear God, he thought I was pretty?

“I can’t stand how everyone stares at you and wants to touch you because I want that to be just me. I wanna be the only one.”

“Yes,” I whined in the back of my throat. “Just you.”

“Where’s your lube?” he whispered into my ear.

I muttered the answer about the nightstand, and he unceremoniously dumped me on my side as he rolled off the couch.

“You—”

“Get up,” he rumbled, grabbing hold of my hand and pulling me to my feet.

He dragged me behind him to my bedroom and shoved me down onto the mattress, my feet on the floor, as he went to the nightstand.

“What do you want me to—Coz!”

I wanted to know what he liked, if he wanted me to blow him first or if he just wanted to fuck me, but he’d grabbed the lube and returned faster than I was expecting. He dropped to his knees, shucked my unfastened pants enough to let my cock bob free, and then took my hard, leaking shaft down the back of his throat.

The movement was seamless, fluid, and the suction brought a hoarse cry from my chest, his name torn out of me.

“Fuck,” I yelled, writhing under him, hearing the cap of the tube snap open and shivering with anticipation.

“We can wait,” he said, his voice deep and ragged after he let my cock slip free of his mouth. “I can make you come just like this or you can fuck me. I don’t care. I just wanna touch you.”

In answer, I rolled to my stomach and arched my back, showing him what I wanted, needed to have.

His hand trailed down my back before his lips followed, all the way to my ass. He pushed my face down onto the bed before his fingers were at my entrance, spreading me for his tongue.

“Oh fuck,” I moaned loudly, my voice decadent, filled with longing. No one had ever taken such time with me. I’d never been rimmed in my life, never experienced the soft, wet muscle sliding into my hole, swirling, pressing, the languorous licking that made me want more.

He sucked and laved and ordered me to grab my dick and pull. My words were gone, only sounds remained. When he replaced his tongue with first one lubed finger and then a second one, I began babbling, pleading, needing him before I came, the edge of my vision going white with the throb of my imminent orgasm.

I felt him at my entrance a moment before he pressed inside. The wide head stretching me caused a twinge of pain that quickly became an engulfing burn that sucked and leeched the pleasure from my body, leaving me trembling as I struggled to accept his girth, huge enough that it could rip me apart if we weren’t careful.

“Wait.” He gentled me as his slick hand wrapped around my cock, squeezing tight, sliding from balls to head, over and over as he kissed my shoulder and up the side of my neck.

The roll of arousal became a thrumming in my chest, spreading warmth through my body, making me shiver in his embrace, my balls drawing up tight as he pulled out an inch or so before thrusting back inside.

A second retreat, and he slid deeper into me on the return, the angle dragging him over my prostate, and I actually saw stars.

“Do it again!” I demanded, pushing back, wanting him
in
, not out, desire driving my body and nothing else.

He eased back and drove forward, hard, fast, and I gasped with how full I was, how stretched, how used.

“Please,” I begged.

“I want to be in you, all the time, forever—do you understand?”

I did. “I do.”

“There’s only ever been me,” he reminded, “and that’s how it’ll stay.”

“Yes,” I heaved out the words. “I swear.”

“Do you want me?”

“Oh God, yes.”

His rhythm faltered then, the pounding I was taking got wild and erratic as he hammered into me, over and over, and I became only about my aching, desperate newfound joy.

“Coz!” I thundered his name in the small room, and he bit my shoulder, laughing, the sound rushing through me as my muscles clamped down on him and I came onto the comforter, engulfed in a splintering orgasm.

He bucked into me, burying himself to the balls, his entire front plastered to my back as he pumped hot into me, grunting as he gave me his weight.

I lay there under him, pinned to the bed, semen seeping from my ass, sticky with sweat, and prayed he’d never ask me to move.

“Are you all right?”

Quick nod to his question.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I answered, my throat raw from yelling.

“Would you ever want to do it again?”

“Oh fuck yeah.”

His exhale was sharp. “Thank God, because I’m gonna be honest and say that you have the hottest, tightest ass I’ve ever been in, and I think I wanna live there.”

Pride filled me, which was ridiculous. He was complimenting a body part.

“But it could also be,” he said, turning my head so he could kiss me, “that you trusted me to be inside you, and I want that more than anything.”

“I trust you,” I told him. “And I want to suck your dick and be inside of you and kiss you… please… for the rest of my life. Stay with me, Coz, live with me, belong to me.”

He slid gently from my ass before rolling me to my side so we were face-to-face.

“Will you stay?” I said shyly, hopefully.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “You could have anybody you wanted.”

“I want
you
, Coz,” I entreated, wriggling closer, smoothing my thumb over one of his thick, dark eyebrows. “Only you. Please say yes.”

“Well, yeah, I’m gonna say yes, ’cause I want you so bad,” he conceded, leaning close, sealing his lips over mine.

There was a promise in that kiss, and because I’d never had one like that before, I felt the difference, and when he eased back, I gave him one of my own.

“I love you, Kel,” he murmured between kisses.

I’d loved him for so long, it was natural to say so. “I love you too, more than you know.”

“No, baby, I know. I swear I know.”

And I got the feeling he actually did.

I
FELT
heat on my face and slowly opened my eyes. Rolling my head sideways, I released an involuntary sigh upon finding Coz there beside me, eyes closed, long lashes resting on his cheeks, chiseled lips parted, still kiss-swollen from the night before. Lifting myself on my elbows, I admired his toned, cut frame, the contrast between my white sheets and his bronze skin, and the dark hair on my pillow. I wanted him badly, and it was my first thought even as I squinted at the morning sun streaming into my bedroom. I had not remembered to draw the curtains, which were now lifting and billowing like sails in the breeze. As I focused my vision, I realized I was not the only one admiring the prone man in my bed; my neighbors were also quite interested. Mrs. Sorrel was on her back porch with a pair of binoculars, probably checking out my boyfriend’s gorgeous naked backside. I immediately covered him up with the sheet, and I was certain I heard her swear.

Sitting all the way up and looking to the window on the other side of the room, I saw Greg and Candi out on their deck with cups of coffee. God, I really needed to plant a hedge.

“Nice goin’, bagging the police officer!” Greg called over.

I groaned and fell back down beside Coz.

“What’re you doing?” he grumbled, because I’d jostled him.

It was an excellent question: what precisely was I doing? Did I have any idea what was going on with me and Cosimo Renaldi?

“Are you breathing, baby?”

What if we didn’t work out? What if he figured out that I was messed up, more so than he already knew about? I could make a million mistakes to drive him away from me and—

“Stop,” he yawned before I caught an elbow in the ribs. “I can hear your brain working.”

I was going to start hyperventilating, and he thought it was time for jokes?

“We’re good,” he said with a sleepy smile.

“How do you know?” I asked, getting worked up and scared, having tiny heart palpitations just looking at him.

God…. Coz in my bed….

“What?” he grunted.

His eyes were soft and warm as he stared at me, the stubble on his cheeks was sexy, his tousled hair, languid sprawl—all of him just breathtaking.

“I have dragon breath or something? What’s wrong with you?”

“You’re in my bed,” I marveled.

“Yeah? So?”

“So?” I repeated. “It’s a really big deal, Coz.”

“It’s just the first of always,” he assured me. “After more days and nights, they’ll all start blending together.”

“I just—I don’t wanna do anything to—”

“Knock it off,” he ordered, shoving me over onto my stomach and pinning me under him. “Have a little faith in me.”

“In you? Are you kidding? I have all the faith in the world in you.”

“Well, see, there ya go.” His voice became a seductive chuckle. “I feel the same about you.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “You do?”

“Yes, baby,” he said, sliding off me, only his hand remaining to cup my ass.

“Close the curtains, will you?”

“Why would I wanna do that?”

“So you can have me again before breakfast,” I said, arching an eyebrow for his benefit. “Unless, of course, you want everyone to see.”

He rolled quickly out of bed, much to the disappointment of Mrs. Sorrel, who didn’t get her binoculars back up in time, and to Greg and Candi’s glee—they had a few extra seconds for an eyeful before he had us cut off from the outside world.

A
FTER
I
showered, I made coffee and had started breakfast when I heard a knock on the front door. I answered in sleep shorts with a dishtowel over my shoulder and a mug of French roast in my hand because I figured it was one of my neighbors come to leer at my very hot new boyfriend/old best friend.

“Good morning.”

I was stunned to find Britton Lassiter on my porch.

“May I speak to you, please?”

Opening the door wide, I stepped sideways so he’d have room to come in.

“Thank you,” he said when I closed the door behind him.

It took me a second to remember my manners. “Oh, would you like some coffee?”

“No,” he said quickly, glancing around. “What a beautiful home you have—the very definition of a seaside cottage.”

He sounded stilted to me, overly rehearsed. “Thanks.”

“I wish my place caught this much breeze.”