Test Shot (19 page)

“Think I will.” She moved in and out, hard and fast. Just the actors’ desire got her hot, but when combined with Sawyer’s earlier foreplay and her anticipation, she knew this wouldn’t take long. She figured he’d let her get herself off, since it cut down on the effort for him. But when she began to pant, he grabbed her wrist.

“Nope. No easy outs for you tonight. Give me those fingers.” He’d dropped his hands from her face, though she didn’t care much about Drew’s oral talents when she could watch Sawyer suck on her fingers. He smiled around them, eyes dark with arousal. “I think I need to erase Drew from your mind.”

“Drew who?”

He laughed and banded his arms around her waist, hauling her back on to the mattress. With one hard shove, her legs were in the air and his mouth was on her, each pull of his lips and tongue stronger than the last. She slipped her hands into his downy-soft hair, threading her fingers through it as she arched into his strokes. He didn’t miss a spot. Every inch of her flesh was fully explored. Licked. Nipped. Then when she shivered and bowed off the bed, razed with sharp hints of teeth that only prodded her desire higher.

A cry rang out on the TV, and she blinked, stunned to realize Drew was still engaging in his own eating contest onscreen. Sawyer glanced up, his mouth and chin wet with her, and held out his hand. It took her a moment to get what he wanted before she grinned and handed him the remote.

Without looking over his shoulder, he aimed and pressed the power button. Her grin turned into a full-blown laugh when the screen went black, and he tossed the remote aside.

“Now where was I? Ah yes,” he said, flattening his tongue against her closed lower lips while he smiled up at her. “Right here.”

He drew his fingers over her belly, setting off a riot of sparks that settled in her clit. Then he went to work, his gaze on hers while he created magic one lick at a time.

Caught in his stare, in the sensations he was nurturing inside her, she fisted her hands beside her hips. She was afraid to touch him right now. Afraid to add one more link in the chain that bound them together so tightly already. That moment of playfulness had come and gone, and now his eyes were hot and blue, the beacon in her own personal storm, and if she grabbed hold of his hair, she would cling. And plead.

“Do you want me to stop?”

His quiet question made her lips tremble open. “Why?”

“Because you’re not touching me.” As if to illustrate the difference, he drew his long-fingered palms up her thighs. “You were before.”

She flicked her fingers through his hair, hating that her hand shook. He closed his eyes and turned into her caress. She rubbed against him, craving the sweet burn of his mouth while he pressed his cheek into her palm. This was a different kind of tactile bond than they’d had before, but no less powerful.

“I could get addicted to touching you,” she whispered.

It took him a lifetime to reply. “Ditto.”

His lips claimed her again, harder now. His gentleness was gone, leaving only urgency. His, hers. She could resist all she wanted. She could keep her twitching fingers still in his hair, could swallow her moans. But he would seize what he wanted and she wouldn’t deny him. Not because she was scared to refuse, but because she ached to offer herself in every way he would take her.

The orgasm shimmered at the edges of her consciousness, a heartbeat away. Unless she was very mistaken, this wasn’t the ripple-in-the-pond type either. Her left ankle was going numb from its awkward angle against the mattress. She didn’t move. Her whole being centered on that instant. Everything inside her burning, fusing, tightening in preparation for that final knot to be untied.

Then he moved away.

His eyes were so dark, darker than she’d ever seen them. Charged like the summer sky before a storm. He shoved off his jeans and boxers and straddled her stomach, his notable erection arcing above her breasts. This close, she could smell the tang of his desire. She started to reach for him, but he grabbed her wrists and held them next to her on the pillows, surprising her so fully she stilled.

“You may not be a submissive,” he said, voice husky, “but you like being dominated.”

She met his gaze steadily, her nerves on overload. The ceiling fan circulated cool drafts of air over her inferno-hot pussy, only teasing her more. Her climax had been right there and now he was on top of her, his weight pressing her into the mattress.

God, that turned her on, to have a man holding her down.
This
man.

His cock swiped over her mouth as he loomed closer, surrounding her with his body and his needs. Confronting her with them.

But even now, it was a choice. His domination wasn’t anything like Aidan’s. It was an opportunity, a path out of many they could take. Aidan’s was a commandment, one she’d never considered saying no to.

“Layla?” Sawyer asked, already starting to back off. If she wasn’t comfortable, he would never push. And that was exactly why everything inside her unfurled toward him, spreading out for him to take as he would.

Instead of shrinking away, she opened her mouth and invited him inside.

SAWYER RELEASED A breath at the arousal flushing her cheeks as she eyed his erection. A moment ago, it had seemed like a good idea to press his advantage. To see if she would let him. Now he was the one locked down. She’d ensnared him with one hot look and his own longing.

Her hunger was stamped on her features, and he heard it in the little gasp she let out when he fed her his cock. He’d released one of her hands, but it didn’t seem to matter. She left her wrist up next to her head as if an invisible clamp fastened her to the spot. Her other hand jerked against his and she opened wider, encouraging him to slide in farther. Lifting her head so that her long, pale throat gleamed while her dark pink lips swallowed each inch of his straining flesh.

Her teeth flashed before they scissored over his length, a jagged pain he welcomed. It was a tether in the middle of the boiling sea she’d drag him into if he wasn’t careful.

Careful.

It was too late for that. For him, at least.

She wrapped her lips around him. Maybe it was the angle or maybe he was seeing something he wanted to, but this wasn’t like when she’d been with Aidan the other night. She’d opened up and let him have his way with her, and she’d fought to control him from her end. Nor was it like when they’d feasted on each other while Aidan watched. This was less…artful. Clumsy. Desperate even.

When he bumped the back of her throat, she made a choked sound, her eyes flying open. He immediately tried to pull back, not that she let him. She sucked harder, throat muscles vibrating, and his balls lurched up tight. Pressure pulsed in the tip despite the fingers he’d clamped at the base. Old-fashioned cock rings wouldn’t help tonight.

“Jesus,” he gasped, flailing for the control she snatched from him so goddamn easily.

He wasn’t going to come like this. Not so soon. He needed inside her, down deep, where only the two of them existed.

As if she sensed his thoughts, she drew more forcefully, driving her head back into the pillows so that he had no choice but to thrust. The supplicant pose called to him in a way his insistent dick seemed to respond to without his help. He arched his hips, and she took more of him, making such delicious wet noises he would’ve growled at the sound alone.

And the feeling…indescribable. So deliciously dirty. He was damp with sweat, his knuckles white where they pinned her hand beneath his. He bent over her, helpless against the urge to piston into her throat. To see how much she could take.

His muscles bunched, and his balls throbbed. Christ, he couldn’t stop shaking. If she pulled on him any harder, he’d lose it.

“Layla,” he managed. “Baby, please.”

She eased back, and his gleaming length emerged just enough for her to press a surprisingly chaste kiss on the head. His hips heaved forward of their own volition. God, the sensation of her soft, swollen flesh brushing his, that melting expression in her eyes—he was a goner. He couldn’t stop the climax that spun through him, any more than he could turn away from the sight of his release pumping into her mouth. Splashing her tongue, dripping onto her chin. Greedily, she licked it up while she covered his hand with hers and massaged out every drop.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes tight, deathly afraid he’d keep coming if he didn’t block out the sight of her drinking him down. He’d die right here, in the bed of another man with his stupidity leaking all over his thighs.

When he couldn’t bear any more of her gentle kisses, he rolled away from her and threw his arm over his face. His throat felt scraped raw. His ribs ached like they’d been crushed by a semi. And his happily abused cock was already making its first feeble attempts to rouse.

Don’t you have any self-control?

No, absolutely not. He had no self-control at all around her. She was his Achilles heel, his salvation.

She’s Aidan’s.

Before the misery could descend, she brushed her lips over his chest. “Are you okay?”

She sounded so hesitant. As if she actually thought he might reject her. Somebody was going to get rejected, there was no doubt of that. But it damn well wouldn’t be her.

He dragged his arm away and cupped her cheek. “I’m sor—”

Shaking her head, she laid her finger over his lips, her own curving. “If you apologize for coming, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions, Sawyer Blake.”

“I used to be able to hold back. Suddenly I just…can’t.”

“And you expect me to be upset? Are you kidding me? I could pirouette around this room, and trust me, I’m
so
not a dancer.” She grinned. “You make me feel like I’m a goddess. That you want me so much I make you crazy.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“About sums it up.” He smoothed her hair over her shoulder. The red and gold glimmered, as delicately pretty as the woman herself. “You scare the hell out of me, Layla Palmer.”

Her smile faded. “Why?”

“You know why.”

He expected her to argue or dismiss. What he’d been doing since the first time he’d heard her voice on the phone while he stared out at the lights of Manhattan in the distance. Lights twinkling in the darkness had always made him lonely. He’d been so used to seeing nothing but darkness beyond his home in rural Nebraska. But that night, with Layla’s voice in his ear, those lights had looked like hope. Small, bright signals that he couldn’t give up yet.

She took a shaky breath. “I never believed in love at first sight.”

His stomach clenched, but he didn’t look away. “No?”

“Do you?”

“I didn’t,” he said, unable to elaborate.

“I fell in love with Aidan in one night,” she murmured, and the tightness inside him eased. Even his cock went limp. That name was a surefire erection deflator.

“Did you?” Though he didn’t care in the slightest, manners made him ask. That and the same sick curiosity that drove gawkers to seek out car wrecks.

“Yeah. We met at the paint store. Again, it was that feeling of instant knowing. Instant connection. Like we’d been together before and were just resuming after a really long break.”

No reply came to mind, but even if it had, he doubted his voice would hold. He wasn’t some slick, unaffected New York nude model. Right now his Nebraska was showing, and it took everything he had to keep it inside.

Her sudden intake of breath reminded him of what she’d said.
Again
. She felt it too, this bond between them. Maybe not as strongly. But there was something in her that responded to him, beyond all the ways a woman responded to a man.

“I trusted the feeling.” She lifted her gaze to his. “My friends and family warned me to take it slow. But I knew.”

He cleared his throat. No need for explanations there. “Yeah.”

“I just didn’t think I’d know again.”

Swallowing hard, he stroked his thumb over her cheek. He knew he should say something. Offer pithy words that would tie this moment up in a bow.
It’ll be okay. It’s lust. It’ll fade
. But he didn’t want it to fade. He didn’t want to forget this feeling, ever. He’d waited so long. Now there was Layla, and he was going to get his heart broken.

And he just didn’t fucking care.

He leaned up to meet her mouth and drew her into his arms. Where she belonged. They rolled across the bed, a tangle of limbs. Everything wrapped together. So tight.

She framed his face in her hands, eased him back. Her heart was in her eyes. Exposed for him to see, to feel beating in own chest with every breath he dragged into his throat.

They kissed for what felt like hours, tangled in hot sheets. For the longest time, he learned her mouth, and the sensitive spot behind her ears, and the place where her pulse thudded in her throat. She never stopped moving against him, as if she couldn’t bear to stay still. But he fought to be patient, to enjoy the moment without thinking about the next. She might as well have been his first girlfriend, and this might have been his inaugural attempt at pleasing a woman. It felt as if everything had been building to this point, and he couldn’t screw it up. Because he might not get another chance.

This was more than he’d expected, and likely all he could have. It would have to be enough.

“I want to tie you up again. To the headboard.” He spoke the words against her lips. The shudder that moved through her reverberated through him, as well. “And I want the rest of you.”

Holding his gaze, she reached up to grab the metal bars behind her head. And waited.

Most women would’ve gotten on their knees. But he wanted to look into her eyes, longed to taste her moans while she came. She’d known without him having to tell her. Or else she wanted the same thing.

He grabbed his T-shirt, and again bound her with a shoddy knot. Her wrists this time. Then he dug around and unearthed her bra from where she’d tucked it under her pillow and wrapped it around the T-shirt to hitch her to the headboard. They both knew she could’ve been free in a heartbeat if she chose.

“Love your DIY bondage,” she said breathlessly. “Lube’s in the nightstand, by the way.”