Untitled (22 page)

      "What's wrong?" His head lifted, and I propped myself up on my elbows to get a proper look at him. "Tense?"

      I lowered myself back onto the sofa. "Uh-huh."

      His fingers stayed inside me, still moved, though slower. He had never hurt me, not intentionally, but now I understood the meaning of the word gentle.

      Leo Carson the gentleman.

      Another gasp. And I wasn't sure if it was from me or him.

      "Piper, there's something I want to do, but..." He slid his fingers out, touched them to his lips as he knelt on the sofa above me, licked them. "But..."

      Then his hands were in my hair, and his tongue, tasting of me, ran along my lips and his weight was on top of me. Not crushing. Just above me.

      He stopped. Stared.

      Oh God. This is it. This is why I feel jittery. This is going to explain why I'm so uncomfortable. Why I can'-t—

      "I don't want to hurt you." His hands tightened in my hair and mercifully, mercifully, he whispered against my lips rather than looking down at me from a distance. "I want to be inside you."

      My heart thumped. Or maybe it was that up to that point I hadn't been aware of it beating, and now it thundered against my rib cage as if he already moved in me.

      "Piper?" He frowned, cocked his head, and kissed me again.

      Oh God, oh God, I don't know what's happening. Someone make it stop. Someone tell me what's going on.

      "I want to be inside you but I don't want to hurt you so just... say something. Tell me if it's—"

      "No."

      He flinched.

      "I mean, no, it's not wrong. Too soon, I mean. It isn't. I..." My breath came in ragged bursts which I hoped conveyed desire rather than fear. I couldn't take his scrutiny, his verbal probing any longer and the only way I could think of to stop it was to take him inside me.

      The simple fact was, I needed him inside me as much as he wanted to be there.

      "Tell me if it's too soon. If you're at all uncomfortable, then... I'll stop." His hand went for his waistband. And over the low background music, I heard the pop, pop, pop of each button as they opened in sequence. "Christ, it'll kill me to do it but I will."

      "Wait."

      And as promised, he stopped. Froze, in fact, one hand in my hair, the other inside his jeans.

      "Okay, I keep mine in my bedside table. Some in the bathroom cabinet, but... we're in your living area, so...?"

      "Ah." Leo's hand moved from his waistband to his

back pocket. He reached for something—I took an educated guess what—and tapped the tip of my nose with the foil square. "I, uh... tucked one into my jeans earlier, just in case..."

      "One?"

      "Okay, a couple."

      "You. Sneaky. Bastard."

      "Well..." He widened his eyes, looking not at all innocent but giving a damn good impression of a man who was trying to appear so. "You got me there." His expression went from playful to concerned, wide-eyed to frowning. And then his eyebrows lifted, this time not in feigned innocence, but anticipation. "Yes?"

      "Yes." The word was a simple exhalation. Inevitable.

      "Then..." He held the corner of the foil between his teeth and tore it open with his free hand. "You might want to help me with this."

      "I can't. Nerves. You know. I might... tear it."

      "Jesus." He panted, pulled himself away from me and slumped against the sofa back in a lazy sitting position. "If your hands are that shaky, then, any chance of a hand job?"

      Despite my nerves—my inexplicable nerves, given that it wasn't as if I'd never done this before, done him before—I laughed. God, I could easily fall—

      Piper fucking Holt. Shut the shit down on that line of thought right away!

      "Hey." Leo breathed the word against my mouth, against my open lips as he moved over me. Into me.

      "Oh."

      "What's wrong?" he asked, halting the push, the easy slide.

      "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I was just—"

      "Breathing?"

      "Yeah. Breathing."

      "That's good, right?"

      "Yeah." I nodded. "Very good. Very— oh God."

      He'd pulled up my left knee with one hand just as my hand went to his face, his throat, stroked the hair on the back of his neck.

      "You know what I really want to do?" he asked. "I'd love to..." His lips moved to my jaw and whispered against my ear, "I'd love to get as deep inside you as it's possible to get."

      "Oh..."

      "But not if it's gonna hurt—"

      "It won't. I know."

      "How?"

      "Leo." My tone of voice drew his attention. His mouth against my ear stopped whispering and breathing against me as I spoke. "Go deep."

      "Say that again."

      "Go—"

      "No, not that. Say my name. Say it—" His voice broke, as if something inside him was on the verge of breaking too. "Say it like you just did there." He pulled back, from his hips, pushed forward while pulling my leg up further and wrapping it round his waist as tightly as we could stand. Then both his hands were in my hair again. "Say it."

      "Leo."

      "Don't stop saying it. Are you sure I'm not hurting you?"

      "God, no. You'll only hurt me if you stop."

      "Say it."

      "Leo, oh Jesus, do that again."

      "This?" He moved from the hips in exactly the way I liked, at exactly the right angle to make my G-spot feel bigger than it was, as if my entire body was an erogenous zone designed for him to move inside.

      "That's just..." Perfect, I added in my head. I'd nearly lost it. Nearly lost control. But somehow I'd managed to hang on to that one shred of dignity which meant he was inside my body and not my mind.

      "Are you sure you're okay with this?" His shoulders tautened under my hands, just as his fingers tightened in my hair, pulling, with each stroke he took inside me. "This doesn't hurt?"

      "God no."

      "Tell me how it feels. And... and..." He faltered as my nails dug in to his juddering shoulders. "Use." He gulped. "Fuck."

      "Your name?"

      "Fucking Christ, Piper, you... you have to do

something."

"Anything." The word was out before I could stop it.

"Promise."

      "Anything." It got easier each time. I'd have said it three times, ten, a hundred, a thousand, if he'd wanted.

      "Use your—" He stopped to breathe a puff of laughter against my jaw, as if partly embarrassed. "No. Dig your nails in. Hurt me," he growled. "Every time I move inside you, I want your nails in my back."

      No compliance was needed, at least in words. Every time he moved, and he moved agonizingly slowly, my hands raked across his shoulder blades.

      "Leo."

      He made no sound but a low moan, his breath catching momentarily. A grunt, a gasp, a whisper of "Ahhh..." into my mouth when my nails raked down his shoulders to his mid back. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, Piper. Just keep saying my name when I do something right."

      The desperation in his voice, his cock's slow friction against my G-spot, his hips' slow movement against my clit.

      Oh Christ, Leo, I can't take this.

      "What?" One panicked word from him and he stopped mid stroke.

      "Don't stop!"

      "Babe, you said you couldn't—"

      "I said that out loud?"

      "Yeah, you—"

      I clawed the skin of his back, eliciting a feral growl from the back of his throat. "Don't. Fucking. Stop. I was nearly..."

      "Piper." His forehead was clammy against mine. Or maybe it was me who was sweating. No. We both were. In between labored breaths, he said, "There is only one thing more important to me right now than making you come and that is making sure I don't hurt you worse than I did earlier."

      "Leo, you didn't hurt me. You made me come so hard I..." I gulped. "It wasn't... it was..."

      "Babe, I was responsible for that and I—"

      "Leo." This time the word he loved to hear was emphatic, not desperate, and he stopped. Looked me right in the eye. And for some reason, this time I could take it. It was exactly what I wanted him to do, at that moment. "If you... If you think that making me come is going to hurt, and if you think that means you have to stop... I swear to God, I will tear you apart with my bare hands."

      His lips, underneath a Cupid's bow beaded with perspiration, curled into a shy smile before covering my own. "You," he said, breaking the kiss, "are fucking amazing. And I... I just want to make sure you're not... I mean, I..." His head dipped, nestling into the curve of my neck as he started moving again. From the hips, and slowly, gently, setting off the earliest sparks of orgasm inside me, the warmth radiating out from where his cock stroked me. "I wouldn't hurt you for..."

      "Anything."

      "Anything." He nodded and at such an odd angle, the stubble on his jaw rubbed along my neck.

      That was when he tipped me over the edge. When it all got too much. When the edges of my vision clouded over. When my nails dug into his shoulders, clawed at him, raking, pulling, trying to get him to push harder.

      "Say it. Say it again."

      "Leo."

      "Say it when you come." His lips were a whisper away from mine now, as he breathed against me, panted almost. "I want to hear you say it when you—Jesus, you have to come now, baby, I'm going to -"

      "Leo..."

      "Now, I can't hold off—"

      "Leo..."

      "Jesus, you feel so—"

      "Leo!"

      In the middle of the night, I lay still with my eyes closed. Much of my body ached. Pleasantly so. The throb of well-used muscles, tender after an extended workout.

      Deep breath.

      Cool air rasped the back of my throat, reminding me of screams, gasps, talking, swearing, barking of orders, biting, tasting, kissing.

      "Mmm," he murmured, as if reading my mind, throwing his arm across my waist.

      I opened my eyes, blinked, waited for the nightblindness to dissipate. Like a photographer watching for his subject matter to appear in a developing shot, I saw Leo.

      One half of his face lost in the marshmallow-like softness of the pillow, the other shaded by near-absolute darkness, but his silhouette still recognizable. His breath cooled the curve of my cheek as I too half-turned to the pillow. With his every inhalation I felt drawn to him and with every exhalation, rejected. My breathing fell into the same pattern as his, only in reverse. Our breaths whispered back and forth, like waves.

      Wake up.

      His hand on the small of my back, his fingertips tickling the curve of my spine.

      A twitch. No, a squeeze.

      His thumb ran across the small of my back, his fingertips giving my backside a gentle squeeze.

      But in his sleep.

      Why don't you wake up?

      I shifted, aware of the cramp threatening my legs, my

spine, the arm on which I'd been lying. Leo Carson had twisted me like a pretzel and now I felt it.

      There was a slight shift in the pressure of his hand which told me he drifted towards consciousness. Still touching, but not a dead weight. An easing as I moved, to allow me to move.

      He half-breathed, half-moaned.

      Now.

      We came together in a twist of limbs, our movements flowing as if coordinated, planned, in tune, choreographed. His lips devoured mine, knowing I'd be there, knowing I too was awake, facing him, ready, responsive.

      His tongue flickered along my lips, parted them, slid along my own tongue, slowly, lazily, tired, half-asleep and oh so seductive. When his arm lifted off my body I startled, but it was moments before he touched me again, hooked my leg around him then pulled my knee up higher.

      Ah, so that was why you moved your hand. Not a rejection. An adjustment.

      His shallow breaths came together in a grunt as he pushed his cock into me in one deep thrust. "Jesus." A murmur, but one which made him sound desperate to go deeper. "Oh God." No waiting, no build-up, no foreplay, just in and he moved, worked his hips against me.

      I clung to him, a hand clawing at his back even as I arched mine to force more of him inside, needing him, amazed at my own capacity for need.

      "God, Piper, I don't think I'll ever get enough of this, you—" He stopped. Froze. "Shit." He pulled out, tore himself away, gasping in apparent horror. "Fuck!"

      "What?" I ached, devoid of him. A hard stone formed in my chest where my heart should have been and pounded. Slowly. The rhythm of his thrusts echoed in the adrenaline coursing through me, along with panic and fear and shame.