she was pretty sure they didn’t usually go like this.
This . . . this felt like a proper first time.
The way she should have parted with her innocence all those years ago. On her own terms. In the embrace and care of a man who adored her. At ease enough to talk to him, tease him, look deep into his eyes as he pushed ever-deeper inside her.
It was different to last night. Frantic coupling in a work environment hardly lent itself to romance. But this bed cushioned her back against the impact of his thrusts, and with the drapes drawn and bed never-ending around her, she could almost believe they were the only people in existence.
“Frankie,” he said, a sound of unfiltered worship.
As he worked a hand under the small of her back and tilted her hips—as he kissed her with such sincerity, her eyes welled—she slipped so far over a line she’d never crossed, she knew she’d finally done it.
Finally fallen.
Her childhood had made her guarded and distrustful of the world. She’d banished any hope from her mind of being treated better, leaving that wish to tunnel into her heart instead. She felt it sometimes—a hollow clamor for affection, a frail longing—but knowing the impossibility of such a thing, she’d done her best to ignore it. Now, she could feel Kris beneath her breastbone. Inside that hollow space. Not as hope, but certainty. He would treat her better than she’d ever been treated—better than she’d ever treated herself. He’d do what no one had ever done in her entire life.
He would love her.
Her whole body flushed with sensation. The pressure inside her was building, more intense than before, and her breathing grew so hard, so loud, she used it to carry his name from the edges of ecstasy. “Kris.”
“Fuck, sorry about this,” he murmured in her hair, and pulled out so swiftly, she had no chance at stopping him. She clenched as if she could leap from the precipice without him, but hovered several thrusts away from flying as he shifted and wedged his thigh hard between her legs. While a part of her marvelled at his self-control, the rest of her was taking none of it.
“I warned you.” Even though her body was humming—singing in suspense, alive with anticipation—she pushed herself up and started crawling across the bed. “I’m getting my knuckles and I’m going to kill you.”
He caught her around the waist and dragged her back, drawing her into his lap and touching her all over as he murmured, “Trust me, trust me,” and she said, “I’ll make it quick, you could learn something,” and he said, “No, you won’t, just trust me,” and she surrendered to his mouth when it came hot and urgent for hers.
She wriggled, more for the game this had become than any effort to escape him, and he twisted her, pinning her front-down on the bed. He was heavy against her back, erection nestled against her ass, his mouth instantly pulling on the sensitive spot where her shoulder swept up into her neck. Heat flooded her. Her muscles throbbed, ever-tightening. She was moaning, pleasure-drenched, wetter than she’d ever been.
Okay. Maybe he was onto something.
He reached down and slid a finger inside her. Not enough to finish her—just enough to torment, to make her buck against him. Practically vibrating with need, she angled her head and nipped none-too-gently at his forearm.
“The thanks I get,” he muttered in her ear, and even that light brush of air rocketed through her blood.
Denial pushed her beyond thought—hypersensitive to every tiny pleasure, wordless with euphoria.
He resisted, and rubbed against her until her blood fizzed, and then kept on resisting. She shuddered as his hands praised her—caressed her sides and massaged her ass and swept across her breasts. It was only when she angled her hips and managed to get his tip inside her that she finally found his line.
On a strangled groan, he flipped her onto her back—and drove hard inside her.
Buried all the way in, he fell still, taut as a bowstring. One second, two . . . then he pulled back and started slow all over again, building her up until her tension was a tight tangle and her edges stretched and strained as her pleasure mounted higher. She’d never seen this mountain before, never known she could approach such a peak, but with his hand on her back again, angling her hips to receive his thrusts just right, he guided her two steps as