I felt him deep inside me. All thought fled when he dragged himself back out and plunged in again, faster, asking, “Does it feel good, Layla?”
“So good.” It came out on a sigh. “You?”
“Exquisite.”
He worked up to a steady rhythm that built pleasure on pleasure, and then he leaned down to suck on my lips, slowing his pace, and caressing me as if I meant more to him than his ultimate orgasm. I’d learned to take care of my own needs during sex, so his focus on me surprised me, delighted me really, and invited me to lavish attention on him, too.
My hands roamed across his strong triceps and clutched his broad shoulders. My fingernails raked his back, and he bent down to bite my lip. All the while, he moved in and out of me, with increasing urgency, but with admirable control. He watched me and when I closed my eyes and moaned, he said, “Is it good?”
While I loved how careful he was to make this about me, what I needed was for him to let go and really fuck me, so I wrapped my foot around his back and gave him a literal kick of encouragement. He got the message and sped up his pace, drilling deep, hitting me again and again in the spot that had me nearly crying from the overwhelming explosion of raw pleasure.
“There,” I cried. “Yes.” I couldn’t say more for fear of losing my already tenuous grip on the relentless journey to outer space.
He breathed my name, and everything broke. My center burst into light and color and sugar and joy. I released an earth-shattering moan and began to sob all at once.
Shane pulled out. “Are you hurt?”
“No. No.” I didn’t sound convincing at all. My voice quivered with emotion, and tears leaked down my temples. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him to me tight. “You just sort of sent me somewhere I’d never been.”
He dropped beside me, panting, and I worried he’d stopped before he’d finished. I threw my leg back over him, but he laughed and said, “You’re kidding.” He ran a hand across his sweaty forehead. “I won’t be ready to go again for a long while. You just took everything I had.”
The proof was in the reality of post-sex condom cleanup after which he came back to bed and tucked up beside me. I laid my head against his chest, and his arms encircled me. I didn’t want to move from that spot ever again. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so safe and loved and cared for at any other time in my life.
Chapter Twelve
Sometime in the night, I awoke to the sound of my phone’s ringtone on the lower floor. I lay on one side of the bed with the blanket tucked over me and Shane’s arm laced under mine. I wanted to stay in the warmth of his body, but I had an urgent need to pee. I slipped out from under the covers, careful not to jar Shane. He snorted and rolled onto his back. In the dim light, I could make out his inky chest rising and falling.
Although that body he’d kept under wraps made me go weak at the knees, what really sucker-punched me was his gentle face as he slept. I knelt down and put my chin on the mattress just to gaze at his sweet lips that were quick with an awkward analogy or a surprising compliment or a goofy joke. And they knew how to kiss. His nose was a bit crooked, but that only made him more interesting to look at. His skin was smooth like milk, except for the dusting of freckles, like my own. Thankfully our similarities stopped there, or I might start to worry we’d come to find out we were secret siblings. His hair was red, but not orange like mine. He was ginger; I was pumpkin.
What I liked best about him was absent while he slept. What endeared him to me was how his pretty blue eyes saw me. How his pretty lips spoke to me.
I stood and stretched. There was a bathroom upstairs, but I didn’t want to wake Shane—especially not that way. I found my clothes and carefully wound back down the spiral stairs to the lower floor. I’d spied a half bathroom on our way in and located it easily. I peeked in his cabinet to find travel-sized soap, toothpaste, lotion, mouthwash. I squeezed some toothpaste