the fabric onto her ribs. He didn’t move it aside. Didn’t peek. Though the twitch of his lips revealed how he was enjoying massaging her just beneath her breast.
Her fizzing hormones were buzzing with an insane level of anticipation. Something else was thrumming through her too. It was inherent. There was nothing awkward or unsure between them. Her emotions warred with the odd juxtaposition: the excited anticipation of being close to him, next to the ease of their innate connection.
Aware of what he’d said about underwear, Poppy was curious. “What are you wearing under there?” she asked, dipping her hand beneath the covers while he dizzied her with the gentle caress of his barely there fingertips tracing up and down her belly.
Her hand kept going until she found he wasn’t only naked in her bed, but he was hard too.
“You don’t have time for me in your life,” she murmured, curling her fingers around him. “Do you have time for me in your bed?”
TWENTY-THREE
“Babe—”
“No relationship,” Poppy said, squeezing him, pulling him. “I won’t be your girlfriend. We won’t date. No future. We’re free agents. Just two people who happen to enjoy being naked together… Use me for your pleasure… Use me for sex.”
Sinking lower, he loomed over her. “I have rules.”
“Screw your rules,” she said, still working her hand over his cock as her leg slithered up over his thigh. “Screw me, First… Why are we fighting this? We can’t be together, but we never got this part wrong. We were always good at this part. Stop fighting it, baby… Stop fighting me.”
When he peeled one side of the shirt away from her breast, she arched up, proud of her body in a way she’d never been before.
His warm, rough palm ascended to squeeze her. “You’re a drug, Candy-Cane.”
The texture of his callused hand over her tight nipple was novel and enticing. She wanted more, didn’t know how to say no, how to stop. Her world depended on him surrendering.
“You want a sugar rush?”
“No running away this time,” he murmured, swooping down to trap her mouth under his.
Poppy had ideas of curling her body over his, of rubbing herself against him and joining them with her on top. She should’ve known that Turner would be the one to take control.
Opening up her shirt with both hands, he rushed down to taste both of her breasts and kiss her cleavage before surging up over her, somehow scooping her beneath him at the same time.
Every fantasy she’d had about being with him paled in comparison to the reality of experiencing his devouring kiss. His forearms framed her head, holding her in place so he could consume more of her.
She could feel all of him in every corner. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she tried to pull him closer, arching and grinding herself against him, tempting the sweet heat of friction into an inferno.
The press of his kiss grew more insistent as his tongue moved faster, delving deeper. He’d starved himself of her; Poppy could taste his hunger, craved it like her life depended on it.
Pushing his pelvis down on hers, he crushed himself against her, moving to stimulate her most intimate corner. What he was packing was more than she’d experienced with other men in the past. But it would be okay. So long as he was the one with her, everything would always be okay.
Being with Turner overloaded her senses, yet there wasn’t enough of him. Dumb as it was, Poppy was loathed to even share him with him. He slithered down her body, savoring her throat, spoiling her neck and shoulders with the attention of his mouth.
Burying her nails in his hair, they scratched from his scalp to his shoulders, clawing for mercy while her heart begged for more.
His pampering descended to her cleavage, then he came back up to kiss her again. “Rubbers are in my place,” he said, his lips massaging hers.
“I’m on the pill.”
He pulled back just enough to focus on her eyes. “Since when?”
“Since I was sixteen,” she said. Never could she have known a decision made ten years ago would mean so much to her. “I went to a free clinic weeks ago…”
After she left the church, but before they’d even met.
“You never said anything.”
He’d done all the talking about condoms, Poppy hadn’t said they’d need to use them.
“You never asked,” she said, sinking her fingers into his hair.
“I didn’t.”
Stroking his shoulders, she raised her chin, trying to tease his mouth. “Is that okay?”
“Just