One Exquisite Touch (The Extravagant #2)- Lauren Blakely Page 0,52
consider her question, her observations, and if I want to answer.
And what this means. Because she’s keyed in on something, and the least I can do is try to give her some truth. She deserves it. And I suppose I want to let her in. I like having her in. Being seen, being understood feels good in a way I haven’t experienced in years.
But the truth is complicated. “This kink—it’s not as simple as pleasure. And it’s not as twisted as I’m fixing a hole in my heart,” I say.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
I run a hand up her leg, craving contact. “I do love touching you. That’s true. That doesn’t need to be deconstructed. We don’t have to unpack that. Some things simply are.” My fingers travel along her thigh, the same path they journeyed earlier in the night at the bar, and as she did then, she shivers.
“Agreed. Pleasure for its own sake is . . .” She stops, laughing lightly. “Simply pleasure for its own sake.”
I give her a faint smile. “Yes, it is. And that’s not a bad thing.”
She tap-dances her fingers up my chest. “Pleasure is a good thing. Too often, we focus on work, work, work. We don’t give ourselves chances to unwind. At least, many women don’t. We often deny ourselves pleasure and the exploration of it. But why deny it?”
She asks the question as if she’s fully processing it now—as if she’s asking it for the first time. Maybe because she’s letting herself fully experience a new kind of bliss.
“Don’t deny it,” I say, an intensity in my voice, because I detest the thought of her doing that. “There’s no reason to forbid yourself from having bliss. And I am, admittedly, obsessed by it. I am consumed by the pursuit of pleasure at times. I want the woman I’m with to feel . . . out of her mind.” I slide my hand up her arm into her hair, threading my fingers through those locks, and I tug. Hard.
She lets out an enticing moan, a long, needy ohhh.
Then I chase it with my lips. I press my mouth to the column of her neck. Dust a soft, barely-there kiss over her skin. Let it turn into a trail of delicate, open-mouthed kisses along her throat, up to her ear, across her jaw.
As she murmurs.
As she sighs.
“Like that?” she asks, her voice going all feathery.
“Yes. Like that. I want the woman I’m with to feel spectacular,” I say, but that’s not enough. These statements don’t cover it. These statements keep her at a distance, and I don’t want her far. I want her near. She’s not any woman. She’s the one I can’t get out of my head.
Cupping her cheek, I turn her face closer to mine. “I want you to feel incredible. I want you to feel amazing. I want you to feel . . . undone.”
She nibbles on the corner of her lips when I change the focus to her. To where it should be. And as I say those words, I start to feel how deeply they resonate with me already. I want this woman to feel everything I can give her.
“I feel that way with you. Undone,” she says, all soft and vulnerable, like a confession.
Pride suffuses me, spreads through my chest, makes me feel like something inside me is glowing. An odd feeling. One I’m not quite used to. But one I like. One I get with her.
“Good,” I say, then give her another kiss. On the end of her nose.
She laughs again.
“It’s hard to resist kissing you. I have a hard time resisting you in general,” I add, then quirk up my lips. “As you might have noticed.”
“I have,” she says, tracing her fingers over my chest once more. “But you still haven’t answered the question. And I want to know the answer. I want to know why,” she presses, urgency in her tone. “Because I don’t think we’re going to stop until both of you fuck me at the same time.”
That knocks me in the chest.
That steals my breath.
Because this woman is fearless.
She is brave and daring and so damn direct.
I clasp her chin, holding it. “And do you want that?”
She gives me that look. The one that says you know the answer. “More than a week ago, I’d have said I had no idea.”
“And now?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. She simply studies me. Her eyes are serious. “And now, I’m not sure how I can’t have it.”