PROPPED AGAINST THE pillows, she read the news on Connel’s tablet. With his permission, of course. It felt like an hour since he’d left her alone in his bed.
His timing was great. She’d just finished an article when he returned. Still naked, he wasn’t at all self-conscious as he brought steaming bowls over.
She loved it. Getting to see him in his incredible glory. Sculpted to perfection. Every time it thrilled her.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, putting one bowl on the nightstand and holding the other to her as he got onto the bed at her side.
“What does this one mean?” she asked, touching the vertical line of black writing beneath his arm on his ribcage.
“Nothing without effort,” he said, putting the bowl in her hand. “Eat.”
“Thanks,” she said, wrinkling her nose as he picked up some noodles in the chopsticks. “I haven’t been in the mood for food mu—”
He forced her to take the noodles from the wood. She was all ready to say enough until she chewed and the flavor burst in her mouth. Surprise had to be written all over her face and he was drinking in every detail.
“Oh my God,” she said, swallowing. “That’s really good. That’s amazing.”
He fed her some more. For the first time in more than a week, she wanted to eat.
“Do you want to go downstairs to the table?”
“No,” she said, propping the bowl between her drawn-up knees and her chest, stealing the chopsticks from him to feed herself. “Did you cook this? I mean did you make it or did some restaurant sneak it upstairs for you? How does a guy like you…? You can cook. Play guitar. Speak two languages—”
“Three, fluently. I get by with a few more,” he said and shrugged. “Makes business easier.”
Humility? Not like him, which explained the swagger that lit his eye.
“Did you cook this?” she asked. “Are you messing with me?”
“Strangers don’t come up here.”
“How does a guy like you learn to cook like this?”
He twisted around to get the bowl from behind him. “My mom.”
She stopped eating. Had she expected him to answer? Maybe. But not something so momentous in such a casual way.
“How old we’re you when she passed?”
“Eight,” he said, stirring his noodles. “Don’t eat too fast. Your stomach needs to adjust.”
“Does that mean no liquor?”
“You want a drink?”
“I like your whiskey,” she admitted. “Makes me think of the first time we kissed.”
Was that the comfort she got in the back of the car all those times she looked for courage?
He leaned in to kiss her. “How much are you struggling?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her focus descending to the food.
“Talk to me.”
He took her bowl and put both aside. When he turned back to her, she swooped in to catch his mouth with hers. They’d be okay. They’d get over it with time. If she could distract him, and herself, they wouldn’t have to discuss it.
He caught her jaw to ease their mouths apart, holding it while with the other hand he combed her hair from his grip, tucking it back with the rest of her locks.
“Do you know how easy it is for me to get laid?” he murmured. “How fast I can fill my bed with pussy?” She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, holding her there. “One phone call. One text. I can have twenty whores up here fighting over my cock.” He pulled her mouth to his, kissing her hard and fast. “I’ve never been faithful to a woman.” Again, she tried to pull away, but he hauled her back. “Never been unfaithful either. I’ve never committed to one. My relationships are casual. Open. I do what I wanna do when I wanna do it, and I don’t answer to anyone.” Letting her go, he dropped back against the propped-up pillows and slouched his hips, taking his cock in hand. “You want it, take it. I’ll add you to the list of sluts on speed dial.”
He had a direct way of making a point. Scooching closer, her eyes stayed on his though her hand curled around his on his cock.
To be different, to show their relationship the respect it deserved, they needed to be more than sex. For sure he could get twenty whores delivered to his loft. But he’d chosen her to join him in bed. Her alone. Because she was a random slut? No. Because she was something else. What something else? She had no clue.
If they could commit murder together, they should be able to open up to each other, right?
“Last week was sex tapes, foursomes, and riding crop punishments,” she said. “You have an appetite—”
“I don’t need that bullshit,” he sneered. “Think I haven’t had every kink under the fucking sun? Sex was nothing. I didn’t even give a shit about it. Who the fuck cares when everything’s on offer twenty-four seven?”
“You didn’t give a shit?” she asked, squeezing him. “You do now?”
His fingers slid out from under hers to move over them, sliding them up and down his thick shaft.
“Fuck… you’re something different,” he said on a groan, his head dropping back. “Everything was new to you. Shit I take for granted… it was new to you.”
“You liked that?” she asked, switching the angle of her thumb to stroke his head as her pace and strength increased. “You like this?”
Her whispered words came as she kissed his arm and wriggled lower to lick his tip. Even taking him into her mouth, the power of him overwhelmed her. Hard, broad, pulsing against her tongue, the connection to her own strength grew.
“Conn,” she breathed against him, tightening her lips in a kiss to force him through into her mouth.
Another groan and his fingers fell to her hair. “Macushla.”
Climbing over his leg, she settled between them to suck him deep. He didn’t want to push her, didn’t want her hurt, but the tangle in her hair tightened.
Slurping him from her lips, she placed short, wet kisses on his shaft.
“How many women have sucked your cock?” she asked, humming around him. He stroked her. When she blinked up, his drowsy eyes were fixed on her. “Hmm, baby?”
Keeping her hand working, jerking, tightening and loosening, she slithered up his body, parting her legs over his hips so her pussy just kissed the beaded moisture on the head of his dick.
He squeezed her breasts. “You teasing my cock, baby?”
“You didn’t want it,” she purred, her lips on his.
Her hand kept going. Squeezing harder, she dropped her hips until his tip just peeked into her before angling his head to massage her clit.
“Like it risky, baby?”
Skimming his palms up her back, under her hair, one after the other, the ripple of pleasure cascaded through her as he urged her against him with the ebb and flow of his purposeful caress.
“I like getting you off,” she murmured, kissing him. “I want you to come on me.”
“On you or in you?”
Her body was moving in time with her hand as her muscles tired. “In my mouth?”
“In your pussy,” he said, grabbing her ass in both hands. “We’re clean.”
“How do you know I’m clean?”
“Read your hospital records,” he said, yanking her so hard that her hand got lost between them. “You have an IUD.”
“I do,” she breathed, kissing him one way then the other. “Do you want to be inside me, baby? You want to come in me?”
“More than you fucking know,” he said, reaching up to sweep her hair from her ear and—it came back with a condom in his fingers.
How did he do that?
Disappointment came with confusion. “You don’t want to be in me?”
“You don’t want me hooked, baby,” he said, rolling on the condom. “Take it as slow as you need.”
Fondling her, he waited, jutting up between them.
“My turn to torment you?”
“Macushla gets what she wants.”
Apparently not because the barrier remained between their bodies. She missed the man he’d been between their sheets in Stag. But as she slithered down onto him, satisfaction came with security. She needed to be gentle and in control. Somehow, he’d known exactly what she needed without her having a clue.