"Ohhh."
I glanced up and found Cole's head tilted back against the tree, his eyes screwed shut and his chest heaving. Even in the darkness I could make out a rosy flush across his sharp cheekbones. I wanted to tell him he was beautiful and goofy and erotic, all at once. I wanted to watch the way my words affected him. I wanted him to give me his words, and I wanted them to come from the same confusing places asmine.
But I didn't. I went on sucking him, stroking him, speaking my desires the only way I knew how. This night offered no place for my heart and its flowery notions, and I could live with that as long as I could spend it with Cole in myarms.
I pushed a finger inside him and he cried out, a sound that was at once desperate and vicious. His balls were tight and heavy against my wrist, and I doubled down on my efforts, swallowing him deep while I massaged that magicalspot.
"What the fuck are you doing to me? What the running fuck is happening right now?" Cole hissed. "This is what a supernova feels like. Or breaking the sound barrier. Or cold fusion. Maybe dark matter. I don't know much about thatbut—"
He didn't finish that thought because he popped off like a shot down my throat. He went on sighing and groaning as I licked every drop and then mapped his skin with my lips. Minutes passed while he fought to catch his breath, his fingers still tight around the strands of myhair.
My cock was throbbing to the point of pain. It was like one of those old cartoons where a character knocked himself in the head with a hammer, and the resulting goose egg pulsed white to red, white to red. A snarl was building in my throat and I was ready to pounce. Tear his clothes, spin him around, bend him over, take what I wanted.Needed.
As much as my body wanted that, my heart didn't. Regardless of whether I'd recently blown his mind, I couldn't bring myself to unleash that kind of self-serving desire on him. It was silly, really. This was a summer fling at best; a one-night stand at worst. He was leaving and I was staying, and there was no sense winding myself up with emotional ideas. But I was already wound up, long past silly, on my way tolovesick.
Cole's grip on my hair loosened. "I hope you're not done withme."
I kissed the jut of his hipbone and shook my head, stealing another lungful of his scent. "Not even close," Ireplied.
Cole blew out a breath as a growl rattled in his throat. He dragged his fingers over my scalp and canted my head to meet his hungry gaze. His eyes were hooded but sober as a sermon. He tipped his chin down. "Zip meup."
Taking orders wasn't my style but serving Cole was. I'd been serving him since the minute he'd drifted into my cove, and I wasn't about tostop.
"A 'please' wouldn't be too hard, would it?" I asked, dragging my teeth over the same hipbone I'd adored seconds ago. "Or am I just someone to put your dick away for you, littleprince?"
Cole fisted my hair, snickering. "I've said it about nine thousand timestonight."
I sucked a mark into his skin and then pulled his boxer briefs up, careful to snap the waistband when they were in place. "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep saying it," I murmured. "You can be bossy or bratty, but notboth."
"I think you likeboth."
His shorts were in a heap around his ankles, and I did my best to shake the dirt and forest miscellany from them before sliding them up his lean legs. "You don't know what Ilike."
Cole wrapped his hand around my bicep and hauled me up from the ground. "I'm gonna find out." He busied himself with pinching the seams of my t-shirt and straightening my clothes. He ran his hands from my shoulders to my fingertips, and then pressed his palm to my aching cock. "Realsoon."
All the strength in the world couldn't keep me from whispering, "Please."
13
Harden In
v. To haul in the sheet and tighten thesails.
Cole
There weresteps between that spot in the woods and Owen's bedroom, many of them, but he took my hand and guided me down the path, and everything else drifted away. I wanted to take a picture of us, just like this. My man, holding my hand as he led the way.My man. Now, that was a rarethought.
Once we were behind closed doors, he attacked my clothes. Unbuckle, unzip, unbutton, off. When my boxers hit the floor, Owen stepped back and stared at me, drinking in my bareskin.
Before modesty could get the better of me, I gripped my cock at the base and gave it a lazy stroke. A growl rumbled up from his chest and his brows lowered in warning. His breath was coming in quick, rough pants that worked me like a seductive lullaby. I knew nothing beyond hunger, absolute starvation for thisman.
"Off," I said, reaching for his t-shirt.
"Now you're thinking," he replied. "Thought you were just going to make me watch while you jerked it. Not that I'd complain but that wasn't what I had inmind."
I yanked the shirt up and over his head, and then moved on to his shorts but I was a disaster. At least one button was sacrificed to the cause and I gave up trying to maneuver the zipper around the substantial bulge of his erection. Bypassing the zipper altogether, I dragged the garment down his hips and sighed in relief when he was free ofit.
"Shit. Sorry about that," I mumbled. "I'm not great in the dark. Or with undressing. That's not what I meant. No, I mean, obviously I know how to get undressed. I'm just not experienced when it comes to taking off someone else's clothes. It's not one of my skills. I might be a born-againvirgin."
