Reaching up, I pull the scrunchie from my hair and shake it out. It’s still a little damp from my earlier shower, so I finger comb it. The dark waves end a few inches above my waist. I inherited my mom’s hair, and it’s the one thing about my appearance I’ve always loved.
Returning to my backpack, I retrieve a tube of tinted lip balm and coat my lips and dab a little on the apples of my cheeks.
Standing back, I take one more look at myself in the full-length mirror and think, Not too damn bad, Sophie Wren.
Looking around the room, I weigh the options: king-size bed, desk chair, or love seat. I walk to the love seat first and take a seat, crossing my legs. I feel stiff and awkward, and the upholstery is scratchy on my ass.
“Nope,” I say out loud and move to the bed where I lie on the fluffy, white comforter and stretch out, attempting a pose. In my mind, I’m a temptress, but when I raise my head and glance in the mirror on the wall, I look like I tripped and landed here by accident.
Even worse, I think.
Dragging the desk chair closer to the full-length mirror, I hesitate. If I suggested anything like this to Chance, he would’ve made a snide comment about me reading too much smut and shot the idea down.
In the end, as I hear the water turn off, I sit in the middle of the bed. Crossing my legs at the ankle and leaning back on my hands, I close my eyes, tip my head back, and breathe.In with the hell yeah, out with the hell no,I recite to myself to try to calm my nerves. I’m having trouble deciding if I’m more nervous or excited. The way my heart is racing, it’s hard to tell.
“Calm down, calm down, calm down,” I whisper, before dropping my chin and opening my eyes.
Ever’s standing at the foot of the bed. He licks his lips. “If you were standing where I am and could see what I can see, you’d know that’s gonna be impossible.”
His inky-dark hair is wet, and there are droplets of water scattered on his chest, like he did a half-ass job drying off with the towel that’s currently wrapped around his waist and doing nothing to disguise that he’s ready to go.
The heat that runs through me is primal. Swallowing hard, I agree, “Yes, it is.”
“Come here.” His voice is ragged.
Crawling toward him, I rise up on my knees when I reach him. I don’t know if it’s because the bed is so tall he has to look up slightly to meet my eyes, or the hunger in his gaze, but it makes every self-conscious thought evaporate, replaced by confidence I’ve never felt before.
A large hand comes to rest on each hip, his thumbs brushing back and forth twice before they impatiently hook the thin straps of my panties and drag them down to my knees.
“Remind me we have all day, Soph, because I want to be inside you,” his hand trails up my inner thigh, “right fucking now.”
When one of those long, exquisite fingers hits the spot, I exhale a trembling breath. And when it languidly strokes back and forth a few times, slick with my arousal, I swear my soul leaves my body.
He burrows his face into my hair, the tip of his nose nuzzling the side of my neck, “You’re,” before his teeth nip, “dripping.”
My hands have a mind of their own, gliding over taut, sculpted muscle like I’m memorizing every plane by touch. Reaching for the towel, I release it and glide the back of my knuckles up the length of him.
He moans, shakily, his lips brushing the underside of my jaw before they skim down my neck to capture flesh, sucking. Tongue pressed flat against me as he releases, and my heart skips a beat.
“This is gonna be even better than I imagined, isn’t it?” My words are loud in my own head, competing with the blood pounding through me and the air, so heavy, filling my lungs. I’ve never been this aware of my body before.
“Without a doubt.” One hand has snaked under my shirt, touch light and inquisitive. The other still between my legs, touch knowing and focused. When the tip of his finger presses into me, then retreats, pleasure shimmers in my veins.
“Do that again,” I say, my lips pressed to the shell of his ear.
He repeats the tease again. And again. Until I’m a quivering mess.
“Fuck, that feels good.” I’m not sure the words made it out or if they only exist in my head, but when he sinks two fingers deep and sighs, “Yes, it does,” I know he heard me.
He feels like velvet, heat, and need when I wrap my hand around him. Stroking slowly root to head, he stills and a hiss escapes him. “Goddamn.”
Leaning in, I expect the same urgency the rest of his body is radiating, but his lips are soft and gentle. When he deepens the kiss and his teeth tug at my bottom lip, I pause and whisper against his lips, “Sit on the chair.”
The pad of his thumb brushes so tantalizingly close to the hard peak under my shirt that I squirm with need. He knows what he’s doing, I feel the impression of his smile against my cheek. One final curve of his fingers inside me, dragging over ridges that make me clamp down around him.
His voice is raspy when he says, “You’re gonna milk me fucking dry.”
Stripping my shirt off, he steps back and reaches for a bag on the dresser behind him and takes out a small box. Tearing it open, he pulls out a string of foil packets, disengages one, and tosses the rest on the bed. While he sits on the chair, his eyes lock with mine, he raises the shiny square to his mouth and tugs at it with his teeth.
