His eyes met hers again.
“Yes,” he admitted gruffly.
Her gaze cut over to his phone on the nightstand. “But you weren’t watching anything.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
She swallowed, and her breath hitched as her gaze met his once more. “What were you thinking about?”
“You.”
She licked her lips again, which he was sure she wasn’t doing intentionally to drive him crazy, but the outcome was the same.
“Were youreallythinking about me?” she asked, as if that was difficult to believe.
How did this woman not know how insanely sexy she was?
“Yes,” he confirmed.
Tiana stared at him, and he could feel the energy between them crackling. She hovered for a moment in the threshold, the moonlight slicing her profile into halves. Then, after taking a deep breath as if she was about to jump off the deep end, she crossed to the bed in three strides, peeling off his shirt in a single, deliberate motion, and dropped to her knees before him as if there was nothing in the world but the two of them and this white-hot engine of want that threatened to incinerate the air. Niko’s brain short-circuited.
“Fuck,” he groaned, because that was one of the hottest things he’d ever seen. The dichotomy of innocence and seduction nearly had him coming in the sheet.
She reached up, slowly and gently, moving up his thigh, torturing him, every inch higher an act of mercy. Her hands, slender and warm, found him beneath the tent of the sheet, tossed it to the side, and freed his cock, hard and flushed and already leaking at the tip. The look she gave him, head tilted, curls half-shadowing her cheekbones, held a kind of reverence that caused his heart to swell in his chest.
She took him in both hands, then brought her mouth down, lips parted, wet and soft. The first contact was feather-light, just a flick of tongue at the crown, tasting him as if savoring the anticipation more than the act. A slow, luxurious drag of her mouth around the head, pulsing him deeper with every breath. Niko exhaled a sharp breath, his hands fisting the bedsheets, hips twitching with restraint and a desperate need to hold still so he didn’t shove himself too deep too fast. Every nerve seemed to detonate at once.
He had already been so close, and Tiana worked him with a slow, deliberate rhythm, the wet heat of her mouth creating a low suction that seemed to reach all the way into his bones. Occasionally she’d glance up, and every time their eyes met he wanted to say something—thank you, you’re perfect—but all he could manage was a strangled moan and the ragged sound of his own breath. She alternated pressure, sometimes languid, sometimes hungry, her hand wrapping around the base and twisting in perfect time with her tongue, her other palm splayed possessively on his thigh. The way she moved was never tentative, she owned this moment, and she owned him.
His release was building with a speed that scared him. He could sense the whiteout at the edge of his vision, so he reached down, fingers threading through the wild halo of her curls, andgently eased her mouth off him. She blinked, then grinned up at him, lips glossy and slightly swollen, looking more like a goddess than any human woman had a right to.
He pulled her up and flipped her so she was flat on her back, the pillows catching her head, her hair fanned out like a crown. Niko hooked her fingers in the band of her underwear and slid them down her legs. He then moved between them, parting her thighs with his hands. He paused to take her in, the quiver in her stomach as she waited, and the way her breath caught when he kissed the inside of her knee.
Niko moved with a patience that felt both reverent and wicked, as if worship and mischief had joined forces in his hands and mouth. He kissed his way up the insides of Tiana’s thighs, pausing, drawing lazy spirals with his tongue against her skin until her legs tensed around him. He memorized every tremor, every shiver, every subtle shift of her hips. When he reached her center, he tasted her with a gentle, exploratory stroke, barely parting her at first, then delving deeper, letting his tongue play along her folds in a maddeningly slow circuit.
Every time she gasped and tried to move against him, he anchored her with steady hands on her thighs, teasing her with light, fluttering flicks, or drawing her into his mouth and holding her there until she whimpered.
He loved the way she responded to him, the way her back arched, the way her hands knotted the sheets, and the way her breath turned ragged and urgent. He loved it even more because Tiana was never the type to give up her control easily, yet here she was, totally unguarded, letting him take her apart piece by piece. He alternated between broad, flat licks and quick, pointed flicks, delighting in the way she squirmed, the way her thighs tried to clamp his head in place, the way her voice, normally so poised, broke into pleading.
“Please,” she cried, the word thin and desperate, her hand reaching for his head, threading through his hair, pressing him closer. “Please, Niko.”
He continued at his pace, not allowing her to rush him, bringing her to the edge again, feeling the tension build and build, only to let up at the last moment, holding her just shy of release. He did this again and again, until her entire body trembled.
“Fuck, please,” she whimpered in desperation, and it made his own need ache. His cock throbbed painfully. “Please, please, please.”
That, more than anything, was what he craved, this moment where her pleasure was so fierce she begged, where her surrender was total. He slid two fingers inside her, curling them until he found that spot that made her see stars, and at the same time, he closed his lips around her clit and sucked, his tongue vibrating in quick, relentless motions.
She shattered. Her back arched as her orgasm ripped through her in pulses so strong he felt it through his tongue and fingers, wave after wave, her nails digging into his scalp as she rode it out, pressing her sex into his mouth. He didn’t let up, not until her cries faded into soft, breathless moans and she lay spent and boneless on the sheets, sweat-slick and glowing.
As he began kissing his way up her body, three words came into his mind that were very inappropriate to say. They started with I, ended with you, and had love in the middle.
He knew he couldn’t say those words to Tiana, she wouldn’t believe him. He wasn’t even sure how he was so certain himself. But he was. He loved the woman who deservedallthe love in the world and was born without anyone who loved her. His heart broke for her. He wanted to show her love, stability, family.
He loved the woman who was clearly scared to open up to him but was brave and trying. Who had pushed him away butthen researched and made his favorite dinner to say sorry. The woman who opened up to him and got scared and rushed off to bed. But then couldn’t sleep, so she came into his room and was vulnerable again.
How could he not love this woman? He couldn’t tell her, but he could show her.
Tiana’s breathing slowed, but the shudder of her release still lapped through her body in aftershocks. Through the haze, she felt the heat of Niko’s mouth trailing up the inside of her left thigh, pausing at the tender junction where her leg met her hipbone. His lips closed in a gentle suck that melted her boneless against the mattress. He lingered there just long enough to let the anticipation build, then moved on, tracing a reverent line from hip to belly, a slow detour to her navel, before zeroing in on the fine, sensitive skin just beneath her breast. By the time he reached the peak of her breast, her nipple was diamond-hard, each brush of his tongue sending pulses straight to her core despite her body’s spent state.
