The hunger in James’s voice is almost unrecognizable.
“You’re beautiful.” He licks his lips.
Nelle isn’t scared, though some part of her feels like she should be. “Take off your shirt.”
He pulls it over his head and tosses it aside. She studies the rigid lines of his stomach, his slender muscular arms, the dust of hair trailing down to his sweatpants.
Nelle sits up, level with his sharp collarbones, and lets her mouth guide her where it wants to go. Her tongue swirls his right nipple, and he lets out a little groan, hands grappling for the back of her head. She sucks on it and lets go, then teases the other with her teeth. Her own nipples harden like pebbles in sympathy.
“Stop, stop,” James says as Nelle tugs at the hem of his pants.
She looks up, breathless with lust. “Why?”
“Not yet,” he says.
It’s hard not to roll her eyes. “This again? There is no right moment, James. There’s justthismoment.”
“Was the Eiffel Tower not the right moment for our first kiss?”
Nelle slumps back against the pillows, feeling no vulnerability, even half naked in front of him.
“You know I’m right about this,” James says.
He’s notwrong. “Fine.”
“But,” he lights up, “there is something I’d like to do to you. If you’ll let me.”
The creature inside Nelle, starving for him, goes wild. “Anything.”
James cradles her left breast and skims his lips across her right. Soft breath brushing the milk-white curve, each kiss making it harder and harder for her to breathe. God, she wants him. All of him. Wants towrap her hand around that hardness between his legs, to feel him inside her. But not tonight. Soon, but not tonight.
He sucks and bites her nipples before marching his mouth down her stomach.
His fingers curl over the waistband of her shorts.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
Slowly, he peels the silky material down her thighs, over her ankles, and tosses them aside. No underwear.
Nelle spreads her legs, inviting him in.
James crumbles between her knees. Desire races through her, begging for release as his lips move along her inner thigh, scorching every spot they touch, until his breath hits that throbbing between her legs. His kiss, at the apex of her sex, brings the sensation of being submerged in the roaring ocean. Her brain goes numb, giving complete control over to her body.
James curls his tongue upward, encompassing all of her in one fiery stroke before homing in on her swollen bud again. She shudders, thoughtless, fingers grasping to keep her from floating away. The bedsheets, James’s hair, the iron headboard. If she’s moaning, she doesn’t know, and, frankly, doesn’t care. Surely Penelope, if she has ever experienced something like this before, will understa—
“Oh myGod,” Nelle groans.
James’s tongue flickers faster. His hands slide underneath her, cupping her cheeks and lifting. That’s it—she’s done. Undone.Fuck.
With one more stroke, his tongue slides into her, and Nelle’s pulsating pressure explodes. She is a red balloon, a golden bird, a flying fucking horse—
Her thighs clamp around his head, and distantly she has the thought that she might be suffocating him as she rides out the waves of pleasure, rocking against the mattress. As her body sizzles, she finds James watching her, head propped on his hand.
Nelle kisses him and, exhilarated, tastes herself. “Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?”
The next morning, the glint of Penelope’s black eyes tells James that she knows exactly what they did last night. If so, then she must be choosing to reward rather than scold them because she offers to buy breakfast at a café by the bay. And to his dismay, she offers to drive.
