TWENTY-FOUR
Faith was convinced.
She’d let that critical voice in her head intrude and had a tiny little freak-out in Leo’s Tuscan country bathroom. She usually had no problem ignoring that bitch on the rare occasions that it popped up, but in that moment, looking at her waterlogged self in the mirror post-shower, being with Leo felt different from being with any of the people who’d come before. Well, beforeandafter. The people who’d come between. None of them knew her the way he did, knew the ins and outs of her teenage body. And the thought that she might not live up to a memory or an expectation that he’d been carrying with him had made her want to bolt.
Not anymore though. He’d worked some kind of magic in the past twenty minutes with his words, his touch. Comparing her to a jungle plant had been good too. Very good.
Almost as good as the orgasm he’d just given her.
“That,” she gasped, “was incredible.” She almost asked where he’d learned that fluttery thing with his tongue but realized she didn’t actually want to know. Him having it in his bag of tricks was good enough for her.
“That was just the start.” He swiped at his mouth with his forearm and grinned as he kissed his way back up her body. Unlike yesterday, he didn’t stop her when she reached for his cock, and it only took a couple of strokes before she knew she was going to need him naked, right now.
“Off.” She tugged at his waistband, and he immediately pulled his sweatpants down and tossed them aside. When he did, the muscles in his stomach and arms flexed, and she gave an appreciative sigh. He wasn’t gym-pretty with machine-built muscles. He was work-hardened, all lean and sinewy. “How do you do it? Haven’t you been sitting behind a desk for months?”
“Rock-climbing wall,” he said absently as he twisted again, the muscles along his back shifting as he rummaged through his bedside table drawer. “Running. Jacking off to thoughts of you.”
His unselfconscious admission made everything inside her throb. “Oh my God, fuck me already, Morales,” she groaned.
“Yes, ma’am.” He rolled on the condom and knelt between her legs with his cock in his hand, notching himself into place. Finally. And of all the frowns he’d sent her way over the past five months, this was her absolute favorite. His brow was creased in concentration, his eyes narrowed as he watched himself disappear slowly into her body, torturously slowly. The burn, the stretch. She didn’t think she’d ever get enough.
Once he was fully seated, his pelvis tight against her, he let his head fall back with a groan. “Christ, Faith, you feel so good.” He pulled out just as slowly as he entered, then surged forward again. “My favorite. Always.”
Favorite.Always. She clung to the words as he reached for her hips and did exactly what he’d promised to do: he grabbed. Squeezed. He manhandled her, lifting her ass up to rest on his thighs so he could penetrate her at a different angle. He went so deep that it left her gasping, her inner walls gripping him tight as he moved.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” His voice was gravel, and he kept his gaze locked on her as he moved. “Dreamed about licking your pretty breasts, fucking you with my tongue and then my cock until you come? It’s so much fucking better than I remembered, Dutch.”
She moaned at his string of dirty talk. His words earlier had been the sweetness that she needed, but this… this made her absolutely feral.
“Harder,” she demanded. “I wanna feel you in the back of my throat.”
“Fuuuuck.” He drew the word out and bit off theK, his fingers digging into her hips so hard that he probably would leave those bruises he’d talked about. He pulled out, but before she could object, he flipped her onto her stomach, smacked her ass, and said, “On your knees.”
She complied, aware as she did that this put them in a similar position to their storage closet sex. But this time couldn’t have been more different. Leo covered her body with his as he drove deep, inching them both forward along the mattress with the force of his thrusts. He grabbed her hair and forced her head back so he could kiss her, an uncoordinated clash of tongue and teeth and lips as he moved inside her. Then he dropped her hair to cup her breast, pinch her nipple, stroke her stomach, wrap a hand around her forearm to brace himself for an especially frantic thrust. It was like he wanted to touch all of her at once, and she wanted that too. Wanted him in her, on top of her, underneath her.
That familiar tension started to coil between her legs, telling her that she could come again without much trouble at all.
“Leo. Here.” She shoved his hand down, unable to form complete sentences but still wanting him to give her what she needed. He rolled them both to the side, hitching her leg up and over his hip so he could reach her clit.
“God, look at you.” He dropped his sweat-damp forehead against her shoulder and gazed down her body. “Perfect. Heliconia. Pink.”
He punctuated each word with a thrust of his cock, a slap of his fingers against her clit, and she groaned as she came. And then he was coming too, his cock pulsing as he emptied himself into her still-throbbing passage.
Afterward, he eased her leg down and wrapped himself tightly around her. She shivered from an aftershock that sent tingles through her, and he huffed into her ear as he pulled out. But he didn’t roll away. He held her tight, sweaty skin and straggly hair and all. And she was scared to open her mouth, scared that if she spoke right now, she might fumble toward something all too truthful. But it was too soon for that. They’d just found each other again. Their apologies were still too fresh for this feeling growing in her heart. So she tipped her chin back and planted a kiss on the section of his jaw she could reach.
“I have to confess something.” He spoke the words quietly. “Because I know you, Dutch. Smart girls like you always Google these things.”
“Oh God.” Some of her languor leaked away. “What? Do I need to put on pants for this?”
He swatted her lightly on the ass. “No pants allowed. But I do need you to know. Heliconia?”
“Mmm,” she said. “My new favorite plant.”
“Heliconia is its genus name.” He kissed the spot right behind her ear. “It’s more commonly known as the lobster-claw plant.”
“Leo!” She wriggled out of his arms and pulled herself up to sit cross-legged, her nakedness forgotten. “Are you telling me that you compared all my pink bits tolobster claws?”
She giggled over the last two words, too blissed-out on sex pheromones to be actually mad. Besides, she didn’t much care what the plant was called if it had made him think of her over the years.
