I draw back the blankets with one hand, then slowly lower her onto the bed.
“You don’t have to take off the hoodie if you don’t want to,” she tells me while peeling her stockings off, then removing the cap and setting it on the bedside table.
I blink. Feels like I just got the wind knocked out of me. A muscle ticks in my jaw. I make the split-second decision. “Take it off, Girly.”
She flicks her head to me, and I’m there, not in the bed but crouching before her…so close. My dick twitches at the smell of her. Chai tea and pine. She bites her lower lip, but her hands snap to my hoodie like she’s afraid I’ll change my mind. She unzips it slowly, studying the tattoos my black tee doesn’t hide.
Once she slides the hoodie off my shoulders and gingerly places it on the table beside the cap, Briella turns back to me and drops the blanket. “Your turn.”
I lower my brows, confused, until she brushes her fingers along the dress.
Oh. Okay.
It’s a different feeling. All the other women…they did a hollow striptease. Some were even brought to me naked.
Briella is inviting me.
As I slowly slide the dress up and up, showing more and more lily-white skin, my pulse pounds. It pounds differently with her—less like thunder, more likearmorsliding into place. Another few moments, and we’re both naked and cocoonedinside a host of blankets. Her palms on my chest, right above my hammering heart.
Fuck, the way she feels against me. She makes the beast in me brace for a new battle—one worth bleeding for. My shaft hardens against her stomach.
“Tell me something true.”
Her words were so soft, I almost didn’t hear. “Like what?” I trace circles along her lower back.
“I don’t know. Anything.”
“You’re beautiful.” I kiss her forehead. “And the best thing that could have happened to us.”
“Something I don’t already know, Tats.”
“Hmm…” I don’t stop tracing over the puckered scar marks. “I’m the oldest.” My one card.
“Oh?” She glances up.
I look down. “Surprised?”
“A little. I just assumed Raphael was. How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?”
Now, her fingers trace my tattoos. She doesn’t mind that I’m hard for her. She just snuggles closer. “Um…I’m twenty-five. So, maybe seven years older?”
I shrug. “Higher.”
“Ten years?”
I cup her chin. “Higher.”
“Twelve?”
I kiss her, slow and deep, because she deserves it. She deserves to be rocked down to her bone matter…all night long.
“Why do you like me calling you Vinny?” she asks, her throat still arched in longing.
“Sounds better coming from you than all the crowd cheers. Used to make me feel like a weapon. But you make me feel like ashield.”
“I like that. A shield.”
