I glance down at Celeste’s Kindle and see a suggestive phrasing that makes my mouth twitch despite the briefing. Iglance down: a sentence about “tender restraint” and “slow, deliberate binding.”
My voice goes tight. “Orion—can we park the forensics? I’ll give you a call about the Ashburn stuff later.”
“Uh—sure?” he says, confusion lacing his tone. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, keeping my tone light. “Talk soon.”
I disconnect the call and toss the phone back on the table.
I look up at Celeste. She’s on her side, staring at the Kindle balanced on my chest, hair falling over one eye, that smirk already forming. “What are you reading?”
She lifts it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “A very kinky novella,” she says, eyes bright.
“Kinky?” I ask, the way she says it makes my mouth go dry.
“Mm-hmm.” She rolls toward me, hair spilling gold across the pillow. “It’s funny, but the sex is very kinky and very specific. It all starts when some riggers meet at a yoyo competition.”
Her smirk deepens, equal parts wicked and soft, and something in me tightens. She’s sprawled across my chest, she’s wearing my shirt, and her bare legs are crossed at the ankle.
Heat wakes low and dangerous. “Is it… something you want to try?” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to be. “I don’t want to assume. Not after everything.”
She meets me without blinking. “We can halfway try it; there are two men and a woman. I think I’m ready, I trust you, and I’ll try anything once with you.”
Those words are a fuse. My head fills with images, and my body answers before my brain can file the consequences. I swallow, need an anchor. “So… what’s happening in the book right now?”
Her lips curl in challenge and invitation braided together. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah. Because whatever it is in that book… I’m about to give you as much of the real version as I can.”
She laughs, and the sound is a match struck in the dark. The tension between us hums, electric and inevitable.
36
Lucian
Her hair spills over her shoulder like liquid gold, catching the warm light of the sun. The frayed hem of my old shirt rides high on her smooth thighs, bare legs stretched out before me like an offering. Mine. She looks like mine, smells like vanilla and that jasmine lotion she keeps by the bed, and fuck if my chest doesn’t ache just staring at her, all flushed and eager.
“Start from the beginning,” I tell her, my voice dropping an octave as I fight to regain control after glimpsing the explicit page she’s on. “Read it to me. Word for word. And I’ll make sure you feel every single line against your skin.”
Her lips curve, wicked and soft all at once, the tip of her tongue darting out to wet them before she begins reading in that honeyed voice that makes my blood run hot.
The heroine in her book is tied up and made to beg. With deliberate movements, I mirror the scene, arranging Celestealmost exactly as she describes. My cock strains painfully against my zipper as she reads about the character’s position in breathless detail. She’s on her back, so I guide Celeste down against the cool sheets. The heroine has a pillow beneath her hips, so I slide one under Celeste, tilting her pelvis up in offering. In my mind, I see her wrists bound with soft rope, her thighs parted and trembling, eyes half-lidded and pleading as she waits for me to take her apart inch by exquisite inch.
A shiver quivers along her spine as I ease myself between her thighs, the fabric of her panties warm and yielding under my palm. My fingers trace a slow arc up her inner thigh until I press into the wet heat already pooling there. Her breath hitches, and I smirk against her skin.
“You’re dripping for me already?” I murmur, the rough pad of my finger nudging just enough to elicit a tiny gasp. “One little book and you’re soaking my hand. You like it that much?”
Her quiet, breathy “Yes—” trails off before she turns back to her book, never faltering over the lines. Good girl.
The next sentence describes one of the men widening the woman’s thighs, teasing her until her thoughts dissolve. So I do exactly that: I part her knees, lowering my mouth until my tongue tastes the sweet shine of her arousal. The salt of her need warms every nerve in me.
“Louder,” I instruct, dragging my tongue in slow, deliberate strokes. “I need you to read louder. I can’t hear your words when your thighs are covering my ears.”
Her voice trembles, but she obeys. Words tumble from her lips in ragged fragments, each syllable punctuated by the subtle stutter of her hips as they jerk against my face. Her thighs quiver, framing me in a trembling, needy cage. With each filthy lick, I murmur praise between her lines.
“Good girl—keep reading. Fuck, you sound perfect like this. So needy, such a desperate little mess.”
Her grip on the Kindle falters, but I won’t let her stop. Two fingers curl inside her, pressing deep, pulsing fast. She cries out, and her back arches as she crashes over the edge. I hold her there, drinking in every shuddering sob.
