Connor reached for my wrists, easing my hands away from my face. “Hey,” he soothed me, grinning, eyes glistening with unmistakable pride. “You don’t have to hide.”
“I do,” I volleyed back. “I’ve never…” I started, then stopped myself. Admitting that wouldn’t help my level of embarrassment here.
“What if I tell you, it’s also a first for me?”
I laughed once, breathless and disbelieving. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he told me easily. “I didn’t even know it could happen like that.” His mouth curved. “Didn’t knowIcould make it happen.”
And he was smug. So, so smug, but he was also being sweet. His smile hadn’t faded once; he looked so damn proud, his chest was by his ears.
“Oh,” I said faintly.
His thumb brushed my wrist, grounding. “Hey,” he added, gentler now. “I’m not saying it to make you freak out.”
“It doesn’t make it less mortifying, though.”
He licked his lips. “Maybe not,” he agreed. “But it does make it ours.”
My embarrassment didn’t disappear, but it did shift. I no longer felt overheated because of it. Instead, I was warm and tingly because of him. Because he’d just claimed something for us. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“And for the record,” he added, “that was the hottest fecking thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re never going to let this go.”
His smile widened, unrepentant. “Absolutely not.”
I huffed a laugh, rolling my eyes, but my fingers tightened around his wrist instead of pulling away. “I hate you,” I said, without conviction.
“No, you don’t,” he replied easily. “You can’t hate me when I’m the one who can do that.”
I pushed at his chest, but he barely moved, and I didn’t push again. Our eyes locked and stayed there. He was right; I didn’t hate him.
“I think you like the buzz you get from knowing I can claim your body. The knowledge that I’m a sure thing for you, because I am. I’ll let you hate fuck me or make love to me as long as it’s me who you’re doing it with.”
I couldn’t find the words to agree with him, but he knew. I think he knew. I needed to gain a little more control over what was quickly spiraling into something much more than I’d bargained for tonight.
So I said, “Strip.”
The pause was brief but telling. His breath changed. His pupils dilated. And when he stepped back, his attention remained fixed on me like I’d just flipped the switch back on. Whatever control I thought I’d reclaimed only seemed to feed him. I loved it.
He reached to the back of his neck, arms flexing as he moved, and pulled his shirt over his head on one swooping motion. Tossing it to the floor, he never dropped his gaze from mine. His pants went down, and out sprang his hard, leaking dick that I’d forgotten was pierced in my blissed-out state. My pussy clenched at the sight of his thick torso, his Adonis belt all pointing to it.
“Fuck,” I panted. “I didn’t get a good look this morning.” As soon as I said it, I realized that was meant to be an internal thought, not for him to hear.
He huffed a groan, wrapping his hand around it and tugging toward me. I shifted closer, needing it. “I need you to do more than look, sunshine. I need you to get it wet for me. Spit on it. Or you could let me fuck you.”
I’d had sex before, and I knew the idea was that both parties get a release from it. What I miscalculated was the ability to become completely compliant and mentally beg for it. Connor had somehow short-circuited my brain into believing that he would be the only man to ever be able to give me multiple orgasms. And I couldn’t beg. At least not yet.
I inhaled slowly, forcing my pulse to settle, forcing my body to remember that I could choose this. That I didn’t have to fold just because he’s figured out exactly how to undo me.
When I looked back at him, I didn’t rush. I didn’t touch. I let the silence stretch a little more. I tipped my head, letting my gaze drag over him the way his had done to me earlier, watching his hand move up and down, never giving himself what he really needed.
“Don’t stop touching yourself,” I said with a hint of demand to my tone. I’d never done this before, rarely taken control, but he made me want to. “When did you get the piercings?”
“It’s just one, the bar sits under the head. It’s called a frenum piercing. I got it when I was eighteen.”
So he’d had it in college, since I’d known him. A pang of possession startled me at the idea of anyone else seeing him like this. I didn’t like it. I needed to focus on him.
