“You don’t want me to?” She raised an eyebrow with her voice all innocent and sweet-sounding. But the look in her eyes told me she already knew the answer to her question and just wanted to watch me try to fight it.
I let out a breath, leaned back, and put an arm behind my head.
She grinned, waiting exactly long enough for me to not have an answer. Then she continued.
I was experienced with women and I had never once lost my composure in these situations. I was good at this. I stayed present and attentive and in control of myself. I delivered and that was that.
There was nothing in my experience that had prepared me for the combination of Alyssa’s confidence, attention, and that she was looking up at me with those soul-piercing eyes like she wasenjoyingit. Genuinely, enthusiastically present in a way that was?—
“Mmph,” I grunted and exhaled through my nose. I looked at the ceiling. Then I looked back down at her.
She held my gaze and her expression saidthat’s right.My jaw clenched, and my hand found her hair, and every thought I’d had on my run about patience and limits and taking it slow evaporated.
I knew she wasn’t timid. I’d watched her argue a point she knew she was right about with the precision of the lawyer she was. I’d watched her run miles she had no business running on pure will. I hadn’t connected all of that tothis. She wasn’t timid anywhere. She’d just been caged. Notgiven the safety or the partner who made her know that all of her was welcome.
She had that in me, and she was making it abundantly clear what Alyssa Carter did when she felt it.
My hand tightened slightly in her hair. “Lyss…” I hissed. “I’m about t?—”
She looked up at me, then sank down deeper, while both her hands twisted around me like she was working a pepper grinder.
“Alyssa!” I tapped her shoulder and groaned her name once more. Another warning. The last considerate thing I could manage.
She pulled back, opened her mouth wide while looking me dead in my eyes, slapped it on her tongue twice, then sank back down, hitting her throat.
I stopped being able to think in complete sentences.
“Fuuuuuuuuu…” I grumbled as every nerve in my body went haywire. My thoughts blurred into the sensation, each breath more desperate than the last.
By the time I released, I felt emptied, heavy and weightless all at once. I slumped back against my pillow, eyes half closed, trying to slow my breathing and collect myself, staring into space. Stunned.
I was aware that she had moved. She kissed up my stomach lightly, pleased with herself and having every right to be. I was aware of that happening, but I wasn’t able to respond to it because I was somewhere outside my body trying to locate my composure.
“I’m going to shower.” Her voice was soft, completely unbothered by the fact that she had just sucked the soul out of my body and I lay there waiting for it to settle back in.
“Do you have anything I can borrow? A t-shirt, sweats, or something?”
I said nothing. Couldn’t.
“Julian.”
Still nothing. I was looking at the ceiling. The ceiling was helping.
“Julian?”
I turned my head and she was looking at me with a grin that meant she knew exactly what she’d done and found it amusing.
“Hm?”
“Do you have clothes I can borrow?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. I’ll… yes. I’ll bring you something.”
She stifled a chuckle, and leaned over and kissed my cheek. Then shepadded toward the bathroom, and I tracked every step with my ears, until I heard the door close behind her.
I lay there a moment longer, still looking at the ceiling thinking about the man who had been carefully mapping out his patient and generous approach to our sex life.
That’s what you thought,something in me said. I flung my arm across my face and laughed. Once.
