By the Book (25 page)

“Not
just
for myself. Or just for Georgia. But both.
Fuck
.” I leaned in to the curve of his neck where it became shoulder, and we must have looked like two vampires drinking from each other. “The more I found out about you, the more I realized…”

“The more you realized…?” He lifted his head slightly, turned to my face. Our jaws touched, mine clean-shaven and smooth against his neatly trimmed stubble.

“The more I realized I didn’t want you to be someone we brought in occasionally.” I stopped. I’d probably already said enough. Way too much. Just because we’d fucked, just because I’d turned my life upside down for him, didn’t mean a thing. Who knew what this was to him, really? A bit of fun? Something temporary, we’ll see how it goes, we’ll fuck as long as it feels good and then be on our merry way?
I wanted you there all the time, Daniel
. So I couldn’t say it out loud? I’d make do with articulating the words in my mind.
I want you there all the time. I’m addicted to what you do to me. I don’t want to leave this alone
. “You’re the first man I wanted like that.” There. I’d blurted it out. No going back.
Right from the beginning, I wanted you.

Daniel said nothing, just ran a fingertip over my mouth, tracing the line of my top lip.

“It’s strange. I can’t describe it.” I closed my eyes, shook my head once, twice. Even if I could find a way to properly articulate that initial curiosity I’d felt when he’d first walked into the library, how could I force my mouth to form the words to describe that acquisitiveness, that wanting that grew into a desperate
need
to see him again?

I wanted Daniel. And not just as a one-off or as a third for Georgia. I wanted him to stay. And I wanted him to—

“Fuck me.”

He flinched; I could have sworn to it. “You what?”

“You heard.” I probably sounded a lot more assertive than I felt. “I want… I need…”

Daniel’s eyebrows lifted. Silently bade me
continue.

“I’ve just…” I held my hands to his face, pulled him in for a kiss, and whispered against his mouth, “I’ve had the worst day in a long while, and I just want…” His presence hypnotized me, lulled me into a dream state where all I knew was how much I wanted Daniel’s hands on me. “I just want you to…”
Make it better. Remind me why I’m doing this. Show me what—

“If you’re sure.”

“Of course I am.” Strange how the only person capable of making me feel better was the very cause of my entire world turning upside down. The eye of the storm, while all about us raged.

We stumbled along the hall to the bedroom, and Daniel reached behind my back to work the door handle while his other hand strayed to my waist. It had been like this from the very beginning, him guiding me into something I couldn’t see.

“We might not know what’s going on outside this room,” he murmured against my neck, backing me up against the bed, “but here at least. Now…” He lifted his head, looked me in the eye, and kissed me.

It was amazing—to me at least—how quickly I’d gone from being nervous about him even touching me to craving the very thing of which I’d been scared. I felt like I’d fallen into something I couldn’t get out of.

“It’ll be all right,” Daniel whispered. Once across the threshold of the room, he was quieter, more gentle, less forceful. He was here. I was here. “I’ll make it all right.” And he kissed me again, a breath away from my mouth, trailing the tip of his tongue along my jaw. “We’ll make it all right.”

My heart skipped at that word.
We
. Damn similar to
us
and the cause of just as much uncertainty.

Neither of us could see into the future. All we had was the here and now. And skin against skin as he pulled my shirt over my head and I tugged at his jeans.

Without paying too much attention, we shed our clothes, dropping them wherever, and fell onto the bed. Neither of us lifted our hands away from the other for more than a few seconds while we shifted position, and always, always, always, mine went back to his neck, shoulders, jaw. It didn’t matter where, just as long as my hands made near-constant contact with his skin and his mouth didn’t stop doing what it did to my neck.

“Jesus, Reece.” The low growl of his words vibrated against my throat. “I don’t want to wait; I just want to get inside you—
ah
, oh God…”

Daniel’s voice faltered when I wrapped my fingers round his cock and stroked him slowly. Once. Twice.

“Reece, you don’t know what you’re doing to me. You really don’t—Jesus, stop. Stop, stop, stop.”

I did but kept my hand on him, and above me as we lay on the bed, he propped himself up on both forearms and stared, his lower lip trembling as if he was one hard-drawn breath from losing control.

“Don’t.” He dipped his head close, so close, until our foreheads nearly touched. “Don’t move.”

We were even quieter than normal. Daniel was a talker, and I could be too under the right circumstances, and he liked to go slow, but this? We moved through treacle. Everything between us was on slowdown. Everything but our heart rates.

“Your hand.” He gulped. Silently, but his throat rippled, his body betraying what his mouth would keep under control. “You’ll make me come.” He swallowed again, less tense this time, with his eyes screwed shut. Maybe not seeing me made it easier for him to maintain some semblance of dignity and control.

I squeezed. Gently. Just to remind him someone else was there and that someone was me.

“Fuck.” His eyes flew open, widened, and he groaned, the air rushing from his lungs in one helpless
whoosh
, cooling the skin of my face. “Not yet.”

“Yes.” Pause. “Now.”

“I’ve gotta get a condom on and fuck you this instant or I swear, Reece, I’ll…” Daniel looked me in the eye and flinched, eventually moving away from me, reaching for the bedside table.

Neither of us said a word.

I watched him tear open the foil square and roll the condom on. It was only when his hand went for the lube bottle that I moved, and Daniel must have felt my weight shift.

Daniel looked over his shoulder. “No. Don’t.”

I lifted my eyebrows in inquiry. The only thing that could tear
my
eyes away from that glorious fucking ink was the promise in
his.

“Stay where you are.”

“Don’t you want me—”

“Just how you are.” He stroked on the lube and in an instant was over me again. “I want to look at you.”

His words made my spine tingle, but when his cock touched me, sparks exploded at the nape of my neck.

“Oh
fuck
.”

Daniel froze. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Which was almost the truth.

“Sure?”

“
Yes
. Yes, I’m sure.”

He went deeper, kept his eyes closed, and above the bridge of his nose, two vertical lines appeared, the ghost of a frown. “God, you feel so, so…”

I couldn’t decide whether to hold on to his shoulders or touch his neck, but when my palms moved up and brushed his stubble at the exact moment he slid in another inch, I was gone.

Whose gasp was louder I didn’t know, but his eyes opened, and they were darker—or deeper—then.

“How do I feel?” I pulled him down toward me, desperate to kiss him again, though distracted by the sensations his every movement inside me caused. Like lightning or sparks or feelings so intense they threatened to cross the border between pleasurable and uncomfortable.

“You. Feel…” Daniel’s cool breath against my face punctuated his speech with a cross between gasps and moans, and I couldn’t decide whether I most wanted to listen to his struggle for air or feel the way he moved inside me. When Daniel Cross was involved, I was hopeless, absolutely hopeless, at making decisions. All I knew was that I liked what he did to me and I wanted him to keep doing it.

“This is fucking unbelievable,” he whispered against my mouth, rocking back and forward, only pulling out a little way but pushing in deeper every time he moved forward. “Jesus fucking Christ, Reece, there’s nothing like…” He moaned, his lips parting with each exhalation until I arched my neck just enough to kiss him. “Fuck, there’s nothing like… Oh God, I…”

Daniel couldn’t have moved more slowly if he’d tried, but his restraint did nothing to lessen the ripples up my spine or stop my eyes watering.

“
Fuck
, that’s intense.”

“You like that?” He looked down at me, his eyes smiling as much as his lips ever did. “You like it when I fuck you this way?” Without waiting for my reply—as if I was capable of giving one—he kissed me again, his tongue moving as slowly as his cock did.

Daniel tried to break off the kiss, but I liked what his tongue did too much to let him go, and held him tighter. His stubble rasped against the palms of my hands, almost burning, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care how foreign these physical feelings were; it was
Daniel’s
stubble under my hands,
Daniel’s
kiss I tasted,
Daniel’s cock
inching back and sliding in, each stroke easier and deeper than the last. As if his cock was made to do this to me, as if—

“Jesus.” His head fell forward, and he ended up whispering right in my ear, “I can’t decide whether I want to fucking rail you or—”

“No.” I gulped. “I
want
… Go slowly. Don’t stop the way you—Oh Jesus, just like…” Couldn’t catch my breath, even though he’d never moved like that ever before, so…so
tenderly
. “That…” The single word exhaled with my breath, a plea for him to never stop.

“You like that?” Holding himself up on his forearms, hands in my hair now, Daniel kept speaking, gasping into my mouth every time his cock moved all the way inside me. “You like it when I move this way?”

Something in his tone pleaded, desperate for an answer, but his slow strokes gradually took my breath away and with them my ability to speak. All I could do was slide my arms round his body, grab ahold of his hips, and pull him into me or follow his movements. I wasn’t sure which one of us led; all I knew was every stroke drove me closer to the edge of something.

Christ, he can’t be making me come this way, he can’t, it’s not poss—Ah, Jesus—

Daniel smoothed my sweat-dampened hair off my forehead and stared, his gaze occasionally flitting to my mouth whenever I licked my lips, gasped, or tried to speak. But mostly he looked into my eyes, and I didn’t know if it was the intensity of how he fucked me or
looked
at me that did me in.

“God, you’re…” He moved from the hips, his every withdrawal making me want to say
no, don’t
, and when he pushed back in, every part of me said
fuck yes, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

He sped up almost imperceptibly, the only giveaways being the way his breath became shallower, his hands tightened in my hair, those bolts of pleasure shot up my spine even quicker than before.

I couldn’t speak, but that didn’t matter; instinctively Daniel moved in the way I wanted him to, gradually speeding up though not enough to cause me any discomfort. Holding back enough to leave me wanting more.

The bed creaked beneath us as we fell into mutual silence, the only other sound in the room being the brush of skin against skin. My hands dug into his back and caressed a tattoo I couldn’t see anywhere but in my mind’s eye.

Daniel’s breaths moved from gasps to moans to helpless whimpers to the merest exhalations against my face, his eyes falling in and out of focus every time he drew back from kissing me.

God, yes, he’s really gonna make me—

I threw my head back, fighting for air, only aware of how tightly I held on and the warmth of Daniel’s breath on my neck, his occasional throaty growls telling me he was nearly there.

And every time he moved, his skin was more slippery with sweat than the last time he drew his hips back and fucked me. “Oh God, I’m gonna…”

So you’re the first of us to regain the power of speech?

The desperation in his voice drove
me
closer. “Wait. I…” Though now I spoke, every word reduced my reserves of energy even further, bleeding me dry of my strength or ability to think. “I’m gonna—”

He looked at me, right at me,
into
me and slowed momentarily, checking I was all right, I assumed, but something in my face must have told him not to stop.

“Daniel.”

“Reece.” He leaned in to kiss my jaw, his breaths warming and yet tickling my neck. “I need to come, but oh
fuck
, just tell me…”

“Just—just keep… Jesus, Daniel, I—” The closeness of orgasm choked any words in my throat, and with just one more stroke inside me, my eyes watered. A second and my vision clouded over. A third and I let go of him. Every nerve ending in my body tingled far too much for me to hold on, and when he moved into me again, a fourth, deep thrust, my back arched off the bed and I came. “
Fuck
, oh fuck, Daniel—”

“You…” He pulled back, then slammed his cock back into me, riding the aftershocks of my orgasm to his own. “Feel.
So
. Fucking…” Back. And forth. “
Good
.” He collapsed against me, panting a few times, then moaning. His heart thudded hard enough for me to feel the quiet vibration against my chest, and to silence him for a minute while he got his breath back.

I looked at him, his eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion, and ran my fingers through his hair. “Well.” I laughed although no one had told me the joke. “I didn’t think
that
would happen.”

A lazy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Fucking hot when it does though.”

“Mmm.” Lying back and closing my eyes, I murmured, “I guess I should get up for a shower.”

“And I should get rid of this.” Easing out of me, Daniel continued to look me in the face, and the smile melted away as his brow furrowed. “That really was something else, you know.” And he kissed me.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and let them fall back onto the pillow behind me.

“Listen.”

I met his gaze, waited for him to speak again.

“I know you were…
are
upset about Georgia.”

I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t bother in the end because he spoke the truth.