Five Days Grace (29 page)

His gaze was so intent, it felt like a physical presence on her skin, and her nipple turned hard as a pebble. She ached for him to touch her, especially there. How long she could keep tormenting them both, she didn't know. But she had the man's full attention, and she'd bet every thought in his head was a happy one at the moment.

She pulled her top off and threw it aside. Pushing past her own inhibitions—for him, just for him—she let her own hands slide up her ribcage and palm the underside of her breasts, imagining those hands were his big, hot, gentle, patient hands on her. They'd feel so good. She ached for those hands.

"Mmm," she said, because it was so easy to imagine his hands on her.

When she let her fingertips roll around her nipples, she earned another urgent hiss of breath from him. She thought she detected a hint of sweat along the line of his upper lip, and his eyes had turned so dark they were almost black in the firelight.

Not sure how far she could bring herself to take this, she let her hands sink down her belly, grazing the top of her pajama bottoms. They had a little string tie in the middle, tied in a bow. He groaned when her hands started playing with the strings.

"You've been thinking about these?" she asked, holding the ends of the strings.

"Yes."

"About what would happen if you let yourself pull this little string?"

"Yes."

She pulled one end until the bow disappeared. The pajamas were loose without the strings tied, loose enough to slide down her waist to the top of her hips, but no farther. He watched as her pajamas fell and then held low on her belly. She played with the skin there below her belly button and above the material, and he looked like he was being strangled.

"You're doing very well," she told him.

His expression turned even more grim. "The only thing keeping me going is knowing I get to do all of this to you."

She wondered for the first time exactly what he might want to do to her in return, realized with a bit of alarm that she really hadn't thought this through before she'd started it. She'd worry about that later. He was having a very good time, she thought, doing exactly as he'd been told.

Grace rewarded him with one, slow, delicious kiss and forgot for a second that she was naked from the waist up. Which meant when she leaned over to kiss him, her breasts ended up pressed against his bare chest, and didn't that feel perfectly delicious? Too good, actually, if she was going to keep playing this little game a while longer. Denying him, at this point, was denying herself, as well, and her whole body ached for him already.

She sat up, while she still could, breaking the kiss while he was trying to take it deeper. But he let her stop it. It gave her a delicious, little thrill that he'd given her this kind of control. She leaned over him again, propping her weight up on her arms, and sank down just enough that her nipples grazed his chest, and then she slowly crawled down his body, trying to keep them just like that. Barely touching him. She succeeded, kind of, laughing as she did it, and then gave up on that idea. Too many dips and swells to that chest and abdomen of his, rising and falling with every breath he took. Besides, she wanted to touch him all over, had hardly any patience left.

So she let herself lie there against him, one thigh slipping between his hard-muscled ones, her breasts pressed to the warm skin of his abdomen. She started licking him, that little hollow down the center of his chest that she'd traced with her fingertips, even nibbled on one of his bottom ribs.

His hand settled against her head once again. She could feel the tension in his fingers, but he didn't use any pressure, didn't try to guide her in any way, just held his hand there on her. So she allowed the touch.

When she dragged her tongue across one of his nipples, his whole body bucked beneath hers and he groaned out loud, thrilling her to no end to know she could draw that kind of reaction from him. Especially when she knew how hard he was trying not to move.

She raised herself up on her arms, tried to give him a stern, disapproving look.

"You gotta be kidding me," he protested.

And she rose up on her knees and just stared at him, not touching him at all, until he looked properly sorry, or at least tormented. Then she turned her attention to his other nipple, licking it like a little girl with an ice cream cone and then sucking—hard—liking having that hard nub in her mouth as his breathing became ragged and his whole body tensed.

He cried out, and she stopped to ask, "Do you want me to stop?"

"No," he groaned.

She went back to licking that path of hers, down to his belly button, stopping to swirl her tongue inside, surprised at how much she liked that, the taste of his skin, the heat of him, the little tickle of the hairs on his belly. She traveled down her path until she got to the waistband of his sweats, and then, just to make him wait some more, spent some time trying to get her tongue down inside them.

The next time she sat up, she grabbed the waistband of his sweats and pulled. "Time for these to go. Help me."

He raised his hips up off the mattress, and she got his sweats down just a little bit when he reached out and stopped her. "Honey, I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. It's just... I can't, okay? I'd give anything if I could, but it's just not happening."

She sat up again. "We made a deal. It's still my turn."

"Really?" He swore softly. "You want to keep going with this?"

"Yes, I do." She pulled his sweats off completely. Nudging his thighs apart, she crawled between them until her knees were pressed against his inner thighs and her hands on the mattress beside his waist.

Oh, he was mad. Probably at himself and life in general, more than her.

Looking him right in the eyes, she eased her upper body down until her breasts were pressed against his thighs. Tilting her head sideways, she pressed her cheek against his cock.

She had the man's attention now.

Slowly, she slid her cheek down to the base of it and then opened up her mouth and took one long, lavish lick, all the way up to the tip of it. His whole body bowed against hers, his hand clenched in her hair, but he let her do it, his pupils flaring at the sight of her mouth on him.

"Does it feel good?" she asked.

"Yes, dammit! Yes!"

"I could take you inside my mouth. Lick, suck, tease, stroke," she offered, then waited. She wanted him to say it. Would he really deny them both that pleasure? "Do you want me to do that?"

"Yes."

So she did, lick, suck, tease, stroke, learning all the things he liked, as he groaned long and loud. Obviously, all the sensation was still there, whether he could get hard or not. So she went at it, finding it such a power trip to be able to give him this kind of intense pleasure. His hand was back in her hair, not trying to force anything, just holding on, the urgency of his need coming through in that touch all the same. The sounds he made were constant, little groans, gasps, the ragged breathing and finally a desperate-sounding, whispered, "Please."

She finally wrapped her hand firmly around the base of his cock and stroked, while she had the rest of him in her mouth. He cried out loud.

She used long strokes and all the pressure she could muster, up and down, luxuriating in feeling like she had such a big, strong man completely at her mercy. He thrust ever so gently against her mouth, the movement so sexy, adding to her pleasure.

Grace wasn't sure how long it went on. Not long enough for her. But she felt a change come over his body, an urgency, and she wasn't sure what was happening when he cried out once again, and pulled her off him.

She didn't understand at first. He took her hand and wrapped it around his cock, pumped once, then again, and then... He was coming? It seemed like he was. She picked up the motion he wanted, squeezing, pumping, milking him through it, loving the hoarse cries and watching the sensation move through his entire body, a thick, milky liquid spurting on his abdomen. Grace watched it all, feeling it in her own body, too, that delicious, hot, heavy satisfaction that comes from pleasing a man, from having her hands and mouth all over him.

He was shaking, swearing softly under his breath, eyes closed, hands fisted tightly, and then it was like every bit of tension in his body melted away, leaving him limp and sated beneath her. She watched all those gorgeous muscles in his chest and shoulders rise and fall with the urgent effort to draw breath, and thought, he was such a beautiful man, scars and all, and so powerful, so fierce, and yet so gentle at times.

And she ached even more for that, for his touch. It felt like if he touched her in the slightest way, she'd come apart herself, she was so turned on by everything she'd done to him.

When he finally opened his eyes, she was still grinning like crazy, couldn't help it. "Didn't know you could do that."

"Neither did I," he admitted, a hard stamp of pure pleasure across his whole face as he stared at her like she was some kind of sex goddess.

Grace didn't think anyone had ever given her the sex-goddess look before. She liked it a lot, laughed as she grabbed the shirt she'd worn to bed—didn't think she'd be needing that tonight—and started cleaning him up with it.

When she was done, he held out an arm to her and said, "Come here, baby."

She stretched out against his side once again, their legs entwined, her body leaning into his side. With one hand over his heart, she could feel that it was still thumping like crazy. He took her face in his hand and turned it to meet his, his lips finding hers for sweet, slow, sexy kisses as he slowly came down from that high.

"I never even thought about that happening," he said finally, his face so close to hers. "You... God, I didn't know I could feel like that. I was afraid I never would again. Not anything that good."

"Good. Because that's exactly what I was aiming for. More than you thought was possible."

Again, she got that sex goddess look from him. She basked in it, kissing him once, then again. She loved that connection, the intimacy, the heat, his tongue caressing hers, all the need she felt there, the shared pleasure. She hadn't kissed him nearly enough while she was having her way with him.

Breaking that kiss, easing back just enough so that she could look at him, she realized he looked different, too. Lines had eased in his handsome face. She saw joy in his eyes and his smile. This must have been how he looked before all the bad things, younger, even more confident, sexier if that was possible.

"Baby, I am so happy right now. I don't remember the last time I felt this good. Tell me you're happy, too."

"So happy," she said. "So much happier than I ever thought I'd be again."

"Good, because that's exactly what I'm aiming for." He held a hand to the side of her face, staring down at her like he wanted to drink in the moment, the feeling.

He rolled onto his side, one of his hard thighs slipping between hers, his body flush against hers, a naked, whole-body connection, and wasn't that a deliciously new sensation?

"Mmm," she moaned, thinking she could stay here with him like this forever. Their world would be nothing but the indulgence of mutual pleasure and a bit of conversation. There were still so many things she didn't know about him, and she wanted to know everything about the man, wanted to take care of him, to fill his world with joy.

His big, warm hand stroked softly down her side, coming to rest low on her hipbone, just above her pajama pants, and then slipped beneath them, cupping the bare skin of her hip. He watched her as he did it.

"So, am I right in thinking it's my turn now?" he asked.

She shivered just thinking about it, her body so turned on already. "Yes, it's your turn."

Quick as could be, he rolled her onto her back and was kneeling at her feet, tugging on her pajama pants. "Time for these to go. Tell me, when you loosened the tie on them, did you know they'd only fall so far? And catch right here on your hips? Because that was a really mean trick, teasing me that way, Grace."

"I thought they would," she admitted. "The tie's come undone, and they've caught on my hips before."

He groaned. "I've been staring at the little bowties on these pajamas of yours for what seems like forever, wanting to pull those strings loose."

But he didn't need to this time. She'd done it for him. All he had to do was tug, and off the pajama bottoms came, leaving her without a stitch on beneath his heated gaze. He sat down by her side and just looked at her at first. She closed her eyes, and it seemed like she could feel even that—him simply watching her. Like her whole body knew, and felt it like a touch, a delicious one.

"God, I don't know where to start," he said, and then she felt a barely there touch of his hand slowly moving down her body.

It was the same touch she'd used with him, and oh, it was just so good, left her skin, her body, begging for more in every place he touched.

"That's what you did to me," he said, his voice so low and sexy. "All over, forever, and told me not to move a muscle, not to touch you, not to do anything without your permission."

She moaned, couldn't help it. He hadn't told her that she couldn't, not yet.

"Did you know, baby? Did you know it felt like this? This good?"