Truly (New York Trilogy #1) (28 page)

When he eased away, the air changed without his skin in it. She felt it as a loss, her whole body pleading for his return.

Huh
. Maybe she hadn’t been as not-into-it as she’d thought. A rapid scan told her that her nipples ached, and she was damp between her legs. It was only her head that needed to get with the program. Her head was the freak.

And Ben was getting away, his eyes gone cool and cautious because he’d heard about Dan being in Michigan. Damn it.

“It’s too soon,” he confirmed. “I shouldn’t have …” He lifted one arm and raked his hand up the back of his head, exposing the dark hair under his arm. His shoulder and bicep muscles bunched, and her lower abdomen filled with heavy, liquid heat.

God, he looked really good without any clothes on. Taut and powerful, all that golden skin and the trail of hair leading down his stomach, where he—

“This is too much for you,” he said.

But she’d be willing to bet it was exactly the right size.

She wondered what would happen if she whipped off his towel and took him in her hand. How different life would be if she were the kind of person who could do that. Drop to her knees, suck him off in the hallway. Redirect his attention from her body to his own, until all he could think about was what he needed, and all he could do was take it.

Ben sighed. Because she’d gone mute, no doubt, while she stared at his crotch. But the sigh made him seem mildly irritated, and she wondered if this was all a performance. If he was only being nice.

Yeah, May. In Manhattan, all good hosts tell their guests they want to go down on them
.

“I’m going to get dressed.” He started toward the bedroom.

For two steps, she watched him go. Three. Her heart squeezed hard, her inner asshole chastising her,
Stupid, stupid
, and then it happened all at once. A bright flash of anger—at herself, at every movie and TV show and magazine, every insidious cultural message that had ever told her that her body sucked.

It was all a bunch of lies, and she knew that. She
knew
it. But here she was, letting it ruin everything.

Stop being an idiot and fix this
.

Get out of your own goddamn way
.

She got indignant in a bright, hot rush, and she moved all at once, with too much force, so that by the time Ben reached the bedroom door she was pushing him, bumping up against him, colliding with his body until he tumbled onto the bed and she fell on top of him.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.”

“Jesus, May!”

“I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to—”

He flipped over and rose to his elbows. His mouth was scowling, his eyebrows dark and drawn together, just the way he’d looked when she met him.
Not the kind of guy a woman wants to pin her hopes and dreams on
, she remembered thinking, and now she had him pinned down beneath her bare thighs. Right where she wanted him.

“Is this supposed to be foreplay?”

“I want you,” she blurted. “I suck at this, but I want you. I’m sorry. It’s not too soon.”

He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows relaxed when she reached behind her to unhook her bra. Her fingers stalled.

“Really,” she added.

He was staring at her breasts, which, yeah, she could see why. They were trying to fall out of the bra. It was a good bra, the priciest she’d ever bought, and she could appreciate what the view must look like to Ben.

Also, there were other clues. His hands made fists in the comforter. His jaw couldn’t have been more sharply defined if it had been carved from a slab of granite.

“Do
you
want to do this?” she asked. A stupid question. She knew he did. She just needed to hear it again.

“I jerked off in the shower a minute ago,” he said absently. He was still staring at her breasts like he wanted to eat them.

The confession hit her strangely. One part surprise, one part maidenish dismay, three parts conflagration in her crotch.

“What? Why?”

“Couldn’t help it. Plus, I thought it might take the edge off.”

“That’s …” She tried to think what that was, other than shocking and unexpected and surprising and wonderful. “That’s really hot.”

His eyes flicked up to hers. “You think?”

She nodded, unable to speak because she’d begun melting down internally, turning into a liquid puddle of goo at the mental image of Ben with water streaming over him and his hand stroking himself as he thought of her.
Her
.

“What did you … What were you thinking about?”

He angled his head toward her breasts.

“Typical.”

“And your legs.” He shifted his gaze to her thighs. “Wrapped around me.”

He pushed himself up onto his hands, bringing his face really close. His voice turned dark and dangerous. “How it’s going to feel to be inside you. That’s what I want the most, May. To get inside you. Figure out what makes you moan, how to get you off.”

“Can you …” She had to stop to take a breath. He was so close, and his words had already gotten inside her somehow and scrambled everything. Plucked the desire from her head and sent it racing through her bloodstream. She was embarrassingly wet and completely discombobulated.

“Can you go again?” she asked. “Right away, I mean, or is it too soon? Because if we need to wait—”

He surged up, took her shoulders, and flipped her over onto her back. The towel was trapped beneath her, a damp lump at her hip, and Ben was hard warm skin, pressing everywhere on her at once.

“You think too much,” he said.

“I do.”

“My new purpose in life is to make you stop thinking.”

“Oh please,” she said, and he finally kissed her.

It didn’t take long. His tongue stroked into her mouth, and her brain shut off with such abrupt definitiveness, she thought she might have actually
heard
it.

She wrapped her legs around him, brushed her fingers through his cool hair, tangled her tongue with his, her breath with his. They went from awkward to frantic in five seconds as she tried to touch him absolutely everywhere at the same time that he kissed her silly.

And she did feel silly now, to have worried about this. They’d already done this part, and it had been awesome. What the hell was her problem?

No more. No more of that, ever
.

He stroked her side, holding his weight on one elbow so he could run his hand down her waist, over her hip, along her thigh to pull it higher and tighter against him. He stiffened against the crotch of her panties, a burgeoning new pressure right where she wanted it.

He licked over her lip and sucked it into his mouth. She touched his shoulders, his back, the shallow ditch of his spine, the muscles at his hips. That tight ass, performing a gratifying slow thrust against her that made her bite her lip and suck in a deep breath through her nose.

Kiss my breasts
, she thought.
Suck my nipples
.

But he kissed her mouth, and that was a disappointment. It would be so much easier if he just knew. That was the thing about sex that always got to her—that as much as people liked to pretend it was this fantastic melting of one body into another, this full-on mind and body meld, in fact she’d never managed to achieve wordless communication during sex, and she was too embarrassed to say the words out loud.

Which was sad, now that she thought about it. Would she never be able to say them? At what point in her life did she think it would be
time
to start saying sex words, if not now?

Ben rose onto his hands. “May,” he said sternly.

“What?”

“You’re thinking again.”

“Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“No. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She could feel her eyes widen, because no.
No
.

But that new voice, that get-out-of-your-own-way voice, whispered,
Yes. Do
.

“Tell me,” he repeated. “I don’t care what it is. Tell me I’m a shitty kisser or you’re worried my dick’s too small. Tell me you want me to tie you up and lob tennis balls at you. Tell me you’re worried about flesh-eating bacteria. I don’t give a shit what you say, but you’re going to tell me.”

“Tennis balls?”

“Tell me.”

May gathered her courage.

“I was thinking … I wanted you to kiss my—” She closed her eyes. “My breasts.”

Silence.

Her lids opened to incredulous staring.

“What, is that so weird?”

“You couldn’t say that out loud?”

“Well, it wasn’t just that. I wanted you to … suck my nipples, too.”

He watched her for a moment, and then he sat up to one side. “Take off your bra.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

She obediently lifted off the bed and undid the clasp, then eased it off her arms. When she had it free, she handed it to him. He tossed it over his shoulder.

“Now your underwear.”

Heat crept into her cheeks, but she did as she was told, hooking her thumbs into the waistband and pushing. She had to sit up halfway to untangle her feet, which created fat rolls that he must have seen, and she hated that, but whatever.
Whatever
.

She handed him the panties. He lifted and inspected them, smiled like an evil, evil person, and threw them on the floor.

“Say
pussy
.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Say
pussy
. Or is that not what you call it?”

What did she call it? She didn’t call it anything. All her sex words were for other people’s body parts. Ben had a
cock
, when she let herself think the word, but
pussy
? In reference to herself?

“I—I’m not sure I want to.”

He laid his hand on her stomach and rested it there. Leaned closer. “Say it anyway.”

This was dumb. She didn’t like it. She wouldn’t say it.

He couldn’t make her.

“No.”

Ben smiled. It was a depraved smile. How had she not realized before how depraved he was? She was in trouble.

“Somebody really messed with your head, didn’t they, May-Belle?”

“Not that I know of.”

He dropped down onto one elbow beside her, propped his head in one hand, and said, “I want to lick your pussy.”

She closed her eyes, the words like a slap. A sting of surprise, followed by a warm wash of pleasure.

“Some people would call it a
cunt
. Do you like that word, May?” She wouldn’t open her eyes, but she felt him lean closer. “No, you don’t. Your forehead got all unhappy. All right, we won’t use that one. We’ll go with
pussy
. I want to lick your pussy and suck on your clit.”

He paused, gauging her reaction, which was basically that her hips jerked, and everything that was already wet got wetter. “I’m going to suck your nipples and bite them, because you liked it when I bit you earlier. I’m going to kiss you over and over again, because your mouth drives me crazy, and then I’m going to sink inside you and fuck you until you’re half blind and begging me to let you come.”

May gasped. Somewhere in the middle of that speech, she’d lost the ability to breathe. He wasn’t even touching her, but she was dying,
dying
.

“But not,” Ben said, “until you start telling me what you need.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“You sure as hell can. You already did. You
need
me to kiss your breasts, right?”

“Yes.”

He dipped his head and placed a chaste kiss on the top swell of one breast. “Like this?”

“No.”

“How?”

“Harder. More …” Oh, damn him for making her do this. Why couldn’t he
guess
?

“More wet and … and—Come on, Ben. You know.”

He chuckled. “Sometimes I know. Sometimes I don’t know. Do
you
know what I want right now?”

“You just said.”

“That was my long-term plan. Right this second, I want to know you trust me.”

“Of course I trust you.” She was here, wasn’t she? Naked in his bed? Did he think she did this all the time?

“I want you to trust that you can say anything to me, confess what you want, and I’m not going to judge you. I won’t laugh. I’ll give it to you.” He paused and lifted his head to meet her eyes. “Unless you want, like, three other guys in here with us. That’s not happening.”

May smiled. “I don’t want three other guys.” She stroked the back of her knuckles over his cheek. “I trust you.”

“So tell me.”

She took a deep breath. She could do this. He was right that she needed to. What he was talking about—asking for what she wanted, taking what she needed—that was the foundation of intimacy, and she’d never had it. Not with Dan, and not with the guys who came before him. Sex, yes. But the kind of trust it took to say what she wanted out loud?

Never.

This was her chance. The first time in her whole confined, bounded adulthood when she could tell the truth in bed. Demand things.

She looked at the ceiling. “I, uh. I like it hard.”

“Okay.”

“Kind of … rough? Like when you can’t quite control yourself, that’s the part I like.”

“What else?”

Another deep breath. This wasn’t actually getting any easier. It was humiliating and difficult.

But Ben was listening, and he wasn’t trying to humiliate her.

“My nipples,” she said. “I like it when you play with them. Suck them, bite them. Sometimes I’ll push you away, because it’s too much, but in the good way. Like I want you to, but I don’t want you to. And then … then I guess I hope you’ll read my mind, and suck harder, or twist harder.”

Ben grinned. He stroked his hand over her stomach. “You’re fun, you know that?”

“I’m dying. This is actually killing me. In a minute, I’ll be dead.”

“You’re doing great. What else? What’s it take to make you come?”

She looked at the ceiling again, and he gently took her face in his hand and turned it toward him. “Look at me,” he said.

“Honestly? It doesn’t take that much.”

“You can come with just my cock?”

Her sex clenched, her stomach tightening beneath his hand. Ben grinned again. “You know,” he said slowly, “you’re a really intriguing mix of prude and pervert.”