World Enough and Time (6 page)

Something in the distance held his attention, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the sight of him. The wind whipped at his hair and batted at the sleeves and collar of his dark brown leather jacket. His jeans were just snug enough that they only acknowledged the wind with a hint of movement. I wasn’t usually the type to pay much attention to a man’s rear, but those jeans on that butt made my fingers curl, wishing they were in his back pockets.

I was a few steps away when he turned, and the smile that lit up his face nearly made me trip over my own feet. The warm light of the waning day picked out coppery highlights in his windblown hair and added a degree of richness to his already intense blue eyes.

Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful
.

He put a hand on my waist and kissed me lightly. Before he pulled away, he hesitated, starting back for more before quickly backing off. I didn’t know if he was concerned since we were out in public or if he just didn’t know how forward to be, but I didn’t push him.

“Long time, no see,” he said with a shy smile.

“Much too long,” I said. We both laughed, then dropped our gazes.

He glanced down the road, then back at me. “The, um, the restaurant’s a bit more packed than I expected. It’ll probably be an hour or more.”

“I don’t mind waiting.” I shrugged.

He smiled. “Their lobby’s crowded. You okay with waiting out here?”

“This is fine with me.”

So there we stayed, standing beside the railing in the parking lot. The question was there, unanswered in the silence that punctuated our conversations about everything but what we really wanted. I wasn’t quite sure why we both held back. Maybe it wasn’t something two almost-strangers could comfortably just come out and say. Connor was a man of few words, and I gathered he wasn’t the type to dance around a subject, but he was far too eloquent to say something like, “We have condoms now. Why don’t we just pick up where we left off?”

And so we danced. Jobs. Families. Friends. The past, the present, and with the exception of the rest of tonight, the future. He didn’t mention that he was moving in a few months and I didn’t ask; it wasn’t my business and I wasn’t looking any farther ahead than tomorrow morning. For now, we were just shooting the breeze until one of us worked up the nerve to go there.

“So when do you graduate?” I asked.

“June.
Finally
.”

“And you said you’re studying linguistics, right?”

He nodded.

“What made you go into that field?”

“I’m fascinated with language. It’s a powerful thing.” There was a hint of self-consciousness in the half-shrug and the downward flick of his eyes. “It was poetry that first got my attention, believe it or not.”

I blinked. “Is that right?”

Another nod. “I can’t write the stuff to save my life, but I love it.” Sliding his hands into his pockets, he looked at me. “Do you like poetry?”

“I’ll be honest,” I said. “I’ve never quite understood the attraction to a lot of it.”

He cocked his head and rested his hip against the railing. “Really?”

“There’s some beautiful poetry out there, don’t get me wrong, but for the most part…” I shrugged, running a hand through my hair as the wind tried to blow it into my face. “Some of it just seems so, I don’t know, overblown. Flowery metaphors when something far simpler would do.”

He smiled. “Understandable.” Pushing himself upright, he moved closer to me, one hand drifting over the small of my back.

Ahh, contact. Finally
.

“I prefer simplicity myself,” he said. “But sometimes there’s beauty and power in the way something’s written.” His hand went from my back to my side and he moved behind me, his body just barely touching mine. “Something can mean the same thing, but come across completely different depending upon how it’s said.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I guess I’ve just always preferred the more direct approach.”

He laughed, his free hand reclaiming a tendril of my hair from the wind and tucking it behind my ear. “Consider the situation you and I are in now.” His breath cooled the side of my neck and he lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “On one hand, I could quote Marvell and say ‘
If we had world enough, and time, this coyness lady were no crime
’.”

Something in his voice, or maybe it was the warmth of his body when his arms slid around my waist, made my breath catch. I turned around in his arms and swallowed hard. “And on the other hand?”

He kissed my neck and pulled me a little closer. “On the other hand…” When he raised his head, a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lip, but even in the fading light, the hunger in his eyes was unmistakable. “…I could just say, ‘life’s short, let’s fuck’.”

Chapter Seven

Falling together into Connor’s bed, we dragged each other down even while we pushed clothes out of the way. We were well beyond any desire to carefully remove each piece. Clothes weren’t gift wrap, not tonight, and the only purpose they served was to keep his skin from mine.

Shoes thumped to the floor. Connor struggled with my bra clasp again, but there was no time to waste, so I took care of it for him. While I did that, he unbuckled his belt with unsteady hands, but as soon as I dropped my bra off the side of the bed, he pushed me onto my back and sucked my nipple into his mouth. Resting his weight one arm, he used his free hand to get his zipper undone and push his jeans over his hips.

We separated to get the rest of our clothes off. After he tossed his jeans aside, he leaned over to the nightstand. He grabbed a couple of condoms out of the drawer and set them beside the lamp, keeping them within easy reach. The sight of the square packets made my hands shake. Nothing standing in the way now. Nothing keeping us from what we’d wanted so badly the other night.

Our eyes met and we both froze, staring at each other as lust held us in suspended animation, as if we were both unsure if we dared to release this energy.

In the next instant, I was in his arms, and we tumbled down together, and when he breathed, it was my breath he drew, and whatever thought we might have had of containing this hunger was a distant memory. His hands were everywhere—touching, grasping, feeling, seeking—while he kissed my neck, my shoulder, my lips. His breath came in short, shallow gasps that rushed across my skin. Up until now, he’d been the very picture of calm and controlled, but in my arms, he unraveled.

“I usually take my time,” he said, panting against my lips in between kisses. “I usually—” Another kiss and a shiver when I ran my nails up his back. “But I want—”

“Please,” I whimpered.

Uncertainty flickered across his expression, but as quickly as it was there, it was gone. Whatever question had been in his eyes, he found the answer in mine, because he lunged for the nightstand.

When he came back, he looked at me and said, “I want you on top.” He tore the wrapper with his teeth.

We changed position and my mouth watered as he rolled on the condom. I’d never been with a man with a cock as thick as Connor’s, and I was simultaneously unsure if I could accommodate him and damned sure that I wanted to.

I straddled him and he rested his hand on my waist. The other held his cock while I eased myself onto him. The second he touched my pussy, I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning.

“Oh God,” he whispered, watching me take him slowly, while I let no more than the head of his cock inside me. “Oh God, you’re so…” He groaned and closed his eyes, the hand on my waist tightening just a little. His hips lifted to meet mine, trying to push himself deeper, but I rose just enough to stay out of his reach. A frustrated sound escaped his lips and his eyes shut even tighter.

“Please, Dani…” His voice was just this side of a choked sob. “Please…please…”

My body ached for him, but still I only let the head of his cock into my pussy, granting him only the shallowest strokes. He wanted more—I wanted more—but I kept him waiting. This feeling of control, of being something other than a passive participant, was addictive. It was as foreign as it was exhilarating. He wanted me, he wanted to be deep inside me, and had he been on top, he’d already be there. Instead, he’d surrendered and let me deny him.

I want to be completely at your mercy
, his words from the other night echoed in my mind as he begged, “Dani, oh God, Dani, please…”

I rose off him almost completely and there I paused. His hands twitched on my hips, his entire body seeming to anticipate the down stroke that didn’t follow. Frustration and confusion twisted his lips and he held his breath, screwing his eyes shut.

I didn’t move, not until he exhaled with a whispered plea:

“Dani, I—”

In one swift motion, I took him all the way inside me and we both gasped. His eyes flew open and his lips parted to release a breath, but the air stayed in his lungs. He gripped my hips, holding me against him as if he was afraid I’d never let him this deep again.

I wasn’t going anywhere, though. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. For an eternity of seconds, my entire world revolved around the intoxicating confusion of pain that should have hurt, of the vague discomfort of my pussy accommodating a cock that was just the right amount of too much.

“You okay?” His voice, gentle and uneven, brought me into the present. “Talk to me, Dani.”

A single nod was all I could ask of my overwhelmed body. His hips moved beneath me, pressing against me, either trying to push himself deeper or encourage me to move. I rose off him slowly, gasping at the gentle friction as he moved inside me.

“Oh my God,” I heard myself whimper.

“You feel fucking amazing like this.” His voice was barely a whisper and almost a moan. His hands moved up to my breasts and he cupped them gently, teasing my nipples with his thumbs and forefingers. “You
look
fucking amazing like this.”

I looked down at him, watching his face while I rode him slowly. Every time I came down, when his cock was deep inside me, his lips parted and he lost his breath. When I rose off him and paused, he gasped for breath, only to lose it again when I came back down.

“I knew you’d feel incredible, but this…” His eyebrows pulled together and his back arched beneath us. “Dani, you’re…” Another breath. Then he looked at me and swept his tongue across his lips. His hand went to the back of my neck and he pulled me down to him, kissing me deeply, almost violently.

Still kissing him, I rested my weight on my arms and took control. I found just the right angle with my hips, rolling them forward and back so his body hit my clit each time his cock hit my G-spot. Following my lead, he fell smoothly into my slow rhythm, raising and lowering his hips in time with mine. Every stroke drove me wild, white-hot waves radiating from my pussy like cold water through my veins and fire beneath my skin.

A shudder ran up my spine and I moaned into his kiss. I nearly broke my rhythm, but his body kept mine in the same slow, perfect cadence. Then I shuddered again and sat up, throwing my head back and whimpering.

He put his hand on my hip and let his thumb gently rub my clit. Or rather, he let my clit rub against the still presence of his thumb, leaving it to me to put just the right amount of pressure just where I needed it.

“Oh God, Connor, oh…God…” My orgasm threw me off balance and I fell forward again. He took advantage, grabbing my hips and thrusting up, fucking me as hard as he could, keeping me coming until my vision blurred and my spine wanted to collapse.

When I could finally see straight, when the room had stopped spinning, the air still buzzed with the breathless tension of a breaking point reached, and a second later, he groaned.

“Oh… fuck…” His fingers twitched against my hips. “Oh fuck, I’m so… close…” He closed his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath.

I pushed myself up on shaking arms and forced him to fall back into my slow, easy rhythm. Nearly stopping, but not. He furrowed his brow, but with a barely audible sigh, gave in.

“Jesus, Dani, I want to come,” he whispered. “You’ve got me so fucking turned on, I…”

“I know.” I rose slowly, came down just as slowly, watching his lips twitch with frustration. There was nothing more arousing, I discovered just then, than a man like Connor losing—
surrendering
—control.

When I resumed my earlier motion, rolling my hips forward and back, his eyes flew open and he gasped.

“Oh my God, oh my God, whatever you’re—” His breath caught and his back arched. “Whatever it— whatever it is you’re doing, don’t…stop…”

I didn’t stop, but I slowed down, reining back my rhythm just enough to make him groan with frustration. Just when he went to speak, undoubtedly trying to voice his desperation, I picked up speed again, and the only thing that escaped his lips was the sexy, spine-tingling moan of a man about to come undone.

A second later, he grabbed my hips and pulled me down onto him. His body jerked, his eyes shut tight, and his lips parted in a silent cry.

For a moment, he was still, not breathing, not moving, not loosening his grip on my hips. Then, piece by piece, he let go. His hands released me. He eased back onto the bed. A long, ragged breath slipped past his lips.

When he opened his eyes, he blinked rapidly before looking at me and grinning.

“You’re fucking incredible.” He pulled me down to kiss him. “I’ve been looking forward to this all damned day.”

“You’re not the only one.” I kissed him lightly. “In fact, I’m already looking forward to it again.”

He trailed a finger up the center of my back. “I promise I won’t keep you waiting long.”

“See that you don’t.” I laughed when his eyebrows jumped.

I pushed myself up and moved off him so he could take care of the condom, and then we settled back onto the bed on our sides.

“That,” he said, running a hand through his disheveled hair, “was well worth the wait.”

“I’m not complaining about the other night either.”

“Nor am I.” He smiled and kissed me gently. “Maybe it was a good thing we didn’t have any condoms handy.”