“You are so lovely,” he said, his voice a deep growl. “And these sounds you’re making . . .” He paused as though he were listening.
I hadn’t realized, but I was making sounds: soft, impassioned hitches in my breathing.
Our eyes clashed, his were darker than usual. “These desperate little moans, I’ll never get enough of them, never get enough of you.”
I began to spiral, holding his wrist as I curved my body toward his expert touch, unable to control or stifle my cries of ecstasy.
That’s right. Ecstasy.
Pure, one million percent solid-gold ecstasy.
He felt so good, I forgot how percentages worked.
And he must’ve known what he was doing, because as soon as the first wave of ecstasy receded, he stroked me again, hitting all the right spots, faster and harder than before.
I lost my mind a little after that, lost even more control of my response, lost my ability to temper the volume of my enthusiasm.
In retrospect, I remembered grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, the sound of his name tumbling over and over from my lips, how his pants-clad leg slid against my bare thighs, how he captured my mouth at my peak and gave me a hot, crushing, devouring kiss.
And then I was falling slowly, drifting on a cloud back to earth, being wrapped in his strong arms, gathered to his chest. He pressed his lips to my forehead in a cherishing kiss as I clung to him, feeling every inch claimed, though he was still fully clothed.
Jethro holding me was ecstasy.
That’s right. Ecstasy.
That’s what it was.
CHAPTER 24
“As long as I could hear his voice, I was quite lost, quite blind, quite outside my own self.”
― Anaïs Nin
~Jethro~
Holding Sienna was hard.
No.
Scratch that.
I was hard while holding Sienna. Holding Sienna was heavenly.
That’s better.
I smoothed my hand up and down her back, down the silky skin of her lush thighs, and over her magnificently rounded backside, sadly still covered in lace panties. Her satin-soft curves beneath my fingers did very little to help the rigid situation south of my belt. But that’s all right. It fed a different addiction.
Now that I’d touched her, watched and felt her come, I was mentally rearranging my schedule for the rest of my life. I was going to do this every day. Touching her now, after her gratifyingly loud and spectacularly animated release, calmed me even as it stoked a frenzied fire of need. I wanted to touch her everywhere. And for always.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, snuggling closer and fitting her leg between mine. The action gave me more access to her thigh, specifically the innermost expanse of soft skin.
“I’m probably going to be a very tactile boyfriend,” I said against her forehead, taking advantage of her new position by trailing the back of my knuckles between her legs.
Her breath hitched.
“How do you feel about public displays of affection?” I asked.
Sienna responded on a whisper. “Are you talking about holding hands or something that could get us arrested?”
“Someplace in between.”
“Jethro, if you keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s doggy style on the red carpet, just as long as it’s with you.”
Well now, that conjured all kinds of pleasant images.
I know it’s not polite to remark on the status of a lady’s panties, but my woman was wet and supple, swollen and aroused. My thoughts naturally shifted to how very satisfying the feel of her would be, right this minute, just as she was.
Especially given the state of my head, right this minute.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“Okay,” she said.
I laughed.
Removing my fingers, reluctantly, from between her legs, I grabbed a handful of her backside. “I’m going to kiss this.”
She giggled and nipped at my neck. “You should. We should start every day with you kissing my ass—both figuratively and literally.”
I laughed again, kissing her forehead and tightening my arm around her shoulders.
But then she said, “I’m serious. This is me officially petitioning that you and I start sleeping together. How do we make that happen?”
I tensed, because to say I liked the idea—a lot—would be an understatement. But I was trying to be careful with this thing between us.
Clearing my throat, I proceeded with caution. “So, I build things. I work with wood.”
“I’d like to work with your wood,” she mumbled, and I knew she was trying to make a joke. I heard vulnerability in the joke, the way she couldn’t quite meet my eyes. She was clearly nervous; perhaps feeling like she’d revealed too much with her official petition, been too forward.
I leaned back so she could see me smile, but also so I could see her and gauge her reaction as I spoke. “As a carpenter I know for a fact, if you want something to last, you have to build it to last. If we wanted to establish something lasting, we can’t build our foundation on just the physical.”