Something Reckless(72)

He watches me carefully. “I was seventeen.”

“And her?”

“She was an older woman, a family friend.”

I curl my nose. “Ew, as in the female equivalent of the creepy uncle?”

He runs his hands down my sides then settles them at my hips. “It wasn’t creepy.”

“There’s a not-creepy way to seduce your friends’ teenage son?”

He chuckles and takes my hands in his, lacing our fingers. “Trust me, it was consensual. I spent summers at her pool and she’d catch me watching her.” He shrugs. “Turns out she liked me watching as much as I liked doing it. And then it turned out that she liked to be tied up, and I didn’t mind that either.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “I’m rather partial to women who get off on being bound.”

My whole body warms. No one knows that about me but Sam . . . And River, I suppose. But I wrinkle my nose to hide my reaction. “I still vote icky.”

“Okay, Judgy McJudgerson, we both know I don’t want to hear about your first, so tell me something else.”

“Like what?”

He brings our hands to his mouth and kisses each of my knuckles. “What about your first kiss?”

I give an exaggerated dreamy sigh. “Max Hallowell, behind his grandma’s house. He started to put his hand up my shirt, but I stopped him because I felt super guilty. Hanna liked him and I wasn’t supposed to.”

He growls, then rolls us so he’s on top of me and trapping my hands over my head. “I don’t like thinking of Max kissing you. And I especially don’t like thinking of your sister’s crush being the only reason he didn’t get to go further with you.”

I draw up my knees, groaning happily when the hard length of his arousal settles between my legs. This man is superhuman. It’s really quite remarkable. “You asked.”

“I’ll choose my question more carefully next time,” he says. He’s running kisses down the side of my neck and he still hasn’t released my hands. “Tell me about the first time you touched yourself.”

“What?” I’m so distracted by the way he’s kissing me. I rock my hips, trying to get him to slide into me. God, I’m ready. I should be sore. Tired. Over it. But I’m not. I don’t think he could ever bore me. With him, I’m perpetually aroused.

I tug at my hands, trying to get free from his grip, and he tightens his hold and groans. “Tell me about it,” he murmurs. He slides down my body and skims his lips over my nipple.

“About what?”

“Tell me about the first time you touched yourself. The first time you put your hand between your legs. That’s a first time I want to hear about.” He opens his mouth over my breast and licks my nipple before sucking hard and making me cry out.

“I don’t . . . remember,” I manage.

He chuckles against my breast. “Now I don’t believe that. I think every girl remembers the first time she lets herself . . . explore. Were you in high school?”

My breast goes cold when his mouth leaves it, wet and exposed. “Please,” I murmur, arching toward him and tugging at my hands. “Just . . .”

He holds me tight, refusing to release me or give me what I need. “I’ll make you a deal, Rowdy. You tell me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.” He’s grinning at me, as if this is some kind of game, as if I’m not going to dissolve into a puddle of lust if he doesn’t put his mouth back on me soon.

“I was in college,” I say.

He groans. “A late explorer. I guess I can see that from the Catholic girl.” He drags my hands to hold them at my sides, kissing my stomach as he works his way down my body.

Please, yes.

He stops at my navel and lifts his head. “Where did you do it?”

My cheeks burn with a combination of embarrassment and arousal, but I understand the game now and I want to play. I need his mouth—more, lower. “I was in bed napping.”

He rewards my response by circling my navel with his tongue then tasting me there. My body shudders in response. “You couldn’t have been napping if you were touching yourself,” he says.

“I was half asleep. I had a sexy dream and I wanted . . .”

He waits patiently, and when I don’t answer, he rolls off me.

“Come back here.”

“Show me,” he says. He takes one of my hands and settles it between my legs, and only then does he release it. “Show me what you wanted. What you did.”

His voice is rough, that low, gravelly rumble he gets when he’s fucking me and close to coming. Only he’s not fucking me. He’s propped up on his elbow next to me, his eyes trained desperately on my hand resting between my legs.