She nodded again, a jerky movement. Because it did feel good. It felt . . . God, like nothing she’d ever felt before in her entire life.
His gaze roamed over her face as his fingers stroked her. “This is what you deserve, sweet thing. This feeling. This pleasure. It’s all for you, understand me? So why don’t you just relax and let me give it to you?”
She wanted that. Wanted his hands on her skin, him touching her slowly, carefully, as if she was delicate and precious. So why couldn’t she have it? What would be so wrong in letting herself take it? Fighting was hard and she’d had it so hard for so very long. Didn’t she deserve something good for a change? Just this once?
He’d told her she deserved it and maybe she did.
“Yes,” she said huskily. “Yes, please.”
The look in his eyes intensified and he slid a hand further down her body, to the waistband of her sweatpants, where he pulled at the tie around her waist, loosening it. Then he tugged the fabric away, pushing his fingers under the waistband and the beneath the cotton of her panties, moving unerringly between her thighs.
She gasped at the sensation, jerking against his restraining hold, but he didn’t stop, his fingers brushing the curls of her sex, then pushing down further. Instinct had her wanting to keep her legs closed, yet somehow there was no strength in them as his hand pushed between them, his fingers sliding over her slick flesh.
She groaned, the sensation too intense to handle.
“Oh, sweet thing . . .” His gaze was impossibly blue as that exploring hand pushed further, cupping her sex gently. “You’re wet.”
Even though she kind of knew it wasn’t, she had to ask. “Is that a b-bad thing?”
His mouth curved, the look in his eyes hot and getting hotter. “Fuck, no. It’s because you like what I’m doing to you. You like me touching you.” As if to illustrate the point, his hand moved again, his thumb stroking gently over her clit while his fingers played over her folds, circling slowly around the entrance of her body.
And she did like it. Very much.
She shook then gasped as he moved his hand to pull down the sweatpants and her panties, baring her completely, before shifting that hand right back to where it had been, between her trembling thighs. His gaze flicked down to what he was doing, then came back to her face.
She wasn’t fighting him anymore, but shifting under his hand, her back arching, her hips moving. Restless and needy and aching. She felt like a live wire, pleasure a current running all the way through her, building hotter and higher. Drowning the sound of her grandmother’s voice telling her how she’d never wanted to be saddled with a grandkid at her age and how there must have been something wrong with Mia to drive her mother away. How Mia didn’t deserve all her grandmother did for her and didn’t she know what a fucking problem she was? That she’d better be good, she’d better be grateful, otherwise she was going to get it.
Drowning out the pain of the wooden spoon on her shoulders and the backs of her thighs, and the cigarette butts burned into her skin.
Drowning out everything bad and replacing it with something so good she could hardly stand it.
Any remaining tension went out of her, and as Xavier’s finger eased inside her, his thumb circling agonizingly slowly on her aching clit, she opened her mouth and his name came out of it, hoarse and desperate. She’d never said it before, and his gaze came to hers instantly. And something flared in the dark midnight of his eyes.
Abruptly the hold on her wrists released and he slid his hand up her spine to the back of her head, cradling it, his fingers curling into her hair and holding on tight. Then he bent over her and took her mouth like he owned it.
She realized then that kiss he’d given her before had been a prelude to something else. The start of a gentle rain shower. But this . . . this was the thunderstorm.
His tongue pushed deep into her mouth, demanding and hot, and his fingers in her hair were so tight she couldn’t move. All she could do was lie there and take it. But that was okay, that was perfect. Because by then the storm was exactly what she wanted.
Mia opened her mouth and let him devour her, her body arching under his hand as he slid his finger in deep, his thumb pressing down her clit. It felt so good, the sharp pleasure and the heat of his body underneath her, the taste of him as he kissed her. He surrounded her everywhere and yet it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
She tried to kiss him back, clumsy and awkward with it because she’d never kissed anyone before, not like this, but he just tugged on her hair, pulling her head back even further and devoured her deeper, hungrier.
She got lost in it, got lost in the pleasure that seemed to build relentlessly with each slow, easy slide of his finger, each hard press of his thumb. Until she was arching up into his hands, making sounds she’d never heard herself make before.