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The Phoenix Candidate(26)

By:Heidi Joy Tretheway


“Stubble,” I say automatically, and my fingers go to his face, feeling the rough tips of his stubbly beard beneath my fingernails. He sucks my index finger and I feel his teeth and tongue, the softness and hardness and heat of him.

He releases me.

“Go on,” he coaxes me for more, his voice a deep rumble.

“Eye crinkles.” I add, venturing to touch his temples. “Chest hair.” I trace the center of his chest, all the way down to his navel, but stop short of where I really want to be. I’m suddenly shy with this inquisition.

“Your breath on me,” I add, and he rolls me slightly so I’m flat on my back on the mattress, his head bent over my chest, teasing me with his stubble between my breasts. He breathes on each nipple in turn, a hot puff, then a cool breeze blown across each tip until they are stiff peaks.

“Lick me. Please.” I’m panting and when his tongue connects with my nipple, it rips open a fire in my chest. I arch and twist as he sucks and nips, his cheek scratching my skin and electrifying it.

His teeth graze my nipples, but then he pulls back. “What else, Grace?”

I’m tongue-tied, my words drowned by a surge of desire that has deconstructed my language to the basics: here, now, more, harder. “I don’t know.”

Jared moves to the foot of the bed, pushing my knees apart and anchoring himself between them. He stares at me and I feel too exposed. “Wrong answer. If you won’t tell me what you want, show me.”

Jared’s dark eyes are in shadow, with nothing but the moonlight outside filtering through the gauzy hotel room curtains. I can’t see the intensity in his eyes, but I hear it in his voice.

“I don’t know how.”

“Bullshit. Show me now, Grace. Touch yourself.”

“I can’t. It’s too …” I trail off.

“You can do it right now, or I’m going to punish you.” The sharp, stinging memory of his spanking on our first night together turns me on more. “And before you think you’re going to like it, I assure you, you won’t.”

I tentatively skim my hand down my stomach, through my short, dark curls, to my folds. I’m drenched with moisture. I draw my finger through it, working it into my clit, moving my index finger in little flicks that get faster and press harder on my bundle of nerves.

Jared’s hands run up and down my legs, nudging my thighs farther apart. He leans closer, watching me, and I shiver and jerk when I feel his fingers slide into me.

“Don’t stop now, Grace,” he warns, as two fingers twist and curl inside me. “Make yourself come.”

I flick faster, press harder, driving myself toward release. I let self-consciousness fall away, curiosity and questions and reservations silenced in my mind. The familiar build, the tightness in my chest, strip the noise and static from the here and now.

A wave of energy starts at my toes and rolls through me. My breaths are shorter, sharper, ragged when I feel his fingers plunge inside me. I clench at my core and the wave crashes through my chest and nearly knocks the breath out of me.

A moan is all I can manage as I twist and writhe, and then Jared’s mouth is on me, his tongue replacing my index finger, and I grip his hair to hold him there as his tongue pushes me forward, bringing wave after wave of pleasure, prolonging my climax to the point where I can’t take it any longer.

I explode and thrash and gasp for air. It’s over. I’m over. Completely spent.

Jared draws his face back, then traces his nose up my chest, his stubble tickling, until he’s nearly covering me. Our bodies are just an inch apart as he supports himself on his arms, leaning over me.

“Let’s make that our lesson for tonight. Ask for what you want. But don’t ask permission.” His lips brush my cheek, and then he rolls onto his back beside me.

I roll toward him on my side, my breast brushing his arm. “OK, then, I want something.”

Jared’s eyes are dark and challenging. “What?”

“I want your mouth.”

“I’ve had my mouth on almost every part of you.”

“Almost.” God, do I have to fucking spell it out? I feel like an awkward teenager, but it hasn’t escaped my notice the one thing we haven’t done as we’ve become intimate. “I want you to kiss me.”

Jared rolls over, shutting me out. “Go to sleep, Grace.”

“But you said ask—”

“You told me what you want. Noted. Now go to sleep.”

I roll to my back, stunned, stung. I didn’t ask him to dress up in my underwear, or impale himself on a dildo. I asked for one of the most basic things in any relationship: a kiss.