Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (17 page)

I wasn’t about to let him stop this. Stop me.

“How would you know?” I crossed my arms, compelled to use defensive posture even though I knew it was a bad signal. The move plumped my breasts until the small mounds were lush and full and nearly spilling out the loose neckline. And what do you know, his gaze seemed drawn to my breasts. His words stalled, as he stared intently at my body. My defensive gesture had oddly worked in my favor.

I tossed my head, the movement shifted my loose braid and the tip came to rest right over my left breast, pointing down like an arrow to the tight hard bud of my nipple. I ached. I wanted his hands on me. On my body, cupping my breasts and pinching my nipples.

He still hadn’t lifted his gaze from my breasts. Which was beyond thrilling, but I wanted him to move. To touch me. To take me. I prowled to the end of the bed.

The flush on his face, combined with the obvious bulge in his board shorts, told me all I needed to know. My hard nipples and short breath hopefully told him all he needed to know.

Zeke took a step back. He was going the wrong way. I wanted him to barrel forward, haul me into his arms, and press his mouth against mine.

I knew he wanted me. It was kinda hard to deny. But as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized he was going to try and stop this.
No. Way.

“Sunshine. I can’t let you do this. Making this kind of decision in the midst of the turmoil—”

Oh, he did not just say that. “Every single big decision of my life has been made in turmoil.” I dismissed that argument, and prepped for another.

He rubbed his hands through his unruly hair. “I want you more than I want my next breath.”

“Then take me.”

I wanted him. Bad. Even though I’d had a weirdly sheltered upbringing, it wasn’t like I lived in a convent. I’d had some sexual experiences, but no boy had ever tempted me to throw away all caution and share my body. No
man
had ever made me feel the way he did when he’d been between my thighs, mostly-clothed, last night. And he hadn’t even been trying.

My pulse thudded and my nipples tingled just from his gaze on my body.

I wanted it all. I wanted the experience. I wanted the rush of sexual arousal. I wanted his body, thick and hard and over mine. I wanted his cock inside me, and he’d barely even touched me.

Something about our chemistry, as if he were vinegar to my baking soda, the two of us together caused an immediate, explosive result. I nearly combusted at his caresses.

“I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“Right now, there’s nothing to regret,” I snarked, impatient with his delay tactics. I wanted him, now.

And in the middle of my life-altering, taking back my power decision, Zeke laughed. He threw his head back, and I found myself salivating over the corded muscles of his neck and the tight bunch of his pectorals beneath the thin t-shirt.

“My stepfather stole my childhood and my teen years from me. I’ll be damned if I let him continue to fuck up my life. I want this. I want you, Zeke Hawthorne. And I’m going to have you.” I let everything I was feeling, heat, desire, yearning show. So he could see all the emotion and longing that boiled inside me.

He wasn’t laughing any longer.

I knelt on the side of the bed, arms at my sides. Waiting. I’d just laid it all on the line for him. I needed Zeke to make the next move. And if he didn’t I’d just quietly die of embarrassment.

Then, he burst into action. Zeke strode to the side of the bed, and cupped my face. The small hotel room was redolent with the scents of the ocean, sand, salt, fresh air, and cucumber as if my warm, aroused body had diffused my essence into the air and wrapped us in a sensual haze.

Zeke burrowed his fingers in the hair at my nape. His thumbs brushed my cheeks, and I lit up like a lightning strike.

“You’re sure?” Zeke asked one more time.

I rested my palms at his waist. Desire rose between us thick and viscous, as I pressed my body against the straining proof that he wanted me right back. I glanced down, my gaze fixed on the large bulge of his erection beneath his shorts, and my breath caught.

Goddess, he was big. I knew that a woman’s body was meant to yield to the intrusion of cock, but a band tightened around my chest as I contemplated how he was going to fit.

Still, I nodded yes and licked my lips.

Zeke let out a silent groan, and searched my gaze. I tried, hard, to send the right message, ‘please, please have sex with me, show me that there’s even more to what I’ve been feeling.’

“Have you done this before?”

My heart nearly stopped. Oh hell no, I was not confessing my virginal status. I didn’t want any reason for him to stop.

So I went for distraction. “Would you shut up and kiss me, please?” I curled my fingers around the waist of his shorts and pulled him against me. His hard chest pressed into my softer breasts and his firm biceps curled around my back. His cock, thick and long, rubbed against my softer giving belly and my body clenched as if already trying to pull him into me. He surrounded me, overwhelmed me.

Then finally, finally his mouth was on mine.

***

Zeke wasn’t stupid.

She hadn’t answered his question. But at her urging he tilted his head and slanted his mouth over hers, as she clutched his waist. Her nerves were apparent in the tight set of her shoulders.

He knew what it was like to want something so badly that your entire body vibrated with hope. Adrenaline and pheromones flooded his body. He understood her wariness and her impatience. The contradictions drew him as much as her plump lips and lush curves. He needed to handle her with care even as he strained to dive into her sweet, eager body.

Zeke didn’t want her nervous. He wanted her turned on and anticipating the entwining of their bodies. So he set about making that happen.

Her mouth was soft and enthusiastic beneath his as he kissed her top lip, then each corner, left then right, and finally her bottom lip.

He thought he’d known, thought he’d understood the power of sexual need, but ever since he’d lain between her thighs last night, an urgent, overwhelming lust had throbbed below the surface. Under the layer of his conscious mind, need for her pulsed steady and unrelenting.

It was crazy, insane, completely unexpected.

And he could no more stop the feeling than he could stop kissing her. Because he wanted her with an unprecedented fierceness, he knew he needed to take extra care.

Zeke pressed kisses along her jaw, swirling his tongue against her skin in a subtle caress until he reached the tender spot behind her earlobe. “Any time you feel uncomfortable, just say stop.” He sucked at her soft skin as she tilted her head back, and granted him better access.

Zeke was suddenly struck by her unconscious beauty. The graceful curve of her slender neck, the haughty arch of her cheekbones, and with her eyes closed, the dark fringe of her eyelashes against her milky white skin. Arousal flushed her cheeks and reddened her lips.

Her response was to nuzzle the same spot under his ear and then she dragged her tongue down the cord of his neck until she reached the curve between his neck and shoulder and bit him gently.

Jesus. His cock surged at the light nip.

The need to plunder, to invade, pounded in his blood. But he knew he had to proceed slowly. She couldn’t have much experience. Zeke pressed small kisses along her jaw, tracing his former path until he got to her chin, then he pressed three open mouthed kisses on her lips, with each kiss his tongue slid a little further inside her honeyed mouth. Then Zeke traced his lips along the other side of her face, giving her right side the exact same treatment he’d given her left.

Sunshine’s fingers burrowed under his thin t-shirt and explored the muscles in his back. The hard points of her nipples stabbed into his pecs as he continued with his lazy journey, pressing kisses along her neck and then the curve of her bare shoulder. Her sweater slid off her left shoulder and exposed the delicate line of her collarbone. He was trying to savor each step. Trying to treat her with care. And tenderness.

Underneath the slow, gentle journey, his blood pulsed with an urgent demand to take.

Sunshine grabbed his hand and pressed his palm against her breast. Zeke groaned into her mouth and brushed his thumb over her distended nipple.

She melted, her body going soft, pliant against his. She sank back onto the bed, pulling him with her. Zeke pressed his knee between her spread thighs and leaned over Sunshine as she lay back on the pastel bedspread.

His hand trembled as he brushed a curl from her cheek. He opened his mouth to ask one more time if she was sure.

Sunshine grabbed his shorts and tugged. With the element of the unexpected, he tumbled on top of her. The heat from her sex was like an inferno, and he rubbed his cock against the concave curve of her stomach.

Sunshine moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist, her bare heels dug into the back of his thighs and made him aware of all the ways he was a hard man and she was a soft, welcoming sexual woman.

He wanted her. Bad. He’d wanted her since he’d regained consciousness in this same position yesterday. Zeke wrapped his arms around her, unable to halt the spiral into frenzied desire, as if drawn by a rare earth magnet.

But just like that extra strong magnet, without a protective coating she would be brittle and susceptible to crumbling under the force of his hunger.

The same unexpected and forbidden feelings were rushing through him and he realized he was equally susceptible to crumbling.

He stared into her intense gray gaze looking for answers to all the questions in the Universe. And saw what he needed to see. No hesitation, no fear, only anticipation and arousal. And dammit he wanted to partake of her offering.

With reluctant restraint, he held back. Her sensual pull was nearly overwhelming, but Zeke knew that he needed to handle her with care. And he needed to approach with caution.

So he dove into the joy of discovery.

Zeke scraped her loose sweater up over her ribcage, his callused fingers explored her soft skin as he bent and dragged his tongue along the sensitive bow of her belly. Her stomach contracted in response. But Zeke gave no quarter and kissed his way up her ribcage. He wanted to roar in triumph as she responded to his sensual touch.

He pushed her sweater up and bared her breasts, perfect handfuls, to his avid gaze.

“You’re flawless,” he breathed as he bent to the distended coral bud.

“Actually, I’m a little small proportionately,” she said breathlessly as a flush spread across her chest.

“Flawless.” Zeke licked her nipple into his mouth and suckled on the erect tip. He swirled his tongue around her tight bud, while he squeezed and plumped her other breast in his palm and pinched the nipple until she was arching beneath him, nearly bucking him off her.

She was so sensitive.

All Zeke’s blood thundered to his cock, until he was harder than the volcanic rock he’d climbed as a kid. He rolled her nipple on his tongue and then pressed hard, flattening his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and drawing with intense pulls.

Her soft moans filled the hotel room.

Sunshine clawed her short fingernails against the muscles of his back and then scraped along the edge of his waistband and pushed his shirt up until his bare skin rubbed hers. He wanted to go slow, show her through his actions that he respected her, treasured her. But as her hands moved restlessly, her strokes sure and confident as if she was trying to imprint the tactile feel of him, his vow to go slowly was sorely tested.

The scent of the sea and the sharp bite of cucumber rose from her heated skin as Zeke nuzzled the underside of her breast. He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, and he hadn’t even gotten her undressed yet. Only the flat plane of her stomach and the pale rounded globes of her breasts were bare.

Zeke’s practical experience was limited. Of course, he’d had sex before but he’d never been in a relationship. The Hawthorne curse had preceded him.

He’d actually never really wanted a relationship. He’d been in college at fifteen, a total nerd, and years younger than his classmates. He was jailbait. And no college girl was going for a pimple faced teenager when she could have an older, experienced guy. Kind of like his clumsy pursuit of Jamie. She’d chosen Lucas. Not that he could blame her. If he was a girl, he’d have chosen Lucas too.

So his sexual experiences consisted of drunken one night stands and random hook ups until he’d started working for the NSA. Then he realized that because of his work and his security clearance and the fact that he was a total nerd, he was a prime espionage target for female agents willing to use their body and sex to get secrets. So every time a woman came on to him, in the back of his mind, he wondered if there was something else going on. Some other reason why she wanted to have sex with him.

Crazy as it seemed, Sunshine’s reluctance and worry that he had an underlying motive actually freed him from those concerns. He had gone after her. Not the other way around.

That relief that she wanted him for him was immense.

And because he loved that she wanted him for him, he was determined to show his appreciation in a measured physical way. If he didn’t slow things down, take time to learn her body’s secrets, take time to learn what made her gasp and what made her sigh, this would be over in a nanosecond.

But she seemed to want nothing to do with slow and easy.

Her legs moved restlessly beneath his larger, heavier body as she explored his skin. His cock was hard and insistent against the V of her legs. He couldn’t wait to be inside her.

Sunshine lay beneath him, one foot on the bed, knee propped up, the other leg flat, spreading her open for him. Zeke groaned into her neck, and circled her ankle with his thumb and forefinger. Then he sensuously slid his fingers along the back of her leg, skimming her soft flesh and pulling her skirt up slowly. He bared her legs to the cool early evening air with questing fingertips until he reached the elastic of her panties.