Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (18 page)

She was so freaking soft. She had muscles but they were sleek and smooth, banded to her feminine frame and infused with an innate sensuality. Her hips were rounded, and her ass would be a handful.

He slid his hand beneath the waist of her simple cotton briefs, and caressed the dimple in her lower back before he circled around to her front, his fingertips brushed along her skin delicately. He feared if he pressed too hard, she would skitter away. Her stomach contracted and a soft moan whooshed from her mouth.

He eased his fingers into her wiry curls and teased her plump flesh. He slid his fingers along the outside of her sex; she was already slick with arousal. Her body had primed for him with impressive speed. And fuck him but he couldn’t wait to slide inside her and plunder her spoils like a conquering hero. But with a previously dormant sense of perception, Zeke forced himself to go slowly after he noted her slight tensing.

Zeke rolled off Sunshine and to his side, pulling her with him, until they lay on the bed facing each other. He pressed a calming kiss in the hollow of her neck. With a gentle glide, he eased her loose sweater over her head and bared her upper body.

He could see her instinctive need to cover her exposed breasts when her arms twitched. “Don’t.”

She’d averted her gaze, her lashes lowered to hide her shyness from him.

He couldn’t help but stare at her beautiful form. Her breasts were high and tight and round, not overly large, but they fit her. Her coral areolae were the size of silver dollars and her nipples had puckered when exposed to the cool hotel air. She was beautiful.

And for right now, she was his.

Twenty-Three

Oh my Goddess.

So many different sensations. His fingertips were rough as he reverently caressed my skin. The skim of his pointer finger along my ribs elicited a tingle in my sex. The pinch of his fingers on my nipple send a sharp zing through me. He seemed determined to test and measure each section of my body with almost scientific precision.

Which might have amused me, except with every new touch amazing sensations grew inside me. Each light stroke, each pleasurable cup of his palm and firm embrace, and my body blossomed under his attention like the marriage of two scents into a perfume. His exploration caused my body to expand and contract. My breasts plumped while my nipples tightened. My sex softened even as my womb clenched. The two contrasting forces created a subtle tension as the tingle grew into a buzz that grew into a swell of lust so powerful, so crazy intense that I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I moaned.

The sensual sound startled me out of the haze of arousal fogging my brain. I blinked, forcing my eyes open, marking the awareness of where I was and who I was with. His body was tan, he clearly spent a lot of time out in the sun. Blond hair dusted his forearms and roughened his thighs. He had smattering of hair on his knuckles, his fingers dinged up, and I had the strangest urge to buss my lips over the small cuts and calluses. The desire to express that bit of tenderness took me off guard and left me feeling over-exposed.

To protect myself, I wanted to cross my arms over my naked flesh, feeling stripped bare by the emotions Zeke was eliciting from me. But as if he sensed my reaction, he trailed his fingertips over my shoulders and skimmed them down my triceps and along my forearms until his palms were flush with mine. He lightly held my hands at my sides so that I was incapable of covering myself. “Don’t,” he whispered again.

My body tingled and goose bumps raised on my arms as his tactile touch activated nerve endings I didn’t know I had. My nipples, wet from his mouth, peaked to an insistent hardness, and a throb centered low in my belly.

I moved my legs restlessly, aching and needy, yet unable to ask for what I wanted. What if I asked the wrong question and Zeke figured out how little experience I actually had?

I’d managed to deflect his question the last time but I wasn’t sure I could do it again. I was truly afraid that if he knew I was a virgin, he’d stop. He seemed to have a core gentlemanliness. He was just a tad bit old fashioned underneath that surfer dude exterior, and that inner chivalry might force him to stop before he deflowered me.

And I really wanted to be deflowered. In the worst damn way.

He nibbled a path along my naked collarbone. I shuddered. So he did it again.

His palm was hard and thick and solid in my hand. As hard and thick and solid as his body had been between my legs. I wanted that again. The heavy weight of him on top of me, holding me down and yet burning me up.

Zeke guided my hand to his chest, placing my palm on his pectoral, right over his heart. As if asking me to guard the organ for him. Treat it and him with care.

Which was fanciful and not at all like me. Plus, he was a guy. He didn’t need me to treat him carefully.

Then he took my mouth with gentle, sipping kisses following the same pattern again, top, left, right, bottom.

With his free hand, he stroked along my arm and across my waist in what should have been a seriously un-erogenous zone, but the tingling in my sex was back with a vengeance.

He skimmed his fingertips up the curve of my calf, twirling a lazy pattern along the back of my knee. The back of my knee! And my body clenched. He continued his sensual journey along my hamstring and I parted my legs again.

His palm cupped my butt, rubbed my skin, his fingers trailed along the crease of my ass, but didn’t go anywhere near the part that ached for him.

I wanted him to touch me. To slide between my swollen sex and penetrate me. With every caress, his fingers crept closer but he never quite touched me where I needed it most. My hips rocked in insistent little jerks. I begged without actually begging. Until my breath stopped in my chest and expanded my lungs as I held there waiting, waiting for his intimate caress.

But he seemed content to rub his palm and fingers over my aching flesh, arousing without ever fondling my most intimate place. Every glide ratcheted my tension to another level.

Anticipation fluttered in my belly, and my body wept preparing for his penetration.

“Touch me,” I finally pleaded. Needing more.

Anticipation fizzed in my blood as he slowly unbuttoned the waistband of my skirt and eased the cotton down my legs. Finally I was going to experience what felt like every other twenty year old the planet already had.

Sex. It might not be romance or love or affection. But that was fine. At least I would finally get close to a man physically. Which was more than I’d had to this point.

In the dark of night, when I couldn’t sleep, perhaps I had dreamed of letting someone get close enough to share my body. But it had always been more of a fantasy because in the morning reality would return and I’d remember my circumstances, suffer the death of that hope, and tumble back into reality.

But right here, right now, Zeke Hawthorne knew my deepest darkest secret. I didn’t have to guard against spilling my secrets because he already knew.

And that truth gave me the freedom to let go. The freedom to relax, allow him entrance into my other deepest darkest places.

Finally he slid his fingers beneath the elastic of my unsexy panties and against my slick wet lips.

I moaned into his mouth as the rough pad of his fingers spread that slickness against my clit. My head went dizzy and my knees went weak at the sensual caress. And in taking, I wanted to give as well.

I wanted to touch him the way he was touching me, intimately, to arouse his passion. I slid my fingers over his hard chest and rippled abs until I connected with the waist of his shorts. With fumbling fingers I untied the thick lace and then pulled. The rip of his Velcro fly as it separated was loud in the heated stillness of our hotel room. I spread the placket of his shorts open and curled my fingers around his erection.

He pulsed hot and hard, his arousal like a living breathing entity.

“Fuck.” Zeke pressed his forehead into the curve of my neck. “That feels fantastic.”

I really didn’t know what I was doing. Of course, I’d read about this, so in theory I knew the mechanics. But the reality was so different from my imaginings that my confidence shriveled.

His skin was smooth and hot as I squeezed. He was hard, and yet, not.

“A little harder, babe,” he commanded. Then he groaned when I swiped my thumb over the head of his penis.

As he gave me directions, he curled his middle finger just inside me. I held still, my body shaking, tremors rippled through me as I waited on the precipice for him to push inside all the way. But he curled his fingers, teasing my outer lips and barely penetrating me.

I was empty. Desolate. I needed more.

And yet I was afraid of more. My body had tensed, I couldn’t help it. I was just hoping that he hadn’t noticed. In desperation, I pushed his shorts over his hips and down his thighs. If I could just get him naked, maybe he’d come inside me then.

“Please,” I whispered as he lifted his hips to help me get rid of his shorts.

Too many sensations bombarded me at once. His hairy thigh holding my legs apart, his fingers rubbing my sex, curling lightly inside but not coming all the way in, the smooth planes of his chest against my diamond hard, sensitive nipples. We shared breath through open-mouthed kisses and dueling tongues.

His cock was thick, long, and pulsed in the wrap of my fingers. I kept trying to ignore the worry of how he was going to fit inside me. Scientifically, I knew it had worked since the beginning of time, but personally, I kept wondering how? I knew that my soft would yield to his hard but it still seemed nearly impossible to imagine that we could fit together.

And that it wouldn’t hurt.

Finally Zeke slid his finger all the way in. His palm cupped my swollen sex even as he did something with the finger inside that caused my whole body to jerk. Sensations bombarded me.

“Damn, you’re tight,” Zeke murmured against my lips.

I didn’t want him to focus too much on that. If he started thinking, he might realize that I didn’t have much experience. Or none.

My head was swimming. And my sex clenched. I just wanted him inside me. I curled my fingers around his cock and squeezed, not so subtly letting him know what I wanted from him.

Now.

Zeke finally acceded to my urging. He rolled over so that he hovered over top of me. His cock rubbed at my slick lips, and I arched my hips, begging for him. Then he stopped. Held still.

No. No. No.
I tugged on his hips. He propped over me and looked desperately into my eyes. His blue eyes were glazed pools.

“Condom?” he gutted out.

My eyes went round. My body still throbbed and I could have cried. Of course I didn’t have a condom. I shook my head mutely.

Zeke let his head drop, his curls nearly brushing my jaw. His body jerked, and his head came up. “I might have one.”

He jumped up, and made a beeline for his duffel bag. His body was a study in masculine excellence. Long ropy muscles, round glutes, shoulders that could hold the world. He dug through his bag and then lifted his fist in triumph. He grinned widely. “I have one!”

His obvious pleasure convinced me that he was as into this as I was.

I lay on the cool cotton sheets, my body open and exposed. I should be embarrassed, nervous, at my vulnerability but instead an inner peace stole over me. This was right.

Zeke strode back to the bed. From the nest of blond curls at his groin, his erection jutted, long and thick with a bulbous head, blue veins pulsed. His body rippled with muscle, and my breath stopped in my lungs at how absolutely beautiful he was.

He tore the package open as he came over me. He stopped, his gaze traveled from my toes up to meet my eyes, and his sincere appreciation overlay with lust caused me to flush.

“You’re perfect,” he uttered as he pressed his beautiful body on top of mine. I stared into his ocean blue eyes and wanted to get lost in him. He just lightly penetrated my slit, the contact slick and bold, but he didn’t come inside, he just rubbed my clit and along the wet opening, teasing me. My whole body arched, as I silently begged him to penetrate me.

My sex clutched at the head of his cock, as I thrashed and grabbed onto his firm ass and tried to pull him inside.

Finally, he slid home. There was no barrier, nothing that made his entry difficult. The pain was minimal. He felt incredible.

Goddess, he was big. A thick intrusion, full and deep, as he pushed in to the hilt. The sensation was indescribable. As if he were splitting me in two and at the same time making me whole. My entire body shivered in response to his penetration.

But I needed something more.

He held still as if savoring the clasp of my sex around his erection. Then finally he began to move. He slid nearly all the way out, hitting spots along the way that sizzled through my entire body. I began to shake, my limbs buzzed and my head went light as he rocked in and out of me.

Sensation, overwhelming and dizzying swelled through me, then like the wave that took him out last night, thundered over me and I tumbled into orgasm. Rocked, buffeted, battered with sensation, and emotions I hadn’t seen coming as I shattered into fragments of consciousness.

Zeke exploded at the same time. His body went rigid, neck arched, hips jammed against mine, as his erection pumped against my inner walls.

I hadn’t expected this. This feeling of connection, of being in total sync with another person. I was euphoric, riding on a wave of endorphins so thick that I could convince myself that this wasn’t a one off, that we could build something together, become something together.

My heart thudded against my breastbone. Against Zeke’s thick chest as he collapsed over me. Still buried deep. His body was heavy and yet comforting, as if the world would have to go through him to get to me.

And that thought was enormously appealing.

Twenty-Four

October 21

7:00 am

San Luis Obispo, CA

I woke naked.

That fact was so surprising that I lay still, absorbing, remembering. The slightly rough rub of hotel cotton sheets against my bare skin sensitized me, made me aware of my body in ways I never had been before. I ached pleasantly, my skin tingled and my hair was tangled around my head and Zeke’s muscled forearm. He had his arm wrapped tightly around my waist as if anchoring me to him so I couldn’t go anywhere. And I liked it.