Eight Ways to Ecstasy (29 page)

“I love you.”

His hands came up to cup her cheeks, thumbs soft and warm beneath her eyes. “And I love you.”

And her entire chest had split, every tender spot in her exposed, but she was whole.

She was better than she had ever, ever been.

She had the bare span of a breath for a smile to spread across her lips before he was on her, darting in. His mouth met hers as he picked her up, hauling her against him. Grasping at his shoulders, she opened to the wet heat of his kiss, and he spun her in a shuffling circle, never letting her feet touch ground, and it was perfect, was like floating. She let him carry her and hold her up.

Then she folded her legs around his hips, and suddenly the bright spark in her heart shifted. It didn't dim and it didn't fade.

It
smoldered
, rippling with heat.

With a low groan, he gripped her tighter, hands drifting lower.

“Kate—”

“Yes, yes,” she said, answering the question in his eyes, and then he was shifting her, dropping her by inches. A soft sound fell out of her throat as her hips met his.

“We should talk.” He bit out the words, but it was with a flexing of his thighs, the hard line of him grinding into her and making the whole center of her flash searingly, impossibly hot.

God, but had it only been a week? She'd gone that long without sex before—she'd gone months without him and with no hope of ever seeing him again. But even then, it hadn't felt like this.

Maybe it was all the barriers coming down. Maybe it was him holding her again, as if there were no fears and nothing to forgive. Him staring at her with that dark intentness to his gaze.

“We should,” she agreed, dipping down to kiss him again, all hungry teeth and lips and tongue. She wanted to devour him.

“I meant it,” he managed, panting between kisses. “I'll give you anything. My whole life.”

“I'll take it.” And she'd give him every damn thing in return.

Her body and her heart and her trust.

He scraped his teeth across her tongue. “No holding back.”

“No running away.”

With a moan, he fell into this kiss, and for a second she'd thought they'd both fall as he staggered. They were in the center of this room, nothing to keep them up, surrounded by his past and by her future, her visions of him and of them. The things she had made out of love and need.

“We're not going to make it downstairs, are we?” he asked against her breath.

She shook her head and clutched him closer.

And how did he control their descent? One second they were standing there, his solidity and strength supporting them, and the next she was on her back, no impact and no pain. Hovering over her, he rose up onto his knees, and her throat went dry. He skated a hot hand down the center of her chest.

“Whatever you want,” he said. “Anything.”

“You.” She closed her palm over his, and its heat burned all the way through to her heart. “I just want you.”

She wanted to finally let go. To take what he was offering and to not be afraid. Not of anything.

Desire was a living, breathing thing inside her veins, making her blood hot and her breasts taut, the space between her thighs going liquid and warm. And it would be so easy to lie there, letting him move over her and in her, accepting the pleasure he always brought to her body.

But this was about more than that. This was about loving actively, trusting with intention.

Making love and making the first move. Not waiting for him to reach for her.

Not just taking, but giving.

Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes. Just for an instant, she visualized, and the images sprawling out across her vision were in the most brilliant, sparkling hues.

Looking up at him again, she pushed his hand away.

Then with her heart in her throat, she urged him over onto his back. She climbed on top of him. She gazed into bright blue eyes gone simmering and dark.

And she was unafraid.

And here Rylan had thought he'd have to celebrate his victory alone.

Fuck, it was almost too good to be true. He'd embraced his destiny and his future, and the future he'd been dreaming of—the one he'd thought he'd let slip from his grasp—had been waiting for him here all along.

Kate hadn't spent this past week ignoring him or trying to figure out how best to let him down easy. She'd spent it immersed in him. He'd seen how she got when she was lost in her art. The laser-like focus and the passion with which she attacked a subject and made something beautiful of an empty page.

She'd made a work of art out of him, there on her canvases and here in his life.

And yet none of it held a candle to the vision she made as she settled over his hips. She
glowed
, confident and resplendent above him. Gone was the timid girl he'd had to coax through every touch, who didn't know how to accept the least kind of pleasure. She'd been replaced by this goddess, and for the first time, he was pretty sure she knew precisely how magnificent she was. How gorgeous she was in his eyes.

Bracing her hands against her shoulders, she shook out her hair. There was a hot flush to her cheeks and seeping down, over her throat and across her chest. Her pretty nipples had to be all tight and needy, red and waiting for his mouth, and he was going to suck them until they were sore. His cock, already achingly hard for her, gave another kick as she shifted her weight, sliding over him, and he jerked his hands from his sides to grasp her hips. Tilting his head back, he guided her through another slow stroke, had them practically fucking through their clothes, and shit, fuck, it was too good.

He groaned, imagining it
without
the clothes. “You like that, baby? Want to ride me?”

Panting, she leaned down to kiss him. The heat of her mouth was another layer of need settling into his skin as he licked past her lips. Scraped across that slick flesh with his teeth.

“You can drive,” he offered. “Take what you want from me. Fuck me nice and slow or ride me hard. Get it so deep. Is that what you want?”

He slid his palms over the wide splay of her thighs as she groaned, rocking over him, and that shouldn't feel so good.

“Or…” He swallowed hard, his eyes about near rolling back in his head. “You wanna ride my face? Get my tongue all over you—”

It drove a sharp gasp from her, and she ground down to the point where it almost hurt.

“Yeah?” he asked, because he knew her tells. She'd flushed even brighter, and her eyes were dark, her hands biting against his shoulders. Damn but he could get into that. Arousal was a punch straight down to his gut, making his balls go tight and his tongue loose. “Doesn't that sound good? My chin all slick with you? Get on your knees over me, ride my mouth until I can't breathe. Till all I can smell and taste and think is your pretty pussy—”

“God, Rylan.” She tore away from his kiss, something in her expression gone wild. “Do girls really—”

“Only girl who matters here is you.” She was the only girl who would ever matter to him again. Growling, he tucked a finger in the waistband of her jeans. “And if you aren't on my mouth in the next five seconds…”

And there was a part of him that half expected her to demur, for that same shy girl to reemerge in the wake of his dare. His throat went dry as her hands dropped to join his. Together, they popped the button of her jeans and undid the zip. She rose off him to push both the denim and the lace beneath away, to slip those purple sneakers from her feet, and God, he was flat on his back on the floor, still dressed in a suit. As she dragged off her sweater and bra, too, he sat partway up, just enough to shrug out of his jacket. He tossed his tie and his cuff links to the side, and then her hands were there, slipping button after button through its hole, warm fingertips dancing across his skin and brushing over his heart. Stripped to the waist, he grabbed her by the hips, manhandling her up. His cock was a throbbing weight inside his slacks, but he couldn't wait any longer, needed her taste on his tongue, her thighs to either side of his face. Needed this.

She was straddling his chest when nervousness seemed to take one last stab at her. “Are you sure?”

Had he ever been so sure of anything in his life?

“Gimme,” he insisted, hauling her the rest of the way up.

It threw her off balance, but she recovered well enough, planting one knee and then the other to the side of his head. He cupped her thighs and licked his lips. Soft fingertips buried themselves in his hair, and she gazed down at him. There was a shakiness to her, but just when he thought she'd balk, she lowered herself down.

Fuck.
The very scent of her made him dizzy, and there had been this part of him that had thought he'd never have this again. Never be able to put his mouth on her or make her come, never hold her. Even in his wildest dreams where she'd returned to him, he couldn't have imagined her
here
.

“So goddamn sweet,” he mumbled into her cunt, licking up. The first hot stripe he laved over her choked a cut-off moan from her throat, and she swayed over him. He reached up with one hand, interlacing it with hers, giving her something to hold on to, and she squeezed his palm tight.

“Rylan—” She rocked against his mouth, and it was better than he'd imagined it would be, letting her take her pleasure from him.

Sucking at her clit, he grasped her thigh and gripped her hand. The fingers in her hair dug in harder, practically steering him, and had she ever been this free with him before? So unself-conscious about how good he could make her feel?

“That's right. That's beautiful.” He snuck out fragments of words each time she raised herself off him, giving him handfuls of seconds to breathe before slotting herself onto his mouth again.

God, he loved her. He loved the way she sounded when he skated his teeth along her outer lips and how the flush crept down her chest with every wet stroke he took across her clit. How the soft, slick sounds of him eating her out made her embarrassed and aroused. The spill of her liquid across his tongue and the rasping way she said his name.

She shifted, pressing him against her clit at just this slightly different angle, and her whole body seized. “Oh God—”

And he was going to burst, was going to go off like a damn rocket without so much as a hand on his cock, she felt so good and tasted so lush. He skated his hand off her thigh and got up in all that sweetness, slipped two fingers inside and crooked them—

And she
screamed
. Tearing at his scalp, she went rigid over him, pulsing around his fingers and over his tongue, and he couldn't breathe and didn't care.

She came and came and came. When she lifted up, he gulped in a ragged gasp. Released her hand to grab at her thigh, trying to pull her back down to him, because he hadn't had enough.

He would never, ever get enough.

But she shook her head, and her eyes were black with desire, her lips bitten and red, and she collapsed onto all fours before climbing her way down his body. His fingers slipped free of her, and he let them trail along her, gliding wetly over soft skin to her breast where he slicked them around her nipple.

Then her mouth was on his, licking her taste from his lips, and he was so hard beneath her it ached.

“That,” he choked out, “was so. Fucking. Hot.”

She'd let him do that for her. She'd let
herself
.

Gazing down at him with wonder, she slipped her hand down to rest against his heart. “You are never going to stop showing me new things, are you?”

He'd probably run out eventually. They were going to make love on every surface of this house, in every position he'd ever imagined and maybe some that hadn't been invented yet. For the rest of his life.

And it would never, ever get old.

Not with this woman. This amazing person who challenged him, who saw in him things he'd never seen in himself. Who made him
better
.

“We'll discover them,” he promised her. “Together.”

The corners of her mouth lifted up into this smile that lit her face and his life, beatific in its brilliance. “That sounds amazing.”

She bent to kiss him again, lips so warm and soft against his.

Then she raised herself up, and her grin shifted, going sultry, her eyelids drifting lower. “You know what else sounds amazing right now?”

Groaning, he gripped her side and licked his lips. She dipped her hips into his, a teasing brush that made his skin feel too tight, his whole body on edge with the barest hint of a touch.

“I can think of a couple of things,” he said, spinning with the possibilities.

And her eyes gleamed. “So can I.”

Back before Rylan, Kate's understanding of sex had been very, very confused.

To make a man feel good meant giving up a part of herself. It was uncomfortable, and sometimes it hurt, and the parts of it that people talked about—the parts that drove them to crave it…they had never seemed to be for her.

Then Rylan had walked into her life, and he'd shown her that they
were
. She could have the intimacy and the closeness, the surrender. Her body could shatter over and over beneath his hands or her own. Around his cock or against his tongue. He'd brought her to ecstasy relentlessly, with patience and passion.

Before him, she'd known she had to give of herself. But she'd never understood what she had to gain.

Hovering over him, the hot ache of her sex dragging over where he was so hard for her, a long line of need beneath the fabric of his clothes, it was like she'd won the entire world.

God, the things he'd asked her to do. Illicit pleasure danced up and down her spine at the sense memory of sliding herself against his mouth, of taking her satisfaction that way, and he had loved it.

He loved her.

Something deep inside her clenched, a hungry pang that wasn't just about the sex, for all that that was mixed up in there, too. He was staring at her with anticipation written on every line of him, and she wanted to drown in him. To live with him, filling up all her empty places.

She wanted to draw his face in the morning and learn how to cook with him and trade stories over dinner about their work and she wanted to
fuck
him. She wanted everything.

Pulling in a ragged breath, she skated her hand down his chest. The warm skin and firm muscle glided beneath her palm until she met the leather of his belt. She drew the end of it through the buckle. Found the little extra clasp hidden in the waistband of his pants. When she lifted her hips, he helped her push the fabric down.

And it was like seeing him naked for the very first time. He was splayed out beneath her, so much strength in all his limbs, but for her he made them pliant. He made his grip soft.

Heat bloomed anew within her as she circled the thick flesh of his cock with her fist, and he arched into it, throat bared. Releasing him, she settled herself over him. She dragged the slickness of her sex over that hot length, pulsing deep within. When her clit slipped over the head, he was so close. She could just tip her hips. Just take him in.

“I have—” His Adam's apple bobbed, his voice stuttering as he reached back toward his pants.

Things went very quiet in her head. Because she could. She could.

She heard her own voice as if from a long way away. “When was the last time you got tested?”

Eyes going wide, he gripped her thigh, and beneath her, his cock throbbed. “Before I left Paris. There's been no one. But—”

“It's safe,” she said. She'd never been safer.

She was on the pill and she was clean and she was with this man. This man who gave her wings but kept her rooted to the earth.

“Fuck, Kate.” His fingers dug in hard, restraint and desire carved into his skin. “Be sure.”

“I'm so sure.” She wanted this. To be so close to him, no barriers and nothing between them. And— “I trust you.”

She didn't breathe as she slid that extra inch forward. As she pressed back, the slick tip of him settling against her opening.

And then he was pushing inside.

The noise it punched out of him zipped through her breasts and on a screaming line to her clit, a pulse of lightning deep within.

“Oh Jesus, Kate.” His hands clenching at her hips were meant to still her, but she took him the rest of the way in.

God, she was so full, and he was naked and bare inside her, beneath her. She reared up over him. Power tingled through her every nerve and cell.

And she was home. Complete.

With a strangled groan, he tugged her down to him. Their mouths met in a tangle of lips and tongues, and she'd never seen him or felt him so undone. “You feel—you don't know—”

Except she did. “It's the same. For me, it's…”
Everything.

In slow motions, she rocked over him, and every one seemed to wind him higher. The tendons in his neck stood out against his skin, his abdomen tensed, his breath rasping harsh inside his lungs. His hand at her hip inched inward until his thumb pressed into her clit, and she sped her strokes, a hot ball gathering deep within.

“Baby,” he said, “please.”

And she was so close—as close as he was maybe. She needed just a word. Just a breath.

His cock throbbed inside her, and she stared down into those warm blue eyes. At this face that had first pulled her in and this heart that had taught her to stay. To be brave.

As the feeling gathered, she gasped for air, but there wasn't room for it. Wasn't room for anything left in her chest except—

“Love,” she choked out. “I love you.”

His mouth fell open, thumb digging in harder. “I love you.”

And her body snapped. Hot waves of relief and release washed over her, her vision spinning, but at the center of it all was Rylan. Rylan calling her name and pulling her close, filling her, and everything went wet and warm as they crashed over the edge. Together. As one.