Keep Me Still (20 page)

I
didn’t know if he planned to hash out our messy past all night, but I didn’t want to talk anymore. Especially not about my medical issues. So I climbed onto his lap and covered his mouth with mine.

Judging from his instant reaction beneath me, I’m obviously not too bad at this. Though he made it clear he’s been with more experienced girls. Some animalistic instinct in me has the urge to show him I’m better than them. That I can be the best he’s ever been with and all he’ll ever need. Even if I’m not so convinced it’s true.

Pressing my hips down on him feels so good that I moan embarrassingly loudly. It doesn’t seem to do anything but make his mouth that much more eager to invade mine. His thick, warm tongue lashes against mine and I graze my teeth against it, making it his turn to moan.

Finally
.

All the pent-up hurt and wounded frustration seep out of my body, loosening the obsessive death grip I’ve had on control for the past five years. This isn’t just my chance to start over like I thought—it’s
our
chance. Fate brought us back together, and now I’m ready for the kind of relationship he needs. My muscles relax around him as he pulls my robe off of me. I’m just about to yank my shirt over my head when he stands, still clutching me to him in mid-air.

“Um, Landen,” I mumble against his mouth as I tighten my legs around his waist.

“Bed,” is all he says as he carries me back into the bedroom.

I expect him to lay me down on my bed but he sets me down on my feet in between the two beds.

“Where were we?” he mumbles more to himself than me. Oh, right. Before.

Sucking in all the courage I possess, I curl my fingers around the hem at the bottom of my t-shirt and lift.

My heart pounds so hard he can probably see it throbbing out of my chest now that I’m topless. I expect my body to betray me, to start trembling like a nervous animal, but I’m steady. Because it’s Landen. Landen—who brought me milkshakes. Who risked humiliating himself by enlisting the help of the entire soccer team to ask Freaky Flaherty to Homecoming. Who let me hold him in my arms after the Colonel hit him on Thanksgiving. The boy who saw me at my worst and kept me still.

He kneels to slide my shorts down and sucks in a breath when he remembers I’m not wearing panties. I step out of them and realize that it’s Landen who’s trembling now. My head falls back again as he resumes his slow, torturous path of warm, wet kisses between my hipbones. Liquid fire burns between my legs, and I’m getting twitchy as I wait for him to touch me where I’m throbbing.

Looking down, I see my erect nipples above his thick, dark head of hair. Pulling my fingers through it, I clench tightly, almost unable to take any more. His nose dips into my belly button and I moan out loud.

Landen looks up at me. Pure unadulterated desire radiates from his stare, and the little girl in me is self-conscious about playing grown up with someone who’s done this before. But I’m ready. I’ll be past ready if he doesn’t hurry up. And why is he still wearing all of those clothes? Random thoughts race all around inside of me but I just want. I want so bad it’s painful. I didn’t know it would throb and ache like this.

“Layla,” he growls, grabbing my backside with both hands.

I squeal in surprise, and he pushes me almost roughly onto the bed. He pulls his hands out from under me and uses them to spread my thighs open.
Oh my goodness. This is going to kill me, rip me apart, and send the pieces of me flying around the room
.
Or burn me alive and send my ashy remains scattering in the wind.

“Landen.” His name on my lips is a plea for him to stop, to give me a second to breathe, to think, but when he looks up for permission, I nod.

So slowly that I’m gripping the comforter for dear life, he runs his burning tongue up my inner left thigh. And then my right one. I can barely speak over the whimper that escapes my throat. “Landen.
Please.”

“Since you said please,” he says, his deep voice vibrating against the most sensitive part of me.

I’m struggling not to clamp my legs shut just for the friction. Wet heat scorches my tender flesh as he opens me with his tongue. As much as I want to watch, my eyes squeeze shut as I completely lose my grip on reality. One hand in his hair and one hand full of comforter, I fight the urge to scream with everything I have. This is a dorm after all, and as Corin and Skylar pointed out, the walls aren’t all that thick.

Landen’s mouth licks and sucks and kisses me, alternating between slow and frantic as I barely restrain my hips from grinding myself against his face. I’m wet, not just from his mouth, but from my own moisture. And I’ve never been so high, but I need him inside, filling my hollow ache.

“I want you,” I barely manage to get out.

Another groan into my open, slick folds and I almost lose it completely. But that small spot inside of me is still throbbing for him. Pulsing desperately and pulling me inward until it’s all I can think about.

“I know, baby,” he says, spreading my thighs even farther. “And you’re gonna have me.”

“Y-You, you promise?” I’m falling over, hanging on by the tips of my fingernails, raking them down his head and neck.

“Promise,” he says, pulling his head back just long enough to press a finger inside of me. The pressure is painful until he reaches that throbbing ache inside. His tongue strokes my clit as he presses in deeper and it’s too much to take at once.

“Oh.
Oh, Landen. Fuck.”
I don’t know who this woman is with the throaty sex voice, but I’m glad to know she exists. I don’t even curse out loud. Apparently she does.

“Say fuck again,” he growls into me.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I pant slowly as he pushes his thick finger in and out of me at the same pace. “Fuck me, please, Landen. Pretty please with a cherry on top.”
My cherry
, I almost add.

“No, Layla. I’m not going to fuck you,” he says softly, and my raging orgasm almost comes to an abrupt halt.

“What?” I struggle to catch my breath. He pauses to press his finger deep once more, bowing my body off the bed. A desperate moan escapes me, and I glare at him. “W-Why not?”

“Because I’m going to taste to you with my mouth, worship every inch of you with my tongue, and open you with my fingers until you come. And then I’m going make love to you like I’ve wanted to do since I first watched you drink that damn milkshake at Our Place. Slow and deep like you need it, like your first time should be. After that, if you’re not too sore and you still want it, then, and
only
then, will I fuck you. Understand?”

Oh my holy hell. Thank you, universe. Thank you, demon of vengeance, who brought this pain upon me in the form of Landen O’Brien. More please.

“Yes,” I breathe, writhing and shivering as he pulls my orgasm from me with his fingers.

“Yes to what?”

“Yes to…all of that,” I say as he sucks all of me into his mouth, and then I’m spinning, swirling away from him, from my body on this bed, unable to care if the whole dorm hears my cries.

When I come back down to earth, he’s watching me with hungry eyes. “I could watch you come forever.”

My sex voice woman is missing in action, still floating in outer space somewhere, so I bury my face into the nearest pillow.

“Look at me,” Landen orders, and dang, he’s demanding about this stuff, I’m realizing. Kind of a control freak. I already knew that about him, but I had no idea he’d be all giving commands and making me say what I want in bed.

Or that it would get me so hot.

I move the pillow and look at him, overheating instantly at the sight of his mouth and the memory of what he just did with it. I can’t help but wonder how people do these intimate things to each other and then go on with life business as usual. Pass the salt and all that.

“You are the most dangerous kind of beautiful,” he says, brushing my messy hair away from my face.

I can only image what a wreck I look like after that, but with the way he smiles at me, he must actually think I am beautiful right now. I lean in and kiss his mouth. I can taste myself on his lips. It’s kind of strange and kind of a turn on. I pull at his lower lip with my teeth and he groans.

His voice is raspy against my mouth. “You even taste like peaches, sweet like I knew you would be.”

“What do you taste like, Landen?” I ask, as my sex voice woman comes back to me. “And more importantly, what’s with all the clothes?”

“You gonna do something about it?” he challenges, rolling on his back and resting the arm that isn’t wrapped around me above his head.

“I’m going to try,” I answer, sitting up to straddle him like before. I undo the button fly on his jeans, concentrating all my efforts on it even though I can feel him watching me. Once I’m done, I slide down, pulling his jeans with me. He helps by kicking them off so I don’t have to move off the bed.

“Shirt,” I say, figuring maybe it’s time I give some orders of my own. He arches an eyebrow at the command but props up on one elbow and reaches behind his head to lift his shirt slowly off. Suddenly I’m lightheaded.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him with his shirt off—I used to watch soccer practice when they played shirts and skins and all that, but having him down to his snug boxer briefs in my bed is another animal entirely.

I lick my lips, thankful there’s still moisture left in my body, and inch his black underwear down starting at the waistband.

When his thick, corded erection springs out of the fabric, I gasp out loud. “That is not going to fit inside of me,” I blurt out, mindless with panic.

A wide self-congratulatory smile spreads across his face as he winks at me. “It will, I promise. Gonna be a tight fit though.” He shrugs like this is a good thing.

“Holy fuck,” I breathe, shaking my head because I know how tight I was clenched around his
finger
.

“You can touch me,” he says, his voice tense. “Go ahead.”

Sliding my hand around him, I feel every vein in Landen’s dick as I stroke the velvet smoothness of his flesh. Again, silly girl me giggles in my head.
Oh my goodness, I’m holding Landen’s penis!
But sexy, grown-up woman me pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, glances at his face, and is thrilled to see that his smirk is gone. He’s watching me with a lust-fueled intensity that has my entire body overheating.

Lowering my mouth to him, I reach out with my tongue and lick, smiling when I feel him go rigid under me. Surely this can’t be that hard. But knowing it’s my first time and not his threatens to splash a cold wave of insecurity over me. The new competitive Layla pushes through, and I remember how good his mouth felt on me. I want to make him feel that good.

Even better, if that’s possible.

I pull my lips tight around my teeth and let my tongue massage the sensitive ridge on the underside of him as I sink him into my mouth. Using one of my hands to wrap my hair and hold it out of the way, I let the other one skim slowly up and down his inner thigh, softly raking my nails into his warm skin.

I’m probably glowing bright crimson with the heat filling me, but I don’t care. I don’t care about much right at the moment. He’s always in control, always coming to my rescue. This time I want to watch
him
lose himself because of
me
. I lick every inch of him, flicking my tongue up and down and around in circles before drawing him as deep as I can handle into my wet mouth.

“Fuck, Layla,” he grunts out.

A shiver of pleasure thrills through me. Now I know why he wanted to hear me say it so badly. “We will baby,” I say, sitting up and imitating his assured patience even though a sharp, needy ache has begun swirling inside of me.

“Damn right we will,” he growls, sitting up as he grabs me with both arms and flips us so I’m on my back under him. A small yelp escapes my lips and I smile at him.

“Landen,” I breathe, arching my back as he smiles back at me and begins to place gentle kisses on my throat.

I want to say his name again and again, let it linger in my mouth. In the tiny space between us. But when his mouth finds my breast and he begins the same worshipful process on my nipples that he performed on my clit earlier, I’m unable to recall my own name, much less his. Noises are coming out of me. I hear them, but I can’t control them.

I can feel his hard length rubbing steadily against me, and I can take this anymore. I need him inside of me to fill my hollow ache, press against my pulsing muscles, and push me over the edge.

“Underwear,” I say, even though I’m not exactly in an ideal position to be giving orders.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles into the dip between my breasts. After he yanks his underwear the rest of the way off, he leans down and picks up his jeans. At first I’m confused, but when he pulls out his black leather wallet, I know what he’s looking for. And this is the tricky part. Because he might say no.

I sit up and put my hand on the one he has reaching into his wallet. “I just want to feel you, only you, with nothing between us.”

His eyes go so wide that it’s probably painful. “But babe—“

“I know, okay? I paid attention in health class. But I’m on the pill. Aunt Kate insisted, and….I trust you.”

“Layla,” he whispers, seeming lost.

“Please? Just the first time,” I beg.

“I’ve never done it without a condom,” he tells me, making me want it that much more.

He’s thinking it over and I decide just to leave it up to him. He knows what I want, but I’ll take whatever he decides to give me. I pull my hand away and lie back on the pillows, waiting.

I watch as my lost boy swallows hard and puts his wallet on the nightstand. “Just this once.”

I notice that he’s unsteady, and for once, I’m not. His hands press into the pillow on either side of my head as he braces himself above me. “Okay,” I whisper.

“It’s going to hurt at first. I’m sorry. I’ll be careful with you,” he promises. His eyes meet mine and I see the panic in them. The steady throb inside of me pulses more intently, and I’m not exactly sure I want him to be careful with me.

Reaching up, I put both of my hands on his upper arms, feeling the steady quiver in them. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe, I promise.”

He smiles, looking down at me from under those thick, dark lashes, and the quivering subsides. “Guess it’s your turn to keep me still,” he says, and I want to laugh. Or cry. Or both. Three very dangerous words threaten from behind my teeth but I hold them in. We’ll deal with that later. For now, he’s mine and I’m his.