Promise Me This (15 page)

Jessie

I was still reeling from the way Nate had acted on my behalf. I was grateful, confused, embarrassed, and more than a little turned on.

As soon as I got into Nate’s truck he tipped his chin toward me, a serious look in his eyes, his leg jiggling at a steady rate. Something had gotten under his skin.

“Did Dex ever put his hands on you?” His jaw ticked. “When you were . . . dating?”

I could only guess that his question had come from thoughts of his own mother and how far she had let things go.

“No,” I said. “He was just . . . intense. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

He looked a little green, along with a lot of what might’ve been jealousy.

“For the record, it was only one time. One kiss,” I said, almost shivering because I still wished to God it hadn’t happened with someone I’d worked with. “Right away I knew I wasn’t into him like he was into me. That’s why I ended it.”

He gave a curt nod and quietly fumed as he pulled out of the lot and continued driving me home in silence.

“My place is right here, on the left,” I said after he turned down my street.

My forearm rested so close to his on the seat and when I looked down, I saw how his fingers were shaking, as if he was restraining himself from reaching over and closing his hand over mine. My heart crashed against my ribcage.

“Thanks,” I said, as he pulled into the driveway. “Jillian isn’t home tonight. So if I had gotten a flat, she wouldn’t have been able to give me a lift.”

“How do you know she isn’t home?”

My landlord, Jillian, was a nurse in the emergency room. She worked a lot of hours and I usually saw her coming or going in her scrubs. “I ran into her on my way out and she told me that she was on second shift at the hospital tonight.”

The tension in the car became tangible after that little revelation, hot and thick and suffocating. I wanted to ask Nate to come inside but what would that solve? He’d been the one trying so damn hard to show restraint, to manage his own feelings. And I sure as hell didn’t want to get turned down again.

I could feel his gaze on me all night, pressing in like fingers on my throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

I knew he liked me, was highly attracted to me. So why couldn’t we act on it again?

I wished he would let me help him explore all of it—the light and dark. How just a couple of weeks ago, he could hold me so gently despite his body being hard and tight and throbbing in other ways.

“So,” I said slowly, gripping the door handle. “I’ll see you around, Nate.”

“Wait,” he reached out and placed his warm fingers on my hand. I turned to him and met his gaze. His eyes were on fire, heat rolling off of him in waves. I sucked in a harsh breath.

“If you need . . .” His hand slipped up my arm as if of its own volition and I watched it glide to my shoulder, my body trembling from the contact. ”. . . a ride tomorrow or something . . .”

He didn’t finish his sentence before he had me pinned to the door and his hot mouth came down on me. I shifted in order to feel his hard chest flush with mine and moaned against his lips. His finger gripped the back of my hair and tugged my head down so that his mouth could gain better access. He outlined my lips with the tip of his tongue before fully entering my mouth.

He groaned into the slow and deep and wet kiss that was so intense, I instantly became wet. His hands remained burrowed in my hair but I would’ve welcomed them all over my body.

His mouth stayed fixed on mine, his tongue exploring while my hands worked their way through his hair, over his throat and around his back, pressing hard. Then I glided my fingertips to his waist, my legs coming round and encircling his hips as I felt his arousal biting into my stomach.

He ripped his mouth away from mine, panting hard. “Fuck, Jessie . . . you . . .”

He didn’t finish his sentence, just stared at me, as if trying to read something inside my eyes.

“You can . . . come inside . . . if you want . . .” I said, between breaths.

He closed his eyes and groaned, as if I had said the one thing he was dying to hear, but also the one thing he was fighting hardest against.

When he opened his eyes he looked at me as with a torturous glance. “No . . . I shouldn’t.”

I shook my head, pretty certain I wasn’t interested in fighting him on this again—it felt exhausting. If he didn’t want me, that was one thing. I could accept that and move on.

But I knew with every fiber of my being that he did want me,
desperately
. Just like I wanted him. But he wasn’t allowing himself to embrace it, feel it, see where this could lead us. I was a big girl and I needed to keep a clear head. I also needed to keep my self-respect.

“Okay, Nate.” I extracted myself from him, opened the door and climbed out. “It’s really hard to watch you fight yourself. So let’s just take a pass on this. On us. For
good.
Thanks again for the ride.”

I walked up the sidewalk to my separate basement entrance without looking behind me. But I knew that he was watching me because I didn’t hear him drive away. Unless he was just being a gentleman and waiting for me to get inside.

Which I did, swiftly, and shut the door behind me. I leaned against the frame, gulping in air and trying not to feel too bummed.

I couldn’t help but to touch my swollen lips where Nate had kissed me like his life depended on it. I could probably get off on the way his mouth touched me alone. Nate had admitted that he didn’t use his tongue, but he continued to use it on me, which only confused the hell out of me.

He was passionate and all consuming. Not sloppy like some other guys, or misguided in order to get in my pants.

Nate knew just how much tongue to use, how much pressure to give my lips to leave me wanting more. And right now, I still wanted more. Fuck.

There was a tap on the wood and when I heard Nate’s voice, my stomach rose to my throat. “Jessie?”

I cracked open the door open to peek at him. His elbow was against the frame and his one ankle crossed over the other. He looked so damn hot but something else was glistening in his eyes. Something that looked a lot like determination.

“Is there still an open invitation?”

“Promise you won’t change your mind?” I said opening the door wider for him to step through.

“I know I’m fucking this all up. But I can’t let you walk away.” He shook his head, maybe to deflect the honesty. “Just being this close to you makes me so damn hard.”

Tension seemed to radiate through his stiff shoulders as he continued speaking. “I can’t seem to stay away and I don’t know if I can explain this or face this or figure out what I’m supposed—”

“Just fucking kiss me, Nate,” I growled, effectively cutting him off.

In one swift move he had me backed against the wall, my hands braced above my head. He flattened his body against mine and I felt the full weight of his erection bearing into my abdomen. “All I could think about for days is tying you up and having my way with you.”

Oh.
My skin tingled pitifully, that’s how badly I wanted it.

When I didn’t say anything because I was too lost in my own desire, he said, “Does . . . does that scare you . . . do
I
scare you?”

“I’m not afraid of you, Nate. I think you’re afraid of yourself,” I whispered. “I want you to do those things to me. I want you
so
bad.”

He let out a long groan before his mouth overtook mine. His hands gripped my ass and he lifted me, my legs winding easily around his waist. Our hot centers ground together and I became almost liquid in his arms.

“Bedroom,” he panted out.

“Behind you.”

He walked me backward toward my bed, which was behind the far wall. The basement was an open concept, like an efficiency suite, with a tiny sink and bathroom, and then a bed at the end.

Instead of rounding the corner to lie down, he forced my back against the wall, and pushed his arousal into me. “I’m going to taste you and then bury myself deep inside you.”

“Oh damn,” I said, his words sending pings of electric energy over my skin.

He ripped my shirt away from my body all while holding me suspended in his arms and then grunted, “Take your bra off,
now.
”

I reached behind me and did as he said, flinging the material to the floor. His gaze roamed all over me before his hot mouth captured one of my nipples. “You have the most amazing tits I’ve even seen.”

I gasped at his words and at the things his tongue was doing to my breasts. I would allow him to take the lead because I needed a release so badly and I liked when he was in control. In fact, I
loved
it. Every now and then he’d pause in his assault on my chest and lick my camera tattoo, almost reverently.

He spent time with each of my breasts while I clung onto his shoulders and tugged hard at his hair. My chest was swollen from his mouth as he bit and sucked and I was sure he had left marks that I’d notice in the morning.

I was able to get his shirt off in between licks so that I could play with his nipples as well.

In fact, I think I shocked him by seeking them out and pinching them. I was going to guess no women had ever done that to him before. He paused, his nipples hardening at my touch and his gaze blazed into mine before he attacked my mouth again.

He finally lifted me away from the wall, walked a few steps forward, and then tossed me on the bed. I sat up on my elbows to watch him strip his jeans and boxers down. It was quite a sight. His erection was engorged and all I could think was that
I
had done that to him.

My hands moved to my jeans to tug them down and he growled, “Don’t. That’s my job. In fact you’ve used your hands enough tonight.”

I gulped and looked up at him. He knelt down at the foot of the bed and pulled my ankles toward him. “You’re going to keep your hands on the mattress and if you decide to use them, I’m going to stop what I’m doing immediately. Understand?”

I nodded, in awe of his authoritarian voice that had replaced the tortured one just moments before.

“I don’t think you’ll like it if I stop, so you better heed my warning.”

Again I shook my head, my legs now quivering with need.

He unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, sliding them down my legs. His gaze travelled over my skin as if in awe. He looked over each tattoo as if memorizing them and then nudged open my legs.

“Fuck, your pussy is pretty,” he said, dragging his fingers up my thighs. “It’s perfect for me. For my monster.”

He tried for humor but it fell flat because neither one of us grinned, we were that worked up. And besides, his statement was true. We seemed to fit together too easily, too right the other day.

“It
is
perfect,” I whispered and his eyes became dark, so dark with need.

I wondered when he’d flip me over, since he seemed to like it from behind.

His shoulders moved down and settled between my open legs. I felt his warm breath as he blew on my skin. I almost pressed my thighs together from the intensity, but he was in my way. He inserted one finger while he studied me and then blew another gust of hot air across my sensitive skin.

I moaned loudly and brought my hands up to run through his hair before changing my mind and forcing them back down.

“Don’t even think about it,” he grunted.

He licked my entrance with the broad flat of his tongue and I whimpered.

“You like that?”

“Yes,” I breathed out and his tongue repeated the action.

“Tell me again.”

“Sometimes all I think about is your mouth on me.”

“Fuck,” he rumbled and then began licking me faster. Soft and then hard, short thrusts of the tip of his tongue and then long drags over and over again.

“I can’t get enough of your taste,” he said.

I’ve never had someone utter those words to me. Usually oral sex was just foreplay, a means to an end. To get me loosened up and ready to go, if it happened at all. But with Nate it was like a worshipful expression.

My fingers fisted the bedspread as his lips closed around my swollen nub. He sucked and licked and bit and I became absolutely feverish for him. I moaned so loudly that had my landlord been home, she would have definitely heard me.

I was close and when he spread my legs wider and firmly pressed me down to the mattress, I was nearly gone. My hips were now grinding against his mouth.

“That’s it, fuck my mouth. My tongue is loving it.” His thumbs spread my lips apart as he sucked hard and then moved down to tunnel inside me.

I felt the buildup low in my spine, rounding and tightening across my abdomen, and then spreading to my thighs like boiling lava. When I exploded my legs were quivering, my shoulders shuddering, and I tried to pull away without touching him. But he held me there and laved me with his mouth, licking ever so gently while I writhed beneath him.

It was such a profound orgasm that I felt my eyes watering and tears sliding out of the corners. A mind-numbing sensation rolled over me even as he continued bathing me with his tongue. “Nate, I can’t take it anymore.”

He ignored me but loosened his grasp on my thighs. His fingers ran circles beneath my knees and now he was full-mouth kissing the area between my legs.

I sagged into the bed allowing him to do his thing, confused as to what it was all about. I wanted to reach out and touch him but I also didn’t want to disrupt his reverent adoration of my body. It was as overwhelming as it was intoxicating.

He offered one final kiss and then pulled away to tower over me—his body taut, his shaft hard and swollen, his eyes fierce and burning for me.

Nate

I was standing over Jessie’s beautiful naked body memorizing her. She was hands down the sexiest girl I’d even been with and the noises she made when I went down on her drove me out of my fucking mind.

I couldn’t get enough of her. Her taste, her moans, how she obeyed my commands by keeping her hands where I’d asked her to, even though I knew she desperately wanted to touch me. I wanted to make sure she felt intense pleasure, and that was something I had never given two shits about before.

She allowed me to do what I wanted, at my own speed, on my own terms, and there was so much goddamn freedom in that. I felt totally uninhibited when I was around her.

I wanted to stay here in this room with her forever and that scared the shit out of me in a completely different way. I wasn’t itching to leave, to get it all over with, even though my urges were front and center in my brain.

Moving my mouth down to her skin, I licked the line of her stomach, travelling up to her breasts.

“Nate,” she whispered as I pulled a nipple into my mouth and then grabbed hold of her hands.

I tugged her arms above her head and then ground my hips against her, my shaft dragging over her stomach. “You want me to fuck you?”

“Yes, please,” she said, even though she looked completely spent and satisfied from her orgasm.

My legs on either side of her hips, I sat back to gaze at her. Her arms stayed exactly where I had placed them above her pillow and her eyes devoured my body. She licked her lips and stared down at my hard-on.

“You want a taste first?” I whispered.

She nodded vigorously and I scooted forward almost like a looming shadow over her breasts. She was such a little thing that I didn’t want to squash her. I could’ve easily flung her over my shoulder and spanked her if wanted. And I knew now that she would’ve enjoyed that. That thought only made me harder.

My dick brushed her chin and she darted her tongue out to swipe at my head.

Her lips slid over my slit and I groaned, so ready to bury myself inside of her. I jutted my hips forward and she sucked on my tip, her mouth so warm and wet that I almost lost my load.

Jessie hummed as she attempted to take more of me inside her mouth and the sensation made my legs quiver. She brought her hands down halfway to give herself some help, before stopping and letting them fall back against the pillows. Fuck, this girl was amazing.

After another minute of feeling her hot lips on me, I pulled back and said, “I need to see your sweet ass.”

She rolled beneath me, keeping her hands above the pillows, and my gaze travelled up and down her gorgeous backside. She was an empty canvas on this part of her body, the only tattoo being the one on her lower back, containing the words that grounded me last time.

When my mouth suddenly covered that patch of skin, kissing the words, she inhaled sharply.

I growled and grabbed a firm fistful of her ass, kneading her flesh before parting her cheeks. I slid my shaft up and down her crease, picturing how I pounded into her that day on that bridge. She moaned and pressed her ass against my hips.

Trailing my hands over her smooth skin, rubbing and squeezing, I allowed my fingers to roam freely in her most intimate places. She indulged me, never attempting to pull away, her head bent and breathing heavily.

Unexpectedly my mind drifted to other places, wondering what she’d allowed with other guys and whether that had been the reason she was so comfortable with me. I thought of Jessie kissing Dex and I gritted my teeth as jealousy tore through me and settled in my chest, like a heavy and imposing lead weight.

Fucking hell, I didn’t want Jessie to be with anybody else. Nobody besides me. Ever again. My breathing escalated as did the roughness of my fingers roaming over her skin, like I wanted to take ownership of her.

I raised my hand to give her perfectly unmarred skin a nice and good slap, but then all at once, the drive slid away—slid right the fuck out of me.

I wanted—no,
needed
—to possess her in an altogether different way. She needed to know how exceptionally exquisite she was. I prodded her shoulder and she looked back at me, confused.

“Turn around, beautiful girl,” I mumbled. “I want to see you.”

She spun to her back and stared up at me. She could tell something in the air had changed. Something that made her reach her fingers out to me—to know that this time I would allow it.

She understood that I needed her hands on me. Her hands—nobody else’s. And right in that moment I knew. As her fingers tenderly wandered over my shoulders and slid up my throat to my lips, I knew.

I felt it deep and profound in my gut.

I was
gone
—already fucking
gone
for this girl.

Jessie sat up as her fingers roamed down my chest to my hard-on. She reached for the condom wrapper that I had placed on the side of the bed and then proceeded to open it. With skilled hands she rolled it down my shaft, staring deeply into my eyes the entire time.

I saw a question there, behind her gaze, but she tamped it down and kept going. Like she also understood that’d been what I needed. This goddamn girl was so attuned to me. She just fucking got me.

After the condom was securely in place she teased my bottom lip with her tongue, gently sweeping across it. It was enough to jump-start me again. As my hands groped her neck, I dragged her mouth to mine in a hungry kiss.

Yet, the kiss wasn’t nearly as ravenous as the others before it, because there was tenderness there—as if we both wanted to be wholly present, fully aware of each other. We kept our eyes open as we kissed and licked and gently bit each other’s lips and jaws and ears.

I nudged her back down on the bed, my hands roving over her body, mesmerized by her skin—revering it—before I positioned myself at her entrance.

Her hands braced my thighs as I entered her partway. A breathy groan stole from my lips at the sensation of being inside her, before I slid in all the way.

“Oh yes.” The words tumbled from her mouth and then her hands reached around to my ass. Her fingers gripped my flesh and then she tugged me to her as I pumped in and out at a languid pace.

Still, our eyes remained glued to one another and I stretched down to swipe my mouth against her plump and swollen lips. My stride remained slow as I moved inside her. When she thrust upward, her lips parted, her cheeks a rosy flush—and something seemed to grasp a firm hold on my heart.

Never had I experienced this kind of tightness in my chest while fucking a girl. It felt like I wanted to break down into tears and shout in ecstasy at the same time. One thing was for certain: though I felt completely feverish for release, I never wanted this to end.

She lifted her legs up and wound them around my hips, attempting to get closer to me. My balls were slapping against her ass as I pumped more solidly. Circling her taut nipple with my thumb, I moved down to her very wet clit.

I could still taste her on my tongue and that thought made me groan out loud.

“Fuck, Jessie, you feel incredible.”

Her lips were trembling and she nodded, gazing fully into my eyes. I reached beneath her ass, my fingers grasping firmly.

Pushing up, I said, “Slide your legs to my shoulders.”

She considered my request quizzically before lifting one leg, trusting me completely. When her other leg reached my shoulder, I turned my lips to brush her ankle and she gasped.

I adjusted my grip on her backside and from this angle I was able plunge even deeper. The feel of being this nestled inside her was so intoxicating, my eyes practically rolled in the back of my head.

Her eyes closed on a moan, and her head fell back against the pillows.

“No,” was my soft one-word command. But she understood immediately and snapped her eyes open. My heart thrashed agonizingly against my chest that this girl got me so completely. Got that I needed her gaze on me. That I needed her to experience this right along with me.

My fingers slid down her arm and I reached for her hand, interlaced our fingers securely together.

I began pumping harder and faster as her feet braced against my shoulders. When her fingers reached out to touch the expanse connecting us, my balls tightened and I knew I was close. As I thrust in and out, she looked down to watch where our bodies met, before gazing back up at me.

“Nate,” she said, her lips trembling. “I’m gonna come.”

I nodded. “Keep your eyes on me, baby.”

I drove harder and she whimpered loudly before letting loose, her hand gripping my thigh securely. I followed right behind, panting and cursing openly.

I slowed to gentle thrusts as my orgasm swelled over me in surge after surge. Everything became a blur in the background—except her sweet face and those eyes, which had remained fixed on me.

I collapsed atop her and then rolled, bringing her with me. Ours legs remained entwined and our hands gripped firm, and we breathed into each other’s necks.

So intense. So deep. So profound.

Neither one of us spoke or moved for quite some time, and I just wanted to remain that way, buried deep inside of her for always.

Finally, after several still and hushed minutes, she said, “Nate. Why did you . . . change your mind?”

I wasn’t offended by the question, I’d been wondering the same thing myself. Why I hadn’t spanked her or tied her up.

“I think . . .” I whispered into her hair. “Just knowing it was possible . . . was enough for me.”

I didn’t meet her eyes when I said it. I didn’t even know if she got what I meant. Part of me wished I could take it back, that maybe I had said too much, shown my cards too soon.

But then I felt her fingers grasp my chin and she lifted it, forcing me to look at her. When her eyes met mine, she closed the space between us, placing a gentle yet sensual kiss on my lips. Our hands were still interconnected and she gave my palm a steady squeeze.

I tugged her toward me so that her head lay on my chest and then I felt her relax against me.

Too much had gone down between us tonight that I couldn’t wrap my brain around. I needed to get the hell out of here before I did something else to screw up this friends-turned-lovers situation even further. Like bring all of my messy feelings for her into the mix.