‘Okay,’ he whispers, pulling my bra from my body. ‘Take my shorts off.’
His instruction makes me hesitate, the potential of him fully na**d unearthing a little bit of nervousness, which is crazy when I’m completely nude myself.
His hands are suddenly on mine and guiding them to the waistband of his shorts. ‘Stay with me, Livy.’ His words drive me into action and I slowly, carefully, push his shorts down his muscled thighs, not daring to look down. I keep my eyes on his superb face, finding it comforting. I can’t, however, avoid the feel of him when he’s free from his shorts and skimming my stomach. I quietly gasp, involuntarily stepping back from him, but he moves with me, his hand sliding around my waist and cupping my bum. ‘Easy,’ he whispers. ‘Relax, Livy.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I drop my head, feeling stupid and frustrated with myself. Those doubts are creeping in again, and he must sense it too because I’m lifted to his chest and walked to the bed, then laid down carefully before he takes something from the top drawer of the bedside table and positions himself over me, astride my waist, his hard, hot penis directly in my line of sight. I’m fixated, even more so when he rises to his knees and clasps himself. I flick my eyes briefly to his face, seeing him looking down, his lips parted and that wave loose on his forehead. It’s a pleasurable sight, but watching him rip the packet of the condom open with his teeth and slowly roll it down his shaft with ease is a light year past pleasurable, which only leaves me wondering what’s to come.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks, planting his palms on either side of my head and nudging my thighs open with his knee.
‘Yes.’ I nod as I speak, not quite certain what to do with my hands, which are redundant by my sides, but then I feel him at my opening and they fly up to his chest on a gasp.
He’s staring at me, and my eyes refuse to leave him, even though I desperately want to clench them shut and hold my breath. ‘Ready?’
I nod again, and he pushes forward gently, slowly breaching my entrance and sliding into me on a loud exhale of air. Pain sears through me, making me quietly whimper and dig my short nails into his shoulders. I know my face is etched with discomfort, and there’s nothing that I can do to stop it. It hurts.
‘Jesus,’ he gasps. ‘Jesus, Livy, you’re tight.’ The strained expression on his face tells me he’s in pain, too. ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No!’ I yelp.
‘Livy, tell me so I can fix it. I don’t want to hurt you.’ He’s braced on his arms, holding still, waiting for me to respond.
‘It hurts a little,’ I admit on a despairing rush of breath.
‘I can tell.’ He eases back gently but doesn’t pull out completely. ‘I have puncture wounds in my shoulders to prove it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I immediately release him from my vicious grip, and he pushes forward again, only halfway this time.
‘Don’t be. Save your biting and scratching for when I f**k you.’ He smirks, and my eyes widen. ‘Come on, Livy.’ He retreats slowly and rocks gently back in. ‘Don’t be bashful. We’re sharing the most intimate act together.’
I find my h*ps lifting, wanting him to plunge deeper, now that the pain has subsided a little.
‘You’re egging me on.’ He drops to his elbows and gets mouth to mouth with me, easing back and pushing in a little further, circling his groin. ‘Tell me how it feels.’
‘Good!’ I breathe, inviting him to increase his pace with another tip of my hips.
‘I concur.’ He rests his lips over mine and teases my mouth with a brief dash of his tongue. It’s too much. I attempt to capture his lips but he pulls away. ‘Slowly,’ he murmurs, swaying in and out perfectly, gazing down at me and blinking lazily to match his gentle thrusting. This really is intimate, and he’s breaking me in, just like he promised. The quietness surrounding us is only slightly pierced by our matching, quiet, irregular puffs of air. Right now, I’m wondering why I’ve deprived myself of this feeling. This is nothing like I remember. This is how sex should be – two people sharing in each other’s pleasure, not sprinting to the finish line with no consideration for the other person, which is just how I remember my drunken encounters to be. This is worlds away. This is special. This is what I want. I know I shouldn’t be thinking that, especially since I’ve agreed to twenty-four hours and nothing more, but if I’ll have this to remember – him staring down at me, him feeling me, him worshipping me, then I think that I can cope with the aftermath.
I feel internal muscles that I never knew existed contract around him, sensitising me to each delicious drive, pushing me onward to . . . something. I don’t know what, but I know it’s going to be good.
He leans down and kisses my nose, then moves to my lips. ‘You’re tensing inside. Are you going to come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ he gasps. ‘You’ve never come?’
I shake my head under his mouth, not feeling in the slightest bit embarrassed. I’m too distracted by the lush heaviness weighing down between my thighs, getting heavier with each gentle thrust of his hips. I’ve never cl**axed when I’ve slept with a man. Each encounter disgusted me, made me wonder what my mother found so hard to resist. I couldn’t see what pleasure could come of it – I never realised it could be like this. I feel like all rationality is being stripped away.
‘Oh, f**king hell!’ His face pulls away from mine, his h*ps jerking forward, a little less controlled. ‘You’ve never had an orgasm?’
‘No!’ I grapple at his shoulders, my head shaking despairingly. The pain has completely gone now. Oh God, it’s gone and in its place is something else – something . . . ‘Miller!’
‘Oh, you sweet thing.’ His drives are controlled again, but slightly firmer – more precise and consistent. ‘Livy, you’ve just made me a very happy man.’
My nails dig in again. I can’t help it. I’m being bombarded with hot sparks stabbing at my epicentre. ‘Oh!’
He drops his face to mine and kisses me softly. I’m not soft, though. I’m hungry, and my frantic mouth action is proof of it. ‘Slow down,’ he mumbles, sounding desperate, trying to guide me by kissing me purposely slow.
I’m turning light-headed; my eyes are rolling and my hands are now grasping his mass of dark waves. But I don’t slow down. I can’t. I feel a sense of urgency as the pressure builds and builds with every wonderful push of his hips.
‘Here it comes.’ He breaks away from my mouth and re-braces himself on his arms, pumping firmly, leaving me with no mouth to devour and no hair to knot my fingers in. ‘How does it feel, Livy? Tell me.’ His jaw is tense, his eyes suddenly deadly serious.
‘Good!’
‘How good?’ He pleasures me with more and more and more.
‘Too good!’
‘Are you ready to come?’
‘I don’t know!’ Is that what this is? I feel out of control, almost out of my mind.
‘Oh, sweet girl, you’ve not lived.’ His pace picks up and so does the pressure down below. My hands brace on his forearms and push, taking me further up the bed, and my head starts to urgently shake from side to side.
‘Oh God!’ I yelp. ‘Oh shit!’
‘That’s it, Livy!’ It’s becoming frantic – our breathing, the shouting, the sweating and tensing and bracing. But he still maintains that steady, easy pace. ‘Let it go.’
I have no idea what happens. The room starts spinning, a nuclear bomb goes off between my thighs and I scream. I can’t stop it. My arms flop behind my head and Miller lowers himself on top of me, barking his cl**ax into my hair, panting and slipping over my wet skin. The throb, him inside me and me around him is comforting and so is his fitful breathing in my ear.
‘Thank you,’ I gasp, not even feeling stupid for showing my appreciation. He’s the one who keeps reminding me of my manners and what he’s just done to me deserves some gratitude. Bloody hell, that was past even my highest expectations.
‘No, thank you,’ he breathes, biting at my ear. ‘The pleasure was all mine.’
‘Trust me, it was mine,’ I insist, smiling when I feel him grinning against my ear. I’m desperate to see it, so I turn my face into him, finding the most amazing sight – a full-blown, boyish grin, making his eyes sparkle like crazy and revealing a dimple that I’ve never noticed before. What I’m seeing right now is a million miles away from the coffee-hating, clipped, refined, powerful man who has utterly captivated me. ‘You look cute when you grin.’
It disappears from his face immediately, a heavy frown replacing it. ‘Cute?’
That probably wasn’t the best choice of a word for such a manly man, but he did look cute. Not now, because he’s not grinning any more, but that tip of his lips, the revealing of that dimple and the sparkling of his blue eyes showed me a completely different man, a man who I can tell doesn’t appear very often. ‘You don’t smile very much,’ I say, feeling a little brave. ‘You should make the effort. You look less intimidating when you smile.’
‘So I’ve gone from being cute to being intimidating?’ He shifts onto his forearms and brings his face to mine, nose to nose, forehead to forehead.
I nod my head, making his nod, too. ‘You’re a little intimidating.’
‘Or maybe you’re too sweet.’
‘No, you’re too intimidating,’ I affirm, feeling him throbbing inside me. All edginess has left me, leaving me feeling calm and serene. It’s a lovely sensation, and he made it.
‘We’ll agree to disagree.’ He’s back to intimidating, but my serenity is still intact. It’ll take a lot to pull me from this relaxed state of mind.
Easing out of me, he looks down between my thighs and pulls the condom off. ‘Consider yourself broken in, Livy.’
My face screws up at his lack of tact. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He shifts down the bed and nestles between my thighs, looking up at me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Okay,’ I answer hesitantly. ‘Why?’
‘I’m just checking if you need a break. Say the word and I’ll stop, okay?’ He rests his lips over the apex of my thighs, encouraging my receding orgasm to resurrect. I start twitching. I need more recovery time.
‘Okay,’ I whisper, dropping my head back to the pillow and gazing up to the high ceiling. I don’t think I’d ever tell him to stop. ‘Shit!’ I blurt when I feel something hot and wet meet the tip of my buzzing clit. My head flies up, my stomach muscles tense and my hands fist in the sheets by my side. My outburst is ignored and he sits up, taking my leg and bending and lifting it so he can kiss the sole of my foot. I want to throw my head back, curse and shout, but I’m immobilised by those damn clear eyes as he watches me struggling to cope with his tongue running up my ankle and onto my lower leg. ‘That feels nice,’ I confess as he inches his way upward until he finds my tummy and starts trailing his lips across my navel and then back down the other side.
‘Would you like me to continue?’
‘Yes,’ I wheeze, my leg twitching, my muscles firming up.
‘Then I shall.’ He nibbles the inside of my thigh. ‘Soon, my mouth will be here,’ he says quietly, pushing a finger into me, just a little. ‘Would you like that?’
I nod my answer and he circles, enticing a long, low moan from me. ‘Oh, God,’ I breathe, pulling at the covers, yanking one side up and letting it float down over my face.
He almost laughs as he pulls the sheets from my face, but my eyes remain firmly shut, even when I feel him moving up the bed until he’s settled half on me, his finger still submerged. ‘Open.’