All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(63)

Giddy, she tipped her hips to offer him more of her, and he took it. Tender, teasing strokes with the flat of his tongue alternated with tight circles. He had her hovering on the edge so fast, so easily, all she could do was let the waves of pleasure sweep her away.

“That’s it,” Nikolai said against her. “Yeah, come on.”

She wasn’t about to deny herself this ecstasy nor him the joy of giving it to her. Her climax rocked her, and she shook with it. With the last gasp she was able to take, she cried out his name.

In the silence that followed, Alicia thought she should say something else. Make a joke, maybe. Lighten the mood. She couldn’t quite rouse herself to the effort, though. Not with the aftershocks of her orgasm still rippling through her.

She opened her eyes after a bit to find Nikolai lying on his side next to her. Just looking. He smiled when she looked back.

“I think I figured out at least one thing you like,” he said.

She gave a contented sigh. “Mmmm. There are plenty more.”

“Damn,” he said and cupped his hand between her legs. “I guess I’d better keep going, huh?”

She sat up. “This is fun. Not as much fun as if you were naked, too, but it’s fun.”

“Hold on.” Nikolai hopped off the bed and stripped out of his jeans but left his briefs on. “How’s this?”

“You’re not naked.” Alicia drew her knees to her chest to eye him as he crawled onto the bed to kiss her. He pulled away at the last second, then moved in again, then away once more, before she grabbed his shoulders and held him from moving. “You’re a tease.”

“I thought maybe you’d like being teased.”

She shook her head. “No biting. No teasing.”

“Noted.” He kissed her harder this time.

“I brought condoms,” she said in a low voice, after a minute or so.

Nikolai didn’t pull away. “Me, too.”

“I want you,” Alicia breathed against his mouth. “Inside me.”

“Yes to that. Feels like I’ve been waiting forever for it.” He looked into her eyes, mouth solemn. “Are you sure you want this?”

A glib answer was rising to her lips, but his expression stopped it before she could say it. She kissed him, instead. They pressed their foreheads together, quiet.

“I don’t believe in regrets, that’s all. I don’t want this to be something we wish we hadn’t done,” Nikolai said.

She tucked herself against him so they could both lean back against the headboard. “Did you ever? Regret anything about us?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, especially not right now. A hundred responses flashed through her mind, but she stifled them all. She kissed the corner of his mouth, instead, then got up from the bed and went to her bag. She pulled out the box of condoms and shook one free.

“Be naked for me,” Alicia said, and in that moment she couldn’t be sure if she meant merely for him to take off the rest of his clothes or something deeper.

Nikolai, in response, shucked off his briefs and tossed them to the side. She let her gaze drop to take all of him in. It was the first time she’d seen him entirely naked in the light, and she didn’t want to miss an inch.

Neither of them said a word as she sheathed him, though Nikolai did let out a lingering, raspy sigh. Alicia let her nails scratch up his thighs and over his belly, watching with fascination the play of emotions across his face. Heat blazed in his eyes before he closed them to writhe and arch under her as she increased the pressure of her nails against his tender skin. She left some marks behind.

If he was going to regret this, she wanted to give him plenty to be sorry for.

She soothed the crescents left by her nails with several swipes of her tongue and, urged on by Nikolai’s soft moans, let her hair trail over his body. She moved over him, a hand between them to guide him inside her. She paused with him at her entrance.

“Open your eyes, Nikolai.”

He did, and she kept his gaze locked with hers as she eased him into her heat until he was seated so deep she winced at the delicious pleasure-pain. It was her turn to gasp and arch as he filled her. Again, her nails scratched lightly down his belly and over his thighs as she began to move. She tested him again with another, deeper, gouge that became a pinch on the taut flesh above each of his hips.

With a grunt, Nikolai thrust upward, hard. He grabbed her hips as they moved together. She pinched harder, twisting, until he cried out with what might’ve sounded like a protest except for the throbbing of his cock in response. He moved a hand between them so that his knuckles hit her exactly where she needed the pressure every time they moved.

“Perfect.” Alicia gave up trying to speak in any way but without words.

She hadn’t thought she could come again, but her desire, coiled tight, low in her belly, grew as easily and quickly by the way he touched her as by the way he reacted when she touched him. She’d always been turned on by bringing her partner pleasure, but with Nikolai everything seemed exaggerated. Enhanced. She touched him; he reacted, and it was enough to send her tipping over the edge of desire’s cliff, falling toward the jagged rocks below.

He finished seconds after she did, so close behind her it was nearly the same time. They moved in sync for a few more thrusts, until she let herself fall forward to kiss his mouth before rolling off to sprawl at his side. Nikolai got up and went to the bathroom, but he was back in moments. He slipped into bed beside her and pulled up the sheet to their hips.