Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(47)
“I live under his roof.”
“Still, you need to stop bein’ afraid of him and be yourself. Hell, Laire! You want to go to college in New York City! You don’t think he’s goin’ to object to that?”
She took a deep breath, and her breasts pushed into his chest, making his cock stir behind his shorts. He wanted to kiss her and hold her and make out with her in the quiet darkness of his parents’ beach house. He didn’t want to stand in his driveway wasting these precious minutes together quarreling over inevitabilities.
“How about this?” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders and walking them both toward the house. “I promise we’ll figure out a way to make it work. I know this, darlin’. When we say good-bye in August, that’s just ‘good-bye,’ not ‘the end.’ I don’t want to date anyone else . . . at Duke or otherwise. And I don’t want you to be with anyone else on Corey. I want us to stay together.”
She gasped softly. “You mean it, Erik?”
He did. One hundred and fifty percent. “Of course. I’m crazy about you, Laire.”
Suddenly her arms were around his neck, and she was leaning into him, her face tilted back, her lips waiting for his. And he obliged her, sealing his mouth over hers and groaning with relief to finally be touching her intimately again. On the front steps of Utopia Manor, they kissed in the moonlight for ten minutes or more, her whimpers mixing with his moans, his hands under her shirt and hers under his. Hot and wanting, both of them panting for more. When he drew away from her, he was rock-hard and aching.
“Let’s take this inside?” he breathed.“I don’t want to give the neighbors a show.”
She looked up at him and grinned, then her eyes rose higher. His gaze followed hers, to the millions of stars in the inky night sky.
“We’re just two tiny specks of dust in a big, wide world,” she murmured. “But I feel so much, Erik. I feel so much, it’s like the whole universe couldn’t hold it even if it tried.”
He looked back down at her, at the stars reflected in her eyes. “I know exactly how you feel, darlin’.”
***
After a tour of the three-story mansion, they turned and walked back down the grand staircase, to the living room on the ground floor, which had floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors that led to the pool deck. Laire stood at the windows, looking out at the pool and the lawn and, way beyond, the reflection of the moon on the Sound.
“I’ve never seen a house this beautiful,” she said.
His hands landed on her shoulders, and he pushed her hair aside, his lips landing softly on her neck. She tilted her head to the side to give him better access, sighing when his tongue flicked out over the sensitive skin.
She was still unsettled about her conversation with Ms. Sebastian, and though Erik had done his best to reassure her that he wanted to figure out a way to continue their relationship after the summer, she couldn’t deny the worry in her heart. She hoped they’d come up with a more concrete plan in the weeks before he left for Duke, but she didn’t want her worries to spoil tonight, so she leaned back, into his body, closing her eyes as he kissed the skin of her throat.
“I’ve never seen a woman this beautiful,” he said, putting his hands on her waist and turning her around so that she faced him.
His lips landed on hers at the same moment he started backing away from the windows, pulling her with him to the plush blue and white checkered couch behind them. As the cushions hit the back of Laire’s knees, she lowered herself to a sitting position, letting Erik reach for her legs and pull them up onto the couch. She lay back, and before she knew it, she felt the heavenly weight of his body pressed against hers as he bracketed her head with his elbows and continued kissing her.
Lying on her back, she could feel every hard muscle, every swell and cove of his body over hers, pressing into hers. As their tongues slid and sucked, she tried arching her hips into his and was rewarded with a low groan of pleasure as he thrust his pelvis against hers, the rigid line of his erection pressing into the apex of her thighs.
“Can I see you?” he asked, kissing her neck as his fingers slid to the top button of her blouse.
“See me?” she panted.
“Remember in the gazebo?” he asked. “You let me touch you. I want to see you too.”
“Oh.” He was asking if he could see her breasts, and the idea was so erotic to her that she felt muscles deep, deep inside her body flex and release. “Yes.”
His fingers carefully unbuttoned her shirt as he kissed a path from the base of her neck to the simple lace border of her white cotton bra. Leaning up just slightly, he parted her blouse. She felt the cool air kiss her skin and shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked, nuzzling his nose against the erect tip of her cotton-covered nipple.
“N-no, I’m . . .” She gulped. “Maybe it’s bad, but I want more.”
One hand covered the swell of her breast, but with the other he cupped her face. “Nothin’ we do is bad. Nothin’. I care so much for you, Laire. So much.”
“Me too,” she said, taking a deep breath and smiling at him. “Our rules. I want you to touch me there.”
Dipping his head to kiss her lips, she felt his fingers unhook her front-clasp bra and gently spread the cotton cups. He lifted his head, looking into her eyes with such profound tenderness, Laire’s own eyes burned with tears as she watched him lower his gaze to her breasts.