Isn't She Lovely (Redemption 0.5)(62)
But she’s making it hard, squirming against me, her hands resuming a wandering that I don’t dare reciprocate. I’m not about to be the * who insists she find out if she’s still a virgin and then takes that virginity from her the very night she finds out. She means too much to me.
But then I feel her hot fingers on my wrist, and she’s tugging my hand downward until she slowly, deliberately rests my hand over her full breast.
“Stephanie, I don’t—”
She stops me with a kiss. “Make love to me. Please.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Stephanie
He’s going to turn me away. Ethan pulls back slightly, his hand already moving from my breast where I blatantly made him touch me.
My face flames.
He’s rejecting me.
The first and only time I want to sleep with a guy, and he’s not interested.
“You don’t want me.” I don’t mean to say it, but there it is.
He freezes, his fingers plowing into my hair. “God, Stephanie. Of course I want you.”
“Then why—”
“You haven’t had any time to think about this. You just got a bomb of an email like an hour ago. You’ll hate yourself if your first time—your real first time—is with someone who …”
His voice breaks off, and I have to know, even though I dread the answer. “With someone who …?”
Will be gone in the morning?
Who only wants to sleep with you as part of the game?
Who may or may not look at you twice when you go back to being your real self?
I hear him breathing, and he doesn’t respond for several seconds. “I care about you, Stephanie.”
My heart thuds. “But then why …?”
“Because it won’t just be about sex. If you’re looking to get rid of your V-card on the easiest target, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”
I narrow my eyes slightly. “Which is it, Ethan? You won’t sleep with me because you’re concerned I’m making a rash decision, or you won’t sleep with me because you’re afraid I’m using you for your rich-boy body?”
He lets out a little laugh. “God, I don’t know. The first one. Maybe both. I just—”
“I’m not using you,” I blurt out. “You think it was easy to come in here? But I just got something major handed back to me, Ethan. Now it’s my choice to make. And I choose you.”
He tips his head down, his forehead resting on mine. “Why?” The question is hoarse. Desperate. Needing.
I lay my hand along his jaw. “Because I care about you too.”
He closes his eyes, but only for a heartbeat, because then his mouth is on mine again, and there’s nothing teasing or soft about it, and I know I’ve won.
As our kisses grow more frantic and more heated, he shifts, leaning toward me just slightly, giving me time and space to freak out, but I don’t. I wrap my arms around his back, my fingers playing over the muscles there as I let him roll me beneath him.
Our hands are more adventurous now, looking to give pleasure rather than simply explore, and he captures my cry with his lips as his hand finds my breast, his palm circling, putting the perfect amount of pressure on my nipple.
All of my writhing has made my tank ride up to my rib cage, and he slips his hand beneath it, moving slowly, as though I might freak out.
I don’t.
His lips are all over me, sucking and teasing, and I can do little more than hold his head to me, even though I want more. So much more.
His face moves up to mine as his hand moves downward, his fingers finding my warmth even through the fabric of my silk shorts.
“Is this okay?”
All I can do is moan.
“You can stop me at any time.”
“Ethan.” I sink my teeth into his lower lip. “Shut. Up.”
I feel him smile, and then his hand moves gently between my legs. He rubs me there until my thighs fall apart, and then he slides a hand beneath the shorts, beneath my panties, exploring the wet heat of me. I hear soft mewling noises from somewhere, and am humiliated to realize that they’re my own.
Ethan kisses away my embarrassment even as he eases my shorts and underwear down over my butt, pulling them slowly down my legs until I’m able to kick them away.
I’m naked underneath Ethan Price, and nothing has ever felt so right or so perfect.
It’s not until he’s removing his boxers that practicality sneaks through my sexual haze. “Wait!”
He exhales sharply through his nose, but he moves himself off me entirely, his gaze concerned.
“Protection,” I say, mortified that I didn’t think of it before, though I’ve never needed to.
There’s a little flash of relief in his eyes, and he brushes a kiss over my shoulder. “Lucky for you, I happen to be a dude past the age of puberty. We like to be prepared at all times in case we get lucky with a sexy film student.”
I smile a little, rubbing my hands over his chest, noting the way he sucks in a breath when I touch his flat nipples. “You think I’m sexy.”
His eyes roam my face, and his gaze grows soft. “You’re definitely sexy.”
He’s not kidding about having protection handy, as it takes him a half second of digging through a nightstand drawer before he’s rolling the condom on.