Never Standing Still (The Never Duet #1)(47)

He sat up, one hand still on my skin, moving up and down my front, just teasing, while the other hand reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out his wallet and dropped it on my stomach. With his free hand he flipped it open then reached inside and pulled out four condoms, still attached to each other. He used his mouth to rip one off the strip, tossed the remaining three on the night stand, then took the one from his mouth and left it right next to my pillow.

“You’ve come prepared,” I said, my voice raspy and a little shaky.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

“Have you? Two months isn’t a terribly long time to wait.”

His hand moved up to the side of my neck then moved into my hair as his mouth descended on mine again. This was the kiss he’d silently promised me on the pool table and in the car; this kiss was nothing but need and want. Heat and fire. His tongue swiped through my mouth, intent on tasting every piece of me.

Both hands now gripped my shirt and he broke the kiss to pull it over my head. His kiss continued, but moved off my mouth, over my chin, and down my throat. When his mouth stopped between my breasts, his forehead rested against my chest and he uttered quietly, “I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

We were frozen, only his breath moving against my skin now ablaze with his touch.

“Riot,” I finally whispered, unsure how to proceed. His words were huge, they meant something huge, and he’d said them against me. His lips had said those words against my skin. Even the most meaningless sentence became sacred when pressed against skin. So, how could I ignore what I’d heard, what I’d felt him say into me?

“Don’t. Don’t push me away. Don’t use my words against me. Just let me love you the way I want to. You said you’d give me one night. You never said it had to mean nothing.”

He wasn’t looking at me. His face was still pressed against my chest, but I could hear the way his voice was shaking, feel the way his fingers were gripping me a little tighter. My hands went to his hair, running my fingers through it, trying to soothe him even a little.

Riot had never been anything but completely honest with me, and in that moment, I had nothing but honesty for him. He’d earned it and I deserved it. I deserved to have this moment with him where we were both fragile and vulnerable and open.

“Hey,” I said, trying to urge him to look at me by placing my hands on the side of his face. “Look at me.” It took a few seconds, but he eventually brought his eyes to meet mine. “It doesn’t mean nothing.” I whispered. “You’ve never been nothing to me, Riot. You’re so much more than what I’ve lead you to believe.”

He slowly came back to me, kissing me, laying all his weight on me. This was, possibly, our first completely honest kiss; the first time we kissed with no pretense, no bullshit, and no expectations. The first time his lips touched mine and I wasn’t worried about how I was going to forget the way they felt against mine, or how I was going to push him away when things got too deep. No, this was a kiss that communicated exactly how I felt about Riot, and I could feel all of his emotions as well.

He rolled off me, pulling me with him, until we were both lying on our sides and then he started unbuttoning my jeans. This started a sort of domino effect of clothing being removed, and clothes were shed as if a tornado had swept through the room. He was pulling off my pants while I was tugging on his shirt. I was pushing my socks off my feet with my toes while shoving his pants over his hips. With his lips still pressed against mine, I arched my back and reached behind me to unclasp my bra, removing it and tossing it on the floor next to the bed.

And just like that, we were naked.

There was no slow build up, no anxious reveal, and no awkward ‘does he like the way I look without clothes on’ moment. It was quick, hasty, rushed, and perfect. It was also a relief. A relief to finally be bare with him, bare to him. My naked skin was pressed up against his and we were simply together. Having his bare skin touching mine gave my body the same satisfaction as a loud and heavy sigh, as if I’d been waiting for that contact my whole life and finally, it was happening. I didn’t realize my body had been waiting for this.

He was still pressed up against my side, his leg thrown over mine, and his hand began to wander over my body, trailing from my neck, down over my breast, past my navel, causing involuntary shudders. When his fingers gently parted me, softly teasing the most sensitive area of my body, he finally spoke.

“Are you all right?” he asked, still trailing his fingers just outside of my opening, causing my toes to curl into the mattress with anticipation.

I nodded urgently, silently begging him to simply undo me, to touch me where I’d been craving the feel of his hands for weeks. When his fingers slipped into me, he kissed me at the same time and all I could do was release a moan into him. His tongue moved to the same rhythm as his fingers, and the effect was maddening. He pushed in, then pulled out, so lazily that my mind was screaming at him to quicken his pace, to do something more than tease me.

My hips began to meet his hand at every thrust, trying to elicit more from him, to take more than he was willing to give me. Finally, his fingers moved into me and stayed pressed inside, and his mouth came away from mine.

“You’re perfect,” he said, his mouth just a hair’s breadth from mine, his fingers reaching far inside me, then stroking upward. He held my gaze for a moment, watching me writhe beneath his hand, then his gaze traveled down my body, watching his hand work me over.