All the Feels (Spoiler Alert #2)(87)

Which was, to be fair, also quite talented. He planned to tell her so. In detail. In private.

He really should have insisted on sitting right next to her, instead of across the table. That thick, opaque tablecloth could have been a boon, rather than a hindrance. A barrier between prying eyes and where exactly his hand had gone.

“Alex …” The word was a thread of sound, cautious and brave. “For our first time, I just want it to be us. You and me, without role-playing. But … I read some of your bookmarked fics, and maybe, for our second or third time, you could, uh …”

“I could what?”

A more patient man would have waited instead of prompting her, but a more patient man would have been alone in his L.A. mini-castle, waiting for Wren to contact him, rather than on a road trip and sharing a bed with her, so fuck patience, really.

Her mouth worked, and then she made herself say it. “Maybe … you could be a god? Or a demigod, like Cupid? And I’d be your helpless mortal? Until I turned the tables and took control?”

His eyebrows flew upward as his brain short-circuited once more.

As soon as he could string two synapses together, he raised his hand, gesturing to the nearest server for their check, because they were clearly done with dinner and onto the next part of their evening together, and thank fucking Christ for that.

As she watched his reaction, her caution turned to smugness and a wide, wicked grin.

It looked damn good on her.

“Wren,” he said, and he meant it with every atom in his reckless, needy heart, “you may be the worst, but you’re also the absolute best.”

LAUREN WASN’T A virgin, and as she’d told him the previous night, she wasn’t particularly shy. Just cautious.

But this meant something to her. He meant something to her.

To be honest, he meant everything to her, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Even though she knew—she knew—if she spoke that concern aloud, he would look at her in absolute befuddlement, because he seemed to think she was …

Well, the worst, obviously. But perfect too.

Maybe that seemed like a contradiction, but it wasn’t. Alex liked friction. He adored arguing. Breaking through barriers amused him. So if she was a wall, as he’d once accused, he enjoyed bouncing against her and testing her strength.

And he’d definitely loved toppling her. His coyote sounds were proof enough of that.

The bathroom door opened, and he padded out on long, bare feet.

His suit jacket had disappeared at some point. He now wore only dark, slim-fitting pants and a crisp white button-down. His sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, exposing those thick, strong forearms, and a vee of golden flesh peeked from his throat, where he’d undone two buttons.

He tossed a box of condoms onto the nightstand and stalked toward the bed.

That graceful, determined prowl was for her, to her. The high color glazing his perfect cheekbones and the incinerating heat in his gaze were because of her.

So was the erection pushing insistently against the front of those obscenely flattering pants, and the sight of it might as well have been a finger on her clit.

Her breath hitched, and then he was there. Directly in front of her.

“Need your mouth, Wren,” he rasped. “Need you.”

Bending low, he cupped her face and wound his fingers in her hair and yanked her mouth to his in open, unapologetic demand, and that naked want seduced her more thoroughly than restraint ever could.

His tongue didn’t tease this time. He forged inside her mouth and took possession.

She was moving somehow, they were moving, and she was too dizzy to understand how it happened, but he was sitting on the mattress now while she stood between his legs. The bed wasn’t overly high, and their faces were almost the same height. But his arms were much longer than hers, so he could easily reach the hem of her dress.

Yes. No more clothing between them.

She tore her mouth free. “You can take it—”

“I will,” he told her.

His mouth open and hot against her throat, he didn’t strip off her dress. Instead, he jerked down her panties and unerringly stroked her clit. Again. Again.

“Already so wet for me.” He sucked along her collarbone. “Can you take two fingers, Wren? Can I fuck you with them?”

Her legs shook, and she clutched his hard shoulders, the muscles moving beneath her hands as he circled her slit, spreading her slickness all over her pussy.

Before she’d even finished saying yes, please, his fingers were inside her, rubbing and twisting, his knuckles hitting somewhere she—

Oh, God.

His thumb pressed her clit hard, and she whimpered and teetered. He braced her with an unyielding arm along her back, licking a spot beneath her jaw that made her gasp.

She was beyond words, but Alex had enough for them both, murmurs as hot as the July sun, rough as boulders breaking waves on the shore.

“I wanted to do this at dinner.” His thumb flicked her clit, circled it, pressed again. “I wanted to put my hand up your skirt and finger-fuck you beneath that tablecloth and make you scream and come in full view of everyone in that goddamn room, helpless to stop yourself.”

She knew he’d never do anything she didn’t want, but—

Her body bucked at the image he’d painted, and she pushed frantically against his hand, spearing herself with those agile, twisting fingers, shoving his thumb harder against her clit, needing just a little bit—