Mended (Connections, #3)(47)

I’m breathing so fast my heart can’t keep up. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“The plants. I sent ivy plants with a card that said this.” He points to his side, to the beautiful letters.

“I never got any of them. I promise. God, if I had gotten them, gotten one—I would have responded.” Did Damon circumvent them? Did he keep them from me?

Cupping the back of my neck, his strong fingers press against my skin. He pulls me even closer and grazes the very corner of my mouth with his lips. With just that one simple touch, a need that’s been buried for years surfaces, in the most out-of-control way. I lift my mouth toward his, sealing us together, and his response is immediate. His lips are warm, full, inviting. It’s a forceful kiss, and when we both pull away, breathless, his eyes are simmering. My fingers tremble as they dance across his abs over to the letters. He takes a deep breath.

I bend down and drop my mouth to his tattoo, tracing the letters with my tongue. I peek up at him and see his eyes close and his head fall back. I lick his skin, taste the ink, inhale his sweet scent. His muscles tense under my lips with every touch. Once I reach the ivy leaf, I slowly stand up on my toes and bring my mouth to his ear. “Remember after our first performance when I fell on the bus stairs and you whispered, ‘I want you’?”

“Uh-huh.”

I slide my hand to rest on the button of his jeans. “All you had to do was take me and I would have been yours.”

“Fuck,” he breathes through his teeth and his hands slide down my back to my ass. “Well, I want you now, and I’m not asking.”

“You don’t have to.”

His lips part and form an incredible smile. He clenches my hips in his strong hands and turns us around. Pushing me against the wall, he grinds into me with his hard cock, and everything in the world as I know it is gone—I have all I want, all I need, right here. His lips are at my ear and he says my name over and over. I skim my hands along the bare skin above his jeans, this time unbuttoning them.

He pulls me close to him—as close as he can—and holds me. Just holds me, for the longest time. Then his lips brush my ear and in his sexiest, huskiest voice, he says, “Fuck, you feel incredible. I want you, now.”

His whisper floats into the air and shivers run down my spine. Oh God, I want him so much. “Xander, yes!”

I’m frozen in anticipation of what’s to come as he grins down at me before sealing his lips over mine. This time the kiss isn’t as forceful, but it is equally as breathtaking. His mouth is wet and soft . . . just like I remember, and his tongue probes deep inside my mouth . . . just like I remember. We seem to dance a familiar dance with our tongues. I’m so hot for him, I moan with every touch. Pulling my dress up, he reaches between my legs and I writhe against him with a primal need. He cups my sex with one of his strong hands and cups my breast with the other. And then I finally get to bury my fingers in his hair. I am done pretending. I want him and he wants me. I pull on his hair to make sure this is real, and he grits his teeth with a strangled gasp. My dress keeps sliding down and he keeps pulling it back up. His fingers are back in my panties and the moment they circle my clit, I call out his name. “XANDER!”

His lips and tongue are everywhere. I’m lost in the feeling of him. My dress drops again and I don’t even notice.

“Take it off,” he growls.

I lift the dress over my head and before I have it completely off, his hands smooth down the bare skin of my abdomen. I’m wearing a simple white bra and matching thong. He stares at me with such intensity—I don’t even remember kicking off my shoes and pulling my hair down.

“You’re gorgeous,” he tells me.

I see the appreciation in his eyes and touch his hair again. “You’re all wet.”

“I walked back from the club,” he tells me, running his mouth down my neck.

“Why did you walk back?” I manage to say with shaky breaths.

He pushes my hair over my shoulder and his tongue slides up and down my neck. “I needed air,” he mumbles.

I start to ask why, but he silences me with that mouth I’ve wanted all over me for so long. And it works, because all I can think about is him.

“Take your panties off,” he says in a hoarse, low voice.

I nod and shimmy them down with trembling hands. I’ve never let anyone tell me what to do during sex except him. Never since him have I allowed anything but mutual dominance, but with him I love it when he takes control.

When I move to unhook my bra, he whispers, “Let me.”

His soft but callused hands first cup my breasts, then slide around my back and with the precision he always had, he quickly unfastens my bra. I gasp when his cold, wet mouth finds its way to my breast at the same time his hands slide the straps down my arms. With his mouth still sucking one of my nipples, his hand caresses the other one. He takes a step back and I swear I blush from the look he’s giving me. I extend my hands to unbutton his jeans, but before I can tug his zipper down, he pulls out the desk chair next him.

“Sit down,” he says, chewing his bottom lip.

He’s watching me, his jaw relaxed, relieved of all the tension he’s possessed since I first saw him at the pool. I slouch back and spread my legs like I know he wants. I want it too. When he drops to his knees, the anticipation of what’s to come has me squirming with an uncontrollable need to touch him. He draws a line with his tongue up my inner thigh and when he reaches my sex he circles it just one time before moving right to my clit.