Player(41)

His lips moved down my neck. “What’s our first lesson?” he asked between kisses. “Tell me what you want to know.”

I wondered how I was supposed to answer with his face buried in my neck. “Everything,” was all I could manage.

Another hum, this one edging on a growl. His hips rolled into mine to press his hard length against a very, very sensitive part of me.

“When you say things like that, I want to touch you everywhere,” he said as his hand skimmed my collarbone, then down to the curve of my breast. “Here,” he said, his thumb brushing my nipple once before his hand moved down my ribs, down my stomach, to the aching point between my thighs. “Here,” he said, cupping my sex once, gently, that thumb brushing my clit too softly before his hand moved on, skating to the outside of my thigh. He hitched it just a little, settling himself between my legs again.

I was covered in goosebumps, my body shivering against his and my breath trembling. “When you say things like that, I want to let you touch anywhere you want.”

He lifted my chin as he came in for another kiss. “Don’t tempt me, or I’ll make you come right here.”

I smiled, blinking slowly up at him. “I can’t.”

It was Sam’s turn to blink, but his was from confusion rather than drunk from kisses. “Can’t what? Let me?”

“No—I can’t come. No one’s ever been able to do it other than me.”

With a laugh, he kissed me. “You’ve been dating the wrong guys, Valentina. You just need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

My eyes rolled involuntarily. “That’s what they all say. My body just doesn’t work that way.”

His smile shifted, his eyes hardening along with the boa constrictor in his pants. “You can have an orgasm, which means I can give you one. In fact,” he said with a shift of his hips that had me slow blinking again, “I could make you come right here, right now, in less than three minutes. And I wouldn’t even have to take your panties off.”

Now it was me who was laughing. “Sam, you’re crazy. We’re in public, and I’ve literally never—oh.”

His hand—oh my God, his hand—had trailed up my thigh and under my skirts, not stopping until his fingertips were skimming the length of my center and his thumb was pressed against my clit.

My hand slithered from the back of his neck to cup his jaw. “Sam,” I whispered desperately as he stroked me.

His forehead touched mine, his lips millimeters away. “Shh—clock’s ticking.”

He held me in place against the wall, his hand working my body through the fabric of my hot pants for only a moment before they skimmed up to the hem and dipped inside.

My heart thumped like a bass drum, rattling my chest as he inched down. And when his fingers actually connected with my clit, my entire body contracted, toes to core to eyelids.

This was the point at which I lost all sense of time, space, and self.

The sum of my universe was cupped in Sam’s palm, at his fingertips as he sank into me to the knuckle. His palm squeezed and relaxed against my clit, his finger slipping in and out of me with every flex. His breath against my skin as he whispered things that sounded like prayer and poetry and pious praise. Some was filthy. Some was reverent. All was a blur, the sound underneath the thundering of my heart and the rasp of my breath.

A flex of his hand, and my body involuntarily squeezed his finger so hard, he hissed a single word.

“Fuck.”

Another pulse at the sound.

His hand tightened again, grinding, reaching for the depths of me. My body wanted him there so badly, it drew him in as a wave of heat spread from my chest and raced for every extremity.

His free hand cupped the bend of my neck. My mouth opened with pleasure, and his lips brushed mine.

“Come,” he said, his lips grazing mine without the connection I wanted. The sensation drove me mad. “Come right here.” His hand between my legs squeezed, his finger curling inside me.

A moan, my hand on his face, my thumb brushing his bottom lip.

His hips pressed into the back of his hand. “Come for me.” His voice, deep velvet, dark as the curtains around us, the sound rumbling from his chest into mine. “I want to feel you.” It was a whisper, a command, a demand and a request.

And I had no choice but to say yes.

As the world around me exploded in a blinding flash, I said yes many, many times, along with his name, a call to a higher power, and several swear words that would have impressed me if I’d been at all coherent.

I’d had orgasms before. I’d had sex before. But never before had I been reduced to primary functions and relieved completely of my senses.

I sagged against Sam—his hand slowed but didn’t recede. And then he kissed me.

He kissed me so deeply, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think about anything beyond the seam of our lips, the tangle of our tongues, the juncture of my thighs where his hand nestled. That kiss held a thousand things I wanted to say, a hundred things I wasn’t allowed to feel, a dozen thank-yous, and a handful more yeses.

Eventually, depressingly, he slowed his pace. Closed his lips. Reclaimed his hand. Leaned back. Looked at me in a way that made me feel more beautiful than I’d ever felt. And he said, “I told you—you just had to find a man who knew what he was doing.”