The Hating Game(78)

My whole life, before Josh, I’ve scoffed at guys who made displays of their strength. But maybe a little part of me still exists who loves to be carried and coddled. My skirt has slid up so high he can probably see my underwear, but his eyes don’t stray down. The word gentleman flashes through my mind.

He raises a hand and once upon a time I would have flinched, but now I lean into his palm.

“Slow down.”

I shake my head in disbelief, but he looks me in the eye. “Please.”

Doubt begins to spread through me. “Don’t you want to?”

He rolls his hips. The heavy, painfully hard proof is against me. He wants me so badly his eyes have gone their signature serial-killer black. I press my eyebrow to his. We breathe against each other, lips barely touching.

He wants to press his mouth against my skin. Bite. Eat. Devour. He wants me, hands and knees. Wet skin and cold air. Fingers sliding into me. His whispered words barely audible over my labored breathing. Tears of frustration and wet mascara marking a Rorschach pattern on the pillowcase.

I already know what I’ll get from him. Coaxing, tormenting, a darkly worded warning when I get too close. I’ll be rolled into whatever position he feels like, bossy hands cupping, tilting, tightening, and gentling.

But I also know he’ll make me laugh. Sigh. He’ll tease me, chide my theatrics, make me smile even when I want to strangle him. My defiance will earn me a delay. My acquiescence, a kiss.

It’s what he is creating, of course. Delay. He wants to play with me until my orgasm hits me, hours after the first touch. He’s going to make this little Easter egg last for days. Shard by shard. Melting on his tongue. He wants to do it so many times that we lose count, and probably die in the process. He wants to make sure I’m addicted to him. I know what I’ll get from him in bed, all right. It’s what I’ve always gotten from him.

Every single pornographic image is flickering in my eyes because he’s licking his lips and his eyes drop to the sheer lace at the tops of my stockings. He tries to speak but can’t.

I’m unbuttoning his shirt very clumsily, dragging each button through until I hear a thread snap.

“Why do all colors make your skin so lovely? Even the horrendous mustard.” I drop my mouth to his neck. “Beautiful man, inhumanly pretty under fluorescents in the office.”

“Green, the color of envy. I’ve been a jealous psycho lately.”

“Mustard, the color of Colonels. Let’s burn it.”

“Sure, Shortcake. You can burn my shirt. In a barrel, in an alleyway.”

He’s laughing and then sighing against my throat, not making it remotely easy for me as I get as many shirt buttons open as I can. I slide my hands inside.

“You’re like an anatomy poster under all this perfectly ironed business attire. I always suspected it. Clark Kent.”

“Slow down.” He takes both my hands out of his shirt. I struggle a little, but he holds me gently cuffed, and tilts his face to mine.

We begin kissing again; soft as silk, lighter than I could have believed was possible after my rough little paws mauled him so.

His thumbs are pressing gently into my wrists and I’m arched a little, breasts pressed into his chest as we kiss each other, achingly slowly. The wild impatience I was feeling has been checked a little, because maybe he’s selling me on the concept of delay.

“You’ve rushed things in the past, I think,” he tells me, as if reading my mind. “What’s your hurry?”

Being kissed by Josh, his lips tender and ripe, is a pleasure on par with sex. He’s thinking of nothing but me and my reactions, learning what I like, withholding and giving and talking to me wordlessly. When I open my eyes a fraction to take a peek I see he’s doing the same thing.

My stomach bottoms out when he smiles against my lips.

“How You Doing?” he whispers and I bite the words softly off his tongue.

“How would you say I’m doing?”

His hands fall away from my wrists tentatively. When he is satisfied I can be trusted to keep our lazy rhythm, he cups my ass and gives it a firm squeeze.

“You’re doing great. Goddamn, Luce.”

“You betcha.” It’s exhilarating, knowing I can now lay my mouth on him whenever I want. I look over his skin like a warlord, and he’s my new territory. He shivers under my perusal.

“Let’s play a special game,” I tell him. “It’s called Who Comes First.”

“Also known as Gold Medal, Silver Medal.”

We’re laughing. I’m unbuttoning his cuff when his cell phone begins to ring. He ignores it, drawing my mouth back to his. My bottom lip is given a little pinch with his teeth.

“So pretty,” he tells me. “Just so pretty.”

The phone rings on and on. It stops and I let out a sigh of relief. Then it starts ringing again. He flicks his eyes to mine, and I give him a frustrated shrug and climb off.

“I’ll turn it off.”

He digs in his pocket and I survey my handiwork. He’s sprawled in the chair, legs everywhere, shirt unbuttoned, hair completely wrecked, eyes hazed and black.

“You look like a hot virginal dork who’s been defiled in the backseat of my car.”

His eyes spark with amusement. “That’s how I feel.” He unearths his cell and glances at it dismissively, but then looks at it again.