In Flight (Up in the Air #1)(33)

When he’d been gone for several minutes, I opened my eyes to look around.

He stood at the foot of the bed, watching me, his eyes ablaze. I glanced down my body and realized there was blood spread around on the sheets rather messily.

“I didn’t realize I would bleed so much,” I said, starting to sit up.

“Don’t,” he told me, and I lay back down. We watched each other. I saw that his erection was as hard as though he’d never come.

I pointed at it. “Can you go again? Is that possible?”

He smiled, and stroked his c**k idly with one hand. “Oh, yes. But you’re too sore tonight. I was just enjoying the view. Embedding this image into my brain.”

He came to my side, lifting me until I was cradled against his chest. He rose from the bed with my weight in his arms. He showed no visible strain. I loved that, his strength, and all of the amazing things he could do with his body, seemingly effortlessly.

“Let’s take a bath and talk about what we’re gonna do about this,” he said, stroking my hair, as though the ‘this’ was me.

It made me smile for some odd reason, though the thought of talking about anything held no appeal for me at that moment.

He stepped into the biggest tub I’d ever seen, still holding me.

The bathroom was one giant slab of greenish-black granite, so far as I could see. The tub was square and he slid down against one side of it, holding me in front of him until we were sitting up together, him spooning me from behind.

He pumped some divine smelling soap out of a built-in granite dispenser and began to lather soap over my entire body leisurely. It smelled like him, and I breathed it in. I felt positively decadent, laying there bonelessly while he tended to my bath.

“I love that soap. It smells like you,” I told him, eyes closed in pleasure.

He brought his lips to my ear, biting the lobe teasingly. “Now you smell like me. I love that.”

He washed me in silence for a few minutes, stroking as much as cleaning. He kept coming back to my br**sts, stroking and kneading the pliable flesh thoroughly.

“We need to talk,” he told me.

I groaned, and not in pleasure this time. “I’d prefer that you spank me again. Can we do that instead?” I was only half-joking.

He made a delicious purring noise against my neck. “Not tonight. We need to set up the rules for this. If my self-control hadn’t deserted me tonight, we would have settled it before I ever touched you.”

I cringed at his terminology. The word ‘settled’ gave me a bad feeling. I didn’t think it boded well for the conversation to come.

“What is there to talk about?” I finally asked.

He sighed, the motion shifting me where I lay with my back on his chest.

“Well, I suppose I’d like to know what you would like out of our arrangement. What’s important to you?“ As he spoke, he turned me so that he could see my face more clearly, my head supported by the crook of his elbow.

I wrinkled my nose at him. The term ‘arrangement’ was even worse than ‘settled’.

“Really, the only thing I expect from you is an exclusive sexual relationship while we’re…having sex, even if we’re done with each other in a week. And by done, I mean some type of communication before you start seeing anybody else, sexually or otherwise. And if that’s a struggle for you, just let me know so I can bail out on the whole mess now.”

He blinked at me, looking stunned, and I thought for an awful moment that he considered that too much of a concession. I was about a second away from getting the hell out of there when he spoke. “Yes, of course.” His tone implied that he hadn’t even considered anything else.

“And you want to not date,” I prompted him. I was avidly curious to know what that meant for him.

He nodded, studying my face. “I want to see you, though, as often as possible. I would just prefer for our relationship to remain private. So most of our meetings will be at one of my homes or yours. I won’t be taking you out to a lot of public places, I regret.”

Sure he did, I thought cynically.

I made my face go blank, suddenly feeling a little delicate for reasons I wasn’t willing to examine at that moment.

“Sounds great. Isn’t that enough to settle things for the moment? If we’re done with each other in a week, this seems like an awful lot of unnecessary talk, doesn’t it? And if it lasts for two or three weeks, we’ll take that hurdle when we come to it.”

His face hardened as I spoke. His own questions seemed harsh. “Is that what you think? That we’ll be done with each other in a week? Or two or three?”

I shrugged, closing my eyes as though I might drift off at any moment.

“I don’t want to think about it. However long it lasts, if you’re just honest with me when you’re done, and don’t just start seeing other people without telling me, that’s enough for me.”

He went back to washing and stroking me, tenderly washing and conditioning my hair, silent for a time.

“I would give just about anything to know what’s behind that cool composure of yours. And I would kill to know what you’re thinking,” he whispered against my hair. “I’m so afraid I’ll offend you beyond all repair, and that you’ll never let me know how. You’ll just leave and never speak to me again. Would you do that?”