The Wild Side (The Wild Side #1)(23)

“Shh,” she uttered quietly, her soft hand sliding along my side to my abs, and then down to my rigid cock.  Then it was her turn to gasp, her soft touch switching to a hard grip.

I turned and started kissing her.

I pushed her onto her back, my hands running over her hungrily, like I hadn’t had her in days.  Weeks.

I f**ked her, quick and rough, and drifted straight to sleep right on top of her, still buried to the hilt.

I never did work up the nerve to ask her even one of my dozen questions.

CHAPTER NINE

Waking up, the bright morning sun streaming over us, with her still wrapped in my arms, was an experience I’d not soon forget.

And, as though my body had profoundly forgotten that I wasn’t twenty, I found my spent c**k stiffening between one contented breath and the next.

Sometime in the night, I’d rolled off her, or she’d pushed me off so I wasn’t crushing her, and now I was on my back, her silky head with one soft cheek down on my chest, one thin arm curled over my side, her heavy br**sts crushed, warm and delicious, against my ribs.

If I had an ounce self-control, I would have lain there and savored the moment, but I was chock out of it, had used up my lifetime’s worth before I met this gorgeous creature.

So I had her on her back in a flash, sucking at her still soft ni**les, my hard-on jerking into the satin of her inner thigh, ready to take her, sleeping or not.

When she still wasn’t waking, but I was more than ready, I moved down her body and started eating her out like a man starved.

That was when she woke, but not how I expected.  She started, and then gently pushed my head away.  I loomed over her, using one elbow to balance, the other moving to her pu**y, my eyes curious on her face.

I had my hand buried two fingers deep in her when she pushed that away, too.

Her expression was still soft with sleep, but just a touch troubled.  “Could you just…hold me?” she asked in the most vulnerable tone I’d ever heard from her.

I was putty, brought completely low with a few quiet words.  I felt like a bastard, only thinking of one thing since the moment she’d approached me.  What kind of a jerk didn’t know just to hold a girl, instead of going for a quick f**k, when she was sleeping so softly, so trustingly, against him?

Me, apparently.

“Of course,” I told her stiffly, when what I wanted to portray was my utter repentance.  I didn’t only want to use her for that, though she couldn’t have seen it that way.

I lay rigidly on my back, and pulled her over me, just how we’d been when she’d been sleeping so peacefully.

One awkward arm went over her.  Is this what she meant by holding?  I was suddenly out of my depth.

I was not quite sure how to be casually affectionate.  I was not a demonstrative man.

I considered how I’d gotten that way, how it had gotten to the point where a very beautiful woman just wanted me to hold her, to touch me, and have me touch her, not necessarily sexually, but often, and how I had no clue what to do with that.  My first and last instinct (unless we were talking about sex) was to keep my hands to myself.

I thought of my childhood, and how I could count on one hand the times I’d been hugged.  My parents had been scholarly and wise and perhaps even good, but never anything approaching affectionate.

And of course, I thought of my ex-wife, and what she would have done if I’d just wanted to have her sit in my lap, or say, put my arm around her.  The only picture that came up in my mind was one of her being annoyed.  What was wrong with me that I’d stayed with a woman like that for so long?  Why had that been so normal for me?

For whatever reason, I’d just never had the option, the simple pleasure of keeping company with someone that enjoyed being touched, and doing the touching.

Iris snuggled into my chest, one of her velvet hands tracing gentle patterns on my collarbone, touching just to touch.

I found that I quite enjoyed it, but also, had a hard time adjusting to it or reciprocating.  I patted her back, unsure what to do, what she wanted, or even what I wanted.  My mind was still half on the sex that we weren’t currently having, but the other half wanted to explore this other thing, this new intimacy, if I could only get past my own awkward self and figure out how.

I put on sweats and a T-shirt, she put on boxers and a tight tank top without a bra, and we took our strange touching session into the kitchen, where she made us lunch.

Somehow, we’d managed to sleep in until almost noon.  I couldn’t remember a time I’d done that, even during one of my sleep deprived deadline trances.

She made us subs while I perched a hip against the counter and watched, not helping, too lost in my own musings, and just generally dazed at her presence.

She kept me off kilter like that, moving to kiss me on the shoulder or nuzzling sweetly into my chest.

“I love this spot…right here,” she murmured into my sternum, nestling her lovely face there, her lush doting lips placing five quick kisses that moved up to my collarbone, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Put a fork in me, I’m done, I thought, my mind feeling a bit mushy.

I hugged her to me stiffly, wanting to do more, wishing I knew how to respond in a way that made her feel how she was making me feel, which was wonderful.

She didn’t seem to mind my inept response to her smooth affections.  Thankfully, she was unfailingly patient with me, as though she knew why I hesitated.