Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2)(45)

I nod, asking for it only with my eyes fixed on his. I pull him in deeper, my fingers wandering up his chest to twist his nipple until my name storms past his lips. He sets an erratic rhythm that’s almost too much for me. Both his hands cup my head as he pushes deeper into the slippery interior of my mouth.

“Yes, baby. Fuck, Pep.” He hauls in jagged breaths, his fist clenched in my hair just shy of pain. “Shit.”

Every word pushes me higher, desperate to have him streaming hot and wet and thick down my throat. He’s always so strong, but under my hands, in my mouth, he moans, head flung back, vulnerable, every defense stripped away. I can’t take my eyes off him as I milk away his inhibitions. He tips his head up, our eyes locked as I watch him become as much mine as I am his in every way. I slow the motion of my mouth to a caress of my lips over him, finally, reluctantly releasing him. I run my tongue over my lips, still wet with his release.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, his voice raw and husky.

I stand, pushing his shoulders back to the bed, shocked by my own aggression.

“Did you enjoy it, though?” I ask unnecessarily. I taste the evidence of how much he enjoyed it.

“There’s only one thing I love more than that.” He pulls me forward until I’m straddling him, pulling one breast between his lips. My gasp fills the quiet hotel room. “That’s being inside you.”

He takes my mouth in a kiss, his tongue exploring and plundering. We twist into each other, desperation in every breath, in every brush of our lips. Each of us silently begging the other to go deeper, harder, moaning into the intimate contact. I grasp him, tugging until he’s hard again in my hands.

He grabs my hips, poising me over him. “Ride me.”

I rise up and down slowly, a raw, hot, wet slide of skin. My body grips him, and it’s sweet and hot and tight like the first time. Even better than I remember. The reality of him more fantasy than my dreams.

“I’ll never get enough of this.” He kisses my throat until he reaches my lips again.

“You say that now,” I gasp into our kiss. “We’ll see what you think in twenty years.”

My words freeze us both, my wide eyes finding his in the dim light of my hotel room. I can’t believe I said that. We’ve never even discussed . . . I mean, you don’t just say . . . you don’t assume . . . I drop my eyes to the place between us where we’re joined, my stomach caressing the muscles in his. He tugs my hair, bringing my eyes back to his face, back to his serious eyes.

“I fully anticipate that in twenty years you’ll have me as whipped as I am tonight.”

He pulls out, twisting until he’s the one standing, and I’m lying down, my butt at the edge of the mattress. He pulls my legs over his shoulders, and the first thrust goes so deep and hard it scoots me up the bed. I grunt from the force of it, clenching the cool sheets between my fingers. I don’t want him gentle. I want to still feel him when he’s gone. The sensual paradox of his eyes, tender on mine, while his body takes me with rough passion pushes me over the edge. One of his hands grips my thigh and the other grips the mattress, his handsome face twisting with the same emotion ripping through me as my body gives him the only response he demands, the only response it can.

Complete surrender.





TWENTY YEARS, HUH? MY MASTER PLAN is working. My heart almost fell right out of my chest when she said that. She’s never referenced our future that way. In terms of decades spent together. She’s thinking marriage, right? I’ve been thinking marriage since . . . let’s just say it isn’t a new concept to me. In terms of time, we haven’t been together too long.

I know.

How else would I measure how long we’ve been together other than time? I measure it in terms of every private joke we shared in a roomful of people. In every kiss that feels like the first time over and over again. I measure it in how much better I want to be when she’s in my life. In those terms, we’ve already got eons together.

“You’re awfully quiet back there.” Kai burrows her back deeper into my chest, looking up over one shoulder, her smile brighter than the dim lamp light.

I fold the length of her hair over one shoulder, baring a stretch of naked skin to feather kisses down her neck and between her shoulder blades. She flips onto her back, reaching up to brush the hair out of my eyes. Without skipping a beat, I shift my kisses to the front, dusting across her collarbone. I open my mouth wide over her breast, laving the nipple with my tongue until she arches up, her breath hitching and her fingers clenching at my scalp.

“Your nipples are absolutely perfect,” I mumble into the underside of her breast. “Have I ever told you that?”

“Once, twice, five, maybe seven times.” She laughs, her Southern drawl even slower, her breath still jagged, nipples tight and wet under my tongue.

“But that was in the throes of passion.” I dip to kiss the tattooed prayer wrapping around her ribs. “I’m saying it completely sober, so you know it’s true. Not in the throes.”

“Will you stop saying throes? No one say throes.”

“I just said it.” I lift my head, teasing her with a glance. “You’re saying I invented the word throes?”

“No, not invented, just that people don’t use the word . . .” She rolls her eyes. “Shut up and get back to my nipples. You were saying?”