Lessons in Gravity (Study Abroad #2) (25 page)

I’m dizzy when he pulls away. Dizzy and turned on as hell.

Oh jeez.

“C’mon, let’s sit,” he says, gesturing to a pair of stools at the island.

I’m the only one who sits, though, as Javier is busy cracking eggs into a bowl.

“Hungry?” he asks. “Thought I’d make some tortilla.”

I bite my lip. “You know I don’t do breakfast.”

“Just try it,” he says. “Please?”

I watch him move through his kitchen, opening a drawer, setting a fork in the sink. Seeing him cook is kinda sexy.

“Okay,” I say. “Here, let me help.”

Javier shakes his head as he whisks the eggs. “I got it. Sit. Relax. Enjoy your coffee. You sleep okay?”

I curl my hands around the mug. “Yeah, actually. You know I really haven’t slept much this semester. So sleeping like I did last night—it’s really nice to wake up and feel rested. Really rested.”

“You should sleep with me more often then,” he says with a grin.

I want to tell him that I’d like that. That I think it’d be the best thing ever, curling my body around his night after night, taking, taking, taking all he’d be willing to give me.

But whether it’d be the best thing ever or not, we both know it’s not going to happen.

***

Maddie

“That was delish,” I say when I’m finished eating. “Thank you for making it. Let me clean up.”

“Absolutely not.” Javier stands, but I’m already at the sink. “Just leave the dishes in there, Maddie, I’ll take care of them later.”

“Really, it’s no big deal—”

“Really, Maddie, let me.” Javier hip-checks me away from the sink, giving the plates and mugs a quick rinse before turning off the faucet.

I stand with my back against the cabinets, arms crossed. I watch as long, snaking veins pop against the tan skin of his forearms while he wipes his hands on a towel. There is something so…virile about him. Like he’s a man, a scruffy, gravel-voiced
man
, who makes every guy I’ve ever been with seem like a boy.

I splay my arms out behind me, resting my hands on the cool marble countertop. I don’t realize the motion reveals more thigh—a whole lotta thigh—until it’s too late.

Javier’s hands go still as his gaze catches on my body. His eyes darken.
 

“You have the nicest legs on the planet, you know that?” he says.

My heart takes off at a sprint.

“Thank you,” I say.

He drops the towel on the counter. Starts prowling toward me.

He stands in front of me, and I have to strain my neck to look up at him. God he’s tall. Huge. Intimidatingly masculine.

He moves into me, gently. He doesn’t press his body against mine, although our thighs brush. He just moves closer, so close he surrounds me, traps me, and the simmering desire inside my body ignites, flaring into open flame.

“My way,” he murmurs. He slides his hands onto my face, fingertips tickling my ear, my scalp, and ducks his head. My eyes flutter shut as he presses a kiss onto my neck, his scruff prickling against my skin. “This time, we make love.”

“Making love,” I breathe. “What does that entail, exactly?”

“Going slowly,” he replies, his mouth making its way along my jaw. “Taking our time. Kissing. Kissing you like I just did. Kissing you the way I want to.”

He’s using his hands to guide my head in time to his lips on my throat, handling me gently, knowledgeably. God he’s good at this, it’s only a matter of time before my knees buckle, I can’t, I shouldn’t, but I’m sinking into him, it’s impossible not to sink into his touch and his kindness and his entirely honorable intentions.

I promise,
he murmurs in Spanish.
I promise you won’t regret it. I promise you’ll like it.

“
Vale
,” I whisper.
Okay.
Slowly I turn my head to face him. “But only if we play my music.”

He pulls back. “Your music?”

“Country.” I grin.
I promise you’ll like it
, I repeat in Spanish, teasing.

Javier’s grinning now, looking into my eyes. “All right. Country it is. Where’s your phone? I’ll plug it in to the speakers.”

“Speakers?”

“I’m a musician, Maddie—if I’m not playing my own music, I’m listening to someone else’s. I’ve got speakers installed all over the flat, upstairs and downstairs.”

He puts on the playlist I tell him to—“Slow Country Jams”—and a sexy acoustic song fills the apartment.

“Happy?” Javier says, coming back to stand in front of me.

I bite my lip. “Very.”

One side of his mouth kicks up as he leans in. My stomach flips. His handsomeness his eviscerating.

He presses his lips to mine. I cling to the countertop behind me for dear life. The kiss is soft at first, tinged with the slightest hint of coffee. A sleepy, slow greeting.

But then he presses his enormous body against mine, enveloping me in the heat radiating from his limbs, and the kiss deepens of its own accord. Suddenly I’m gasping for breath, rising to meet the strokes of his tongue, the pull of his lips, pressure building between my legs. I’m going totally commando this morning on account of my MIA underwear; Javier only needs to reach down, trail his fingers between my thighs to know that I’m already wet.

Really, really wet.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he says, trailing his lips over my throat, nipping at the skin there. “Hold onto me.”

I do as I’m told, crossing my wrists at the back of his neck while my fingers work their way into his hair. He lets out a groan, and before I know what he’s doing he’s gathering the backs of my thighs in his hands and lifting me onto the counter, using his hips to coax my legs wider.

Wide enough that he slips between them.

“Javi,” I breathe as his mouth finds the hollow underneath my ear. “Javi, not here. It’s too…too much light.”

“My way,” he murmurs. “Remember?”

He slides his palms up my thighs, the blood beneath my skin pumping, pumping, pumping with acute awareness. His fingers find the hem of my shirt. For a minute I think he’s just going to hike it up, to bare me to him as quickly as possible.

But I forget we’re doing this his way.

He takes the very last button at the bottom of the shirt in his fingers. He works at it, unbuttoning it slowly,
oh
so slowly, before moving to the one above it.

Already I want to roll my hips against him, I want to create friction, but he holds me firmly in place with his hips, unbuttoning the shirt one button at a time. I let go of his neck and brace my hands on the counter behind me, counterbalancing the press of his body with the weight of my own.

He takes my mouth with his, moving stridently but thoroughly, the kiss at once messy and tender. Parts of my body I didn’t know existed prickle to life—the insides of my knees, the length of my spine, the place just inside my ribcage.

I moan. I want him to touch me. Now. I want him to put his hands on me and lower me onto his dick, quick and dirty, just how I like it.

In response, he slows his pace. Slows the kiss, long, lingering strokes of lips and tongue that leave me dizzy.

Finally, I’m naked up to my breasts; the air feels cool against my overheated skin.
 

The button at my breasts pops open. Javier breaks the kiss to look down. His lips part, and his eyes are dark, almost savage, when he brings them back up to meet mine. He cups my left breast, thumbing my nipple as he works at the remaining buttons with his other hand.

I arch into his hand, practically begging for more, for harder.

For pity.

Javier gives me none. He undoes the last button at my chest; he parts the shirt, gently, using both hands to push it over my shoulders as he tugs at my lips with his teeth.
 

I am sitting on his kitchen counter, and I am completely, utterly naked, my breasts thrust in the air like an offering. I’m breathing hard, my body rising and falling in time to my ragged gasps for air.

I’ve never felt more vulnerable.

I’ve never felt more turned on.

Javier puts his hands on my bare waist. He splays his fingers around my ribcage, holding me tightly, possessively, his hands so big that his thumbs graze my bellybutton. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw. Down, down, down the slope of my throat, I’m breathing harder now, his scruff feels deliciously rough against my chest, my nipples—ah,
ah
, now he’s got one in his mouth, sucking it to a hard point, tugging at it with his teeth.

A telltale bulge begins to grow in his sweats, rubbing against my pussy. I try to reach down but he just bucks against me, holding me in place with his hands, making it impossible to reach between us.

“But I want—”

“Yo
quiero,” he replies, his breath warm on my breast.
I
want.

 
What
do
you want
, I breathe in Spanish.

You
, he murmurs.
All of you.

No you don’t,
I say.
I’m too broken.

Javier’s mouth trails a line of fire down the soft slope of my belly.

“You are not broken,” he says. “Bruised, maybe. But not beyond repair.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you. Bad parts. Good parts. Really good parts.” His hands slide down to my thighs. “I’d take them all if you’d let me.”

My heart contracts. Why does he always have to say such lovely things?

Why does he always have to make me feel so at home, so
welcome
in his arms?

He dips his shoulders, grasps my ankles in his hands. One by one he sets my heels on the edge of the countertop, bending my knees. My legs are spread far—very far—apart.

For all intents and purposes, I’m spread-eagled, my lady bits on full display in the kitchen’s bright light.

“You can’t,” I pant. “I can’t.”

“Oh, guapa.” He gets down on his knees. Meets my eyes. “I think you can.”

Chapter 20

Maddie

Javier presses his palms to the very tippy-top of my inner thighs, spreading me even wider, opening me to him. Desire, searing, almost painful, pulses in the very center of my pussy.

I haven’t shaved. I haven’t showered. I am so wet I can smell it. If this were any other day, with any other guy, I’d be way too uncomfortable to let him go down on me.

But this is Javier. And by the look in his eyes, I can tell he doesn’t give a shit about that stuff. I can tell he likes what he sees.

The fact that he finds me sexy makes me
feel
even sexier.

I fall back on my elbows, vision going dark, when he presses a soft kiss onto my clit.

Tell me where you like it
, he says.

“There,” I pant. “Everywhere. God, Javi—”

His tongue emerges from between his lips. He runs it up the length of my slit, a slow, hyper erotic caress.

He presses his tongue, gently, into my entrance. “There?”

“Yes.”

“What about…here?” He licks my clit.

My head falls back. “
Yes.
”

Javier buries his mouth in the top of my pussy, his tongue working circles around the center of all this maddening sensation.
 

I watch him as he kisses me, his head moving between my legs. Slowly at first, he won’t be rushed, he won’t be hurried, even as my hips begin to roll, begging for more. His hands are warm on my thighs, holding me still when I want to jump.

It turns me on, watching him. His gaze meets mine, a knowing gleam in his eyes as he licks me, keeps licking me, licking until my eyes flutter shut and the tight pull between my legs becomes unbearable.

My hands, possessed by the throb of my pussy, find their way to my breasts. I knead each nipple, sending darts of heat through my core. I want more. I want release. I’m winding tighter, approaching the precipice, I just want to
get
there—

“That,” he says. “Is hot. You’re so fucking hot, mujer.”

Javier begins to move more quickly, his kiss ardent now, his tongue pressing hard against my clit as he uses his thumbs to hold me open wider. My back arches off the counter as I gasp his name; I keep one hand on my breast, the other finds Javier’s hair. I dig my fingers into his hipster wave, giving it a good tug.

He groans, a vibration that ricochets through my pussy, making me wild. I’m close—it hurts, I’m so close—

“I’m so close,” I breathe.

Javier pulls back.
Not yet
,
guapa
, he says.

My eyes fly open. “What? Why—what?”

“Not yet.” He stands, running a hand down his mouth.

I bolt upright, blinking against the thwarted throb of my impending orgasm. “What the hell, Javi? That’s just cruel!”

“You keep forgetting,” he says, putting that same hand on my thigh, “it’s my turn. My call. And I want to go slow.”

He slides two fingers inside my pussy, pressing his palm against my clit.