Light the Lamp (20 page)

“
Noelle…”
 

I didn’t know if it was a warning or a prayer or maybe even a promise. I hoped it was all of the above. With my thumb and forefinger, I undid the top button of his shirt.
 

His hand shook as he slid it higher until he could tease the underside of my breast with his thumb and graze me with the backs of his knuckles. I sucked in a sharp breath, and his eyes flashed up to meet mine.

“
Do you want me to stop?”

“
No.” I couldn’t bear the thought of him stopping. I’d only just begun to feel as though it truly was me he was seeing, me he was kissing, me he was touching. We’d barely scratched the surface of him coming undone. I wanted to feel him spool out of control so he couldn’t stop the emotions from pouring out of him.

That one word seemed to do the trick.

His lips met mine again, harder this time. Hungrier. He nipped my lower lip, and when I opened my mouth to gasp for air, his tongue pressed between my teeth.

I put my arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer, hugging him tight. He cupped my breasts, molding them with his palms until I squirmed to get closer still even as I tried to pull away, my body a mass of contradictions and jangling nerves. He kissed my cheeks and nose and eyelids and neck, his lips and tongue working together to drive me insane with need. I was panting, desperate for breath. Desperate for his touch. Desperate for more.

“
Liam?” I tugged at the hem of my shirt, pulling it up because I wanted to feel his hands on my skin.

He helped me to wrest it free from my waistband, and that was all the encouragement he needed. As soon as he had access, he slid his palms over my stomach, the tips of his thumbs and fingers teasing the sensitive skin just below my bra.

Out of nowhere, he stopped, his eyes shifting from me to the front door. I tried to clear the haze from my mind so I could understand. Before I’d figured out why Liam had stopped this delicious torment, he pulled me away from the wall and carried me toward my bedroom.

“
Babs,” he said. That was his only explanation.

He’d barely shut the door to my room and flipped on the overhead light when I heard the front door open and close.

“
Oh,” I said. I smiled even though I could feel a different kind of heat creeping up my neck and over my face. “That was close.”

Slowly, he lowered me to my feet, holding on to my waist to keep me steady. “I should go,” he said. “I don’t know what I was—”

“
Don’t go.” I couldn’t let him leave. Not now. I wanted things I had never wanted before with another man, but I knew he wanted them just as badly. It was in his eyes. It was in the gentle way he touched me, the tortured restraint I could feel every time I touched him. It was in the hunger of his kiss and the way his hands trembled when he reached for me.

It was in the air all around us, pulsating and almost breathing a life of its own. Need. Lust. Passion. Desire. Maybe even love.

His hands were still at my waist, holding me steady and keeping me upright. I placed mine on top of them, drawing them up my torso underneath my shirt. His forehead fell down to rest against mine, and a low moan tore from his lips…but he let his fingers fall to my skin again. He used his thumbs to hook into my bra cups, tugging them down until my nipples were exposed to his touch. When he slid his knuckles over them, I shuddered and let out a moan of my own.

“
Liam?” His name quivered on my tongue. I was ragged, panting. Coming just as undone as I wanted him to be.

“
Yes?”

“
Come to bed with me?”

I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but I didn’t regret it. Not for an instant. I wanted him like I had never wanted another man.

The sound that came from him seemed almost pained. “We can’t, Noelle.”

“
Why not?”

“
I don’t have a condom. I have to protect you.”

I pulled free from his arms and crossed to the nightstand. The top drawer had a box of them in it still, from before I’d moved in. Liam hadn’t lived here long, either, so I figured they’d belonged to Brenden Campbell, back when he’d lived here with Babs.

I took the box out and tossed it on the bed. “That problem is solved. Stay with me. Come to bed with me.”
Make love to me
.

Finally, he nodded. He stepped away from me and took off his jacket like a man on a mission. I finished removing my shirt, constantly aware of his eyes on me. Staring at me. Burning through me. He toed off his shoes and fumbled with his belt, and the same sense of urgency stole over me.

I fought with the hooks of my bra for so long that my frustration took over, and I just ripped it up and over my head like I’d done with my shirt, tossing it into a growing heap of our clothes on the floor. I yanked my skirt and panties down, but I struggled to get my feet free because I still had sandals on. I would have fallen down if not for Liam reaching out to catch me. I grabbed onto his biceps with both hands and tried to balance myself, but the feel of his bare skin beneath my fingers only made my pulse more frantic.

“
Slow down,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “We don’t have to rush this,
älskling
.” He looked down into my eyes and secured his arms around me, and my skin felt alive everywhere we made contact. He’d removed everything but his boxer briefs in the time it took me to get undressed, and they did little to hide his erection. It pressed into my belly, hot and hard. I tingled all over, my anticipation only heightening my awareness of every little detail.

“
Okay,” I breathed. Only I wanted to rush it. I wanted to dive in headfirst because the slower we took things, the more time I had to analyze it all. I didn’t want to analyze. I wanted to act. I wanted to touch and be touched. I wanted to feel everything all at once.

“
Just breathe and feel,” he said. With his hands, he drew lazy circles over my body—my arms and back and the sides along my rib cage—and he bent his head down to kiss my forehead. “Do you want me to turn out the lights?” he asked after a moment.

“
No.” I wanted to see him. I wanted to see all of him.

“
All right.”

I closed my eyes and leaned in against him, letting him support my weight and allowing my head to rest on his pectoral muscles. His chest hair tickled my face. I laughed and nuzzled my nose in it, which only made it tickle more.

“
If you keep giggling and wiggling like that, I’m going to lose my control,
älskling
.”
 

That was exactly what I wanted. I wanted him to lose control just as much as I was, if not more.

“
Tell me what
älskling
means,” I said, not even attempting to stop my laughter. I kissed his chest. When he hissed in a breath, I kissed him over and over, even using my tongue to taste him a few times like he had when he’d kissed my face.
 

“
It means
sweetheart
,” he ground out, walking me backward until we reached the bed. “But she-devil might be more appropriate right now.” He nudged my shoulder until I sat down on the edge of the bed.
 

I sat, but I tugged at the waistband of his shorts as I went.

“
You are the most impatient woman I’ve ever known,” he said, but he laughed while he finished removing them.
 

“
Only about certain things,” I argued.
 

He tossed his shorts aside and then straddled me, leaning over me until I lay back against the pillows. He didn’t give me time to look down and start to worry about what I was doing. “Only certain things I want to take my time with.” He nipped my collarbone, using the strength of his thighs and arms to keep his weight off me.

Since his hands weren’t free, I used mine to explore all that hair on his chest, twirling my fingers in it and tugging every now and then. He had tattoos on his arms and shoulders and chest, lots of them. I’d seen a few of them on his forearms when he was in T-shirts, but I’d had no idea he had so many until now. With my index finger, I traced one of them along his biceps—a wind chime blowing in the wind.

“
I don’t want you to take your time,” I said, smiling as I allowed my eyes to take everything in. Thank goodness we hadn’t turned the lights out. “We’ve done everything your way up ’til now. With this, let me have mine.”
 

“
What’s your way?”
 

Instead of answering him with words, I pulled his head down so I could kiss him and reached between us for his erection with my other hand. It pulsed with heat when I touched him. He growled into my mouth when I tentatively slid my hand along his length, exploring every inch.

Then everything happened at lightning speed. He put a knee between my legs, opening my thighs, and he dropped down onto me, pressing me into the mattress with his weight. His hands and mouth and tongue were everywhere, all at once, and it was like a furnace had lit inside me. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I wanted more, more, so much more I couldn’t stand it.

He touched me between my legs, his fingers slipping into my center. “God, my
älskling
, you are perfection.”

He rolled off me, and I whimpered from being bereft of his sturdy presence. I would have been embarrassed by my reaction if not for the smile on his face and the brief shake of his head. “Just for a moment,” he said. “The condom.” He took one from the box and ripped it open, and I watched as he unrolled it over himself.

I should have been scared looking at him since this was all new to me, but I wasn’t. He was big and strong and covered in tattoos, filled with such intense power, and I wanted all of him. The physical need was definitely there, but it couldn’t even compare to the emotional need I had for him. I wanted him to give himself to me.

He came back as soon as the condom was in place, draping me with his body like he was my own personal blanket. I put my arms around his shoulders, needing something to ground me in the moment. He was the sturdiest thing around, big and solid and so, so steady. With his hands, he spread my thighs and settled himself between them. I brought my knees up, wrapping my legs around him as I had earlier, and he guided himself into me.

It hurt, a sharp, stinging pain that I’d known to expect but couldn’t have prepared myself for. I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying out because I wanted this. I wanted Liam. As he drove himself fully inside me, I buried my head in the space between his neck and shoulder, where it seemed to fit perfectly. Everything fit, his body and mine. He moved inside me, fast and deep, with all the intensity I’d been wanting from him, until the painful, stabby sort of ache eased and a new ache took its place—a combination of pleasure and need.

I groaned, arching up into him and trying to get myself closer, closer, so much closer. To him. To the breaking point. Closer to anything and everything.

“
Oh God, Noelle.” He angled my hips higher, drove into me faster.
“Jag älskar dig.”
He swelled inside me, getting harder. He let out a shout that he muffled with the pillow next to my head, and he tensed, and I felt a warm pulsing sensation deep in my core.
 

After a moment, he dropped down onto me, turning his head toward mine. I loved the feel of him pinning me to the mattress, so I wrapped both my arms around his waist and held on, keeping my legs around him, too, as though I could keep us just like this for as long as I wanted or needed.

Liam smiled at me, a tired, sated sort of smile. “You didn’t come. At first you were impatient, but then it transferred to me. I normally take more care than that. Give me a minute to breathe and then I’ll help you.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to help me with. This was perfect.” It was everything I’d wanted because he’d given me a piece of himself.

He’d finally let down a bit of his wall with me. When he’d been inside me, there was nothing between us. I’d been able to feel his heart, all of it. I just wanted to lie here with him, just as we were, and talk. I wanted to see how much of his wall had come down.

But he rolled off me and leaned on his elbow, looking down at me. With his free hand, he traced my collarbone and the hollows of my neck until I shivered.

“
It was not perfect,” he said. “Not yet. Not until you have an orgasm, too.”
 

I felt strangely empty without his weight on top of me. I shook my head. “I don’t need an orgasm.” I needed to talk to him, to understand how he felt after being with me like that. To know if he’d been thinking about Liv.

In an instant, his expression went from sated and sleepy to dark and dangerous. He slid a finger down my cheek to my chin and then tipped my face up so our eyes met. “I don’t know what the assholes you’ve slept with told you to convince you it’s all right for them to get off and leave you without, but that’s bullshit.”

“
I…” I didn’t have the first clue how to respond to that.
 

Liam’s brows drew together. “You’ve never had an orgasm, have you? God, that makes me want to beat the men who’ve touched you before until they’re bloody. I’m such a fucking—”

“
I’ve never been touched by anyone before. Not like this. Not until you.”
 

He looked like I had just hit him over the head with a sledgehammer. That was how I felt, too, because instead of talking to me, he was worrying about trying to take care of me again.