Sheltered (13 page)

“Evie…honey…of
course
you’re my girlfriend.”

“Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? It’s my fault.” He ruffled his hair again. It was getting long enough on top
to
ruffle. “I talk more to you than I’ve ever talked to anyone in my life, and I’m still missing some pretty important words.”

“Your words are fine—it’s me. I don’t know enough to assume. I can’t assume. I just feel so small sometimes it seems
crazy
to assume.”

His plump lips thinned into that firm line.

“You’re my girlfriend, Evie. That’s all there is to it.” He blew out a long breath, once the words were out. Some of the tension in him went with it. “And listen—I’m not that guy. I don’t want to push you—I will
never
push you. I mean Jesus, up until now I’ve felt as though
you
were pushing
me
.”

She tried to hold down the wince that threatened—because God, he was right. Somehow,
she
was the bad boyfriend in this scenario. He always did the
no
,
slow down
,
we should wait
sort of thing.

Whereas she…

“Oh
Lord
.
I’m
the person trying to get you into the back of my truck with candy.”

It was almost a relief, when he laughed right out loud. Shook his head and took a step toward the bed.

“No, no—fuck no. I didn’t mean it that way. I
like
that you’re like that.” He hesitated, then just seemed to go for broke. “It makes it more exciting that you’re like that.”

“Really?”

“God, yeah. Don’t think I’ve ever been so turned-on in my life, than that night when you…”

She was glad he just left it hanging. It sent more heat to her cheeks, just thinking about it.

“But it’s not just stuff like that, okay? I want time to
be
with you.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, but she noticed he didn’t try to look. Not even a little bit. And his hand touched something perfectly innocent too, like the shape of her foot beneath the covers. “I want to just eat Chinese food and watch movies and
talk
. I want to be able to actually talk with someone.”

She leaned toward him. Voice barely more than a whisper, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “Why am
I
that someone?”

Some part of her was afraid of the answer, but she had to ask. She just didn’t expect him to reach forward and stroke the backs of his fingers over her cheek, once she’d done it.

“You don’t even know how lovely you are, my Evie.”

It was the word
my
that made her reach for him and kiss his perfect lips. It just surged up inside her, until she’d caught his mouth with hers. Tasted that spice again, felt him shiver, felt his hand go to her bare arm.

That giddy electricity happened again, the moment he did—though she suspected it was the newness of the sensation. He wasn’t half doing something through material, or brushing something with the back of his hand.

He was skin to skin with her, really and properly. It made her want to grab for him, take his face in her hands, kiss him harder and wetter, though of course the moment she did he jolted as though struck. Just one hand on something innocuous, like his side, and suddenly he wasn’t kissing her anymore.

And he kissed her even less, when she let the covers drop.

“Okay. Okay,” he said, but there didn’t seem to be any end to that. No added words to go with the one he’d just repeated. Instead he looked and then didn’t, looked and then didn’t, seemingly unsure as to whether he should move away or stay right there.

She understood why, of course. If he moved, he’d be able to see pretty much everything. She could feel her nipples stiffening in the cold air, and goose bumps had started breaking out all over some places that weren’t used to being exposed.

But then, if he stayed…if he stayed he’d have to let her touch, and he didn’t seem ready for that at all. His breath caught in his throat, his hands went to her wrists—and for nothing more than a light caress along on his sides.

Of course, the light caress sort of maybe went a little beneath his t-shirt, but still. Surely he wasn’t going to object over something so tame? Surely now he was going to actually let her feel all of the parts of him she’d dreamt of too many times, like the perfect curve of his glorious ass in those near-tight jeans, or maybe the thing all of that hair on his belly pointed to.

She could see it right now, jutting up beneath such horribly thick material, and though he fought with her she knew that side of him was winning. His hands around her wrists were almost rough, suddenly. And when she stretched up to find his mouth again he didn’t exactly resist.

He just kept hold of her, as the kiss got steadily more frantic and far more interesting than anything they’d done before. She could hear him near moaning, into her mouth. His tongue didn’t so much dance with hers as tangle, and that hard, thick shape was getting awfully close to the hands he was still holding.

Or restraining, if she really wanted to be honest about it.

He’d kind of bound her wrists one over the other before she knew where she was at, and the more she tried to get at him the harder he held her. And though she knew it should have been a purely frustrating thing, for the first time it started to turn into something else.

She could feel it happening, slow and steady. Like that pulse between her legs, like the heavy weight of his body against hers. As much as she wanted to pull away, she wanted to go with it too—see where it went, maybe.

However, she still wasn’t prepared when he let go of her hands and took hold of her thighs instead, all quick and too firm and not like him at all. For a brief second she thought he might actually just go for it—it felt as if he was just going for it—only then those hands pulled on her, hard, and suddenly she found herself halfway down the bed. Almost completely exposed and definitely shocked by that fact, so open to him that he could have done anything, anything.

Yet he didn’t do
anything
. He didn’t look between her abruptly spread legs, or try to shove something in there. He just breathed out in a way that mirrored her own frustration exactly, before putting his mouth on her body in places his mouth had never been before. Hell, her body had never had a mouth in those places. She wasn’t even sure how such a thing was supposed to feel, and couldn’t quite process the sensation.

First there was heat, then the sense of something slick rubbing over the tender flesh of her breasts. And after that her mind went sort of blank, as warm jolts of pleasure skittered across her skin. As her sex pulsed once, lazily, to feel him licking there, so close to her stiff nipples.

It made her crazy to feel it, but that was fine. That was okay. He understood it all perfectly, she could tell. It was there, in the firmness of his grip at her hip. In the way he held her steady, as the first delicious shudders went through her.

He wanted her to feel secure in it. He wanted to communicate to her—
This is what we’re going to do now
.
You want this stuff? This is what you’re going to get first.

And oh Lord there was something sweet about that. It put her in a different place—one where she didn’t have to be concerned about anything. He was holding her, and pushing his kisses on her, and she didn’t have to feel embarrassed or weird about any of it. She couldn’t even be concerned about her body and how it looked to someone like him—skin so pale, every part of it so excessive, somehow—because after a moment he murmured many good, good words against her breast.

Words like
lovely
and
lush
and
ripe
. And he did it all in that rich, chocolate voice of his, so overwhelming and shiver-making until he actually moved his mouth lower. Gripped her hips harder, leaned down over her more aggressively.

After which she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking with that one word. Overwhelming didn’t even cover how it felt to have his lips close over one tense nipple, and then he sucked so slow and easy over it and God, God.

She couldn’t cope with the sensation. The word
don’t
almost came to her lips before she realized one important fact—he actually would, if she told him to. He’d stop, and Lord she didn’t want him to do that.

Her entire body seemed centered in that one tiny point. Spirals of sensation slid down from it, to find her already stiff clit and her ever-wet pussy. For the first time she fully appreciated the position she was in—legs open, his body almost in between—and how weak that hand on her suddenly was.

If she wanted to, she could have easily rubbed up against him. Easily—hell, maybe he even liked that idea. He certainly didn’t restrain her half so well when she arched up into that wet, hot caress, sounds spilling out of her. Face heating, hands scrabbling at his back.

That one word—don’t—turning into another.

“More. God, more, do it more.”

He didn’t resist, for once. He simply kissed a fizzing path between her breasts, until that tongue found the other nipple. And then he licked in a curling flick, those eyes of his suddenly on her, dark and lust-smoked.

She didn’t know which felt better. The slick feel of him, or the way he gazed at her. He obviously enjoyed watching her reaction, which ranged from clenching all over hard, and begging him to carry on as her head went back against the pillow.

“Good?” he asked, but it needn’t have been a question. She knew he could tell, because the harder she shuddered and the more sounds she made, the filthier he went. He caught the edge of one sensitive little bud with his teeth, while rubbing at the other with the wet pad of his thumb—because of course he licked that too, before going for it.

She wasn’t even sure if she could really call what he did a
lick
. It felt more like a suck, as if he’d decided to put on some filthy show for her, before pinching that one little stiff nipple into the most sensitive and impossible point.

“Like that?” he asked. She had no answer for him. The sensation she’d experienced before—of something skittering over her skin—became a great torrent of molten lava, pouring down, down to her swollen bud.

Which also happened to be the exact direction his mouth was going.

Her face heated just at the thought. But that was fine, because by that point her face had become some sort of raging inferno anyway. He wasn’t likely to notice one more fire amidst the blaze, and especially when he had so many other things to pay attention to.

Like the underside of her right breast. And then somewhere that wasn’t quite her breast at all. And then even lower than that—was that her belly he’d started kissing? She felt almost certain it was, even though that whole area seemed like the last place anyone would want to touch.

She knew what his looked like. Hard and solid. Whereas hers had sort of a lot of curving in places it definitely shouldn’t have any curving, and it went in when he kissed it because bike riding only really toned her ass and thighs. It didn’t do anything to the area he was currently licking, and it certainly didn’t do anything to the place he kissed a moment later.

Nothing toned that area. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if anything could tone that area. She’d never seen a strapline on the front of some magazine she wasn’t allowed to read—
Twenty Ways to Make the Top Bit of Your Vagina Nice and Firm
.

Though by God she wished she had, right at that moment in time. Even less crazy articles like,
Yes Your Dream Was Correct, Men Do This to Women Too
would have helped, but instead she had to make do with the crazy siren in her head screaming,
Oh my God, he’s getting really close to all of your spread-open pussy
.

Because he was, Lord he was. And he was almost definitely going to…
you know
. Put his mouth
there
. Where no one had so much as looked before, never mind anything else.

“You want me to?” he asked, but yet again she found no answer in her absolutely empty head. She didn’t even know what the
to
he was offering might be. It amazed her that she could remember what a blowjob was, but this thing…did people honestly do this thing, outside her imagination?

Did guys put their mouths between a girl’s legs? And did the girls usually feel almost paralyzed with anticipation, right before it happened?

She suspected not, and tried to behave accordingly. Reassuringly.
Sure Van, you go right ahead and lick my pussy
, she thought at him, but wasn’t sure her facial expression matched. Her facial expression felt like
oh my fucking God, I’m going to pass out
.

Plus she’d kind of bunched the sheets into her fists. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop her body from trembling. The bed was practically shaking with it before he’d even laid the first hot, wet stripe the length of her slit—which he did, whether she could take it or not.

He didn’t even go about it quickly, without eye contact. He just licked long and slow over her pussy, until every bone in her body melted and ran right out of her.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said, though she hardly knew what he was referring to. Her reaction? Her reaction seemed way out of proportion with what he’d done. She cried out his name—embarrassingly loudly—and then really did try to get away.