Slow Burn (3 page)

“One, huh?” I tease, trying to keep this playful because fuck if his mouth alone isn’t worth coming back for seconds. I take his length in my palm and slide back down him, enjoying watching his abs tense. “Please, tell me you’ll keep your promises because I need to come more than once,” I tell him, delighted at how he’s pushed away my thoughts from earlier. “And, Becks, you’ve had more to drink than me, so please tell me you won’t suffer from a case of whiskey dick right now.”

His head snaps forward, and his eyes hold mine, that chuckle falling from his mouth again. He shakes his head as he closes his hand over mine on his cock and says, “Demanding, are we? Is that not hard enough for you?”

I fight my smirk, because if he’s going to throw out promises,
he sure as fuck had better keep them. “It’s hard all right, but I just wanted to make sure it stays that way.”

“I believe you’re insulting me,” he says, running our joined hands up and down again, eyes closing momentarily from the sensation.

“It’s not an insult if it’s true.”

He continues to stare at me, and within a beat, he’s off the bed. I push myself up on my elbows, trying to see what in the hell he’s doing.
Please, tell me he didn’t get offended by that comment
. If he did, he can just keep on walking, regardless of his magical tongue. I don’t need a man who gets his feelings hurt by a little teasing.

But then again, his tongue is
pretty
fantast-orgasmic.

A small part of me sighs in relief when Beckett stands still with his back to me and doesn’t walk to the door. The other part of me frets that if he stays, he just might be the completely unexpected but perfect combination of naughty and nice that has the ability to make me go back on the promises I made to myself. Promises about what I will or won’t do in the long term.
No strings, Haddie
. No ties, I remind myself.

And then any rational thinking I’ve been doing is vaporized when Becks drops his pants and turns around. I know his eyes are on me, but mine are focused on him and his condom-covered erection. The alcohol has most definitely not affected him. I tear my eyes away from the impressive sight and take in the whole package as he walks toward the bed in a predatory, purposeful manner. His eyes are filled with a combination of amusement and lust, and his body signals that I’m his for the taking: shoulders broad, gait confident, and smirk goading me to tell him otherwise.

He reaches the edge of the bed and, without comment, grabs my calves and pulls me toward him so that his hips are nestled perfectly between my thighs, which are hanging off the bed in his hands. He reaches down to slowly slide off my thong and then steps back to pull it over my heeled feet and
tosses it carelessly over his shoulder. I am more than turned on by watching his eyes take in every inch of my body, completely unashamed as he watches his fingers play over my sex and run their way up and down my seam. His breath stutters, his nostrils flare, and his lips fall lax as his eyes observe his finger slide slowly in and then back out.

We both gasp, me from the sensation and him from the sight. His fingers rub and slide in a slow, even rhythm that has my already sensitized flesh on high alert. A moan falls from my lips as my body starts to heat up and Beckett’s eyes flash up to meet mine. His tongue darts out and licks his lower lip as his fingers withdraw, but keep me open as he lines himself up with my entrance.

His eyes hold mine when he slowly enters me, every thick inch of him, filling, stretching, engaging every single nerve within me. He seats himself fully root to tip; his jaw clenches in restraint, and his eyes darken with desire as it takes everything I have not to roll mine into the back of my head at the sublime feeling. I want to watch him. Want to stare into those eyes and take in his incredible body as he works mine into a fever pitch.

I clench my muscles around him, silently telling him I’m ready for what’s to come when he surprises me by leaning over and kissing me. A slow, hypnotizing dance of tongues as his cock presses even farther into me until I don’t think I can take it anymore. My body surrenders, and just when my head starts to fill with so many thoughts of how this unexpected action is tying the strings we’re not supposed to have, he leans back, face inches from mine, and smirks. “Is that hard enough for you?”

I focus on that arrogant grin instead of the thoughts in my head, and release a soft groan when he withdraws a fraction as he stands up. He holds still, eyes locked on mine and he pulls out ever so slowly until just the tip of him is inside of me. “Well, is it?”

God, yes, it is. God, yes, I want him pounding into me,
driving me to the oblivion just beyond the horizon. I open my legs wider and reach my hands up to squeeze my own breasts. My muscles tighten around him in response to the moment, to the anticipation, in reaction to him withholding what I want the most.

“Fuck me, Becks.” It’s all I can say, because before his name is out of my mouth, he rears back and thrusts into me, my body rippling with a shock wave of pleasure. His hands grip into the flesh of my thighs as he begins again, each drive in and sensation-inducing withdraw out, allowing me to climb the ladder at a maddening pace.

My pulse pounds and my breath chases after it, on an endless race toward the finish line. My senses feel drugged, overwhelmed, scored with his possession of my body. My muscles tense and chills dance across my flesh, despite the sweat misting it as he drives into me harder and harder. My hands snake down my torso to part myself and allow my fingers to add that little extra friction to push me over the precipice.

I bring my eyes up to his to watch his reaction—to see if he’s one of those assholes who think only he’s allowed to bring me to climax—and I see his eyes dart down and focus on me pleasuring myself. His fingers dig deeper, his hips pound harder, and the muscles in his shoulders grow tenser.

I cry out as the dynamite detonates within me. An explosion of liquid heat paralyzes my body—legs tense, arms stiff, breath held—as I succumb to my orgasm. And even though my body feels like it’s so overloaded I can’t possibly take any more, Becks keeps going, keeps raking his head over my walls that are sated with such a pleasurable pain I’m not sure if I want him to stop or keep going to see how much farther he can take me.

“Becks.” His name is a broken cry on my lips as my body begins to shake from the force of my climax. He slows down some but adds a grind of his hips as he thrusts into me.

“Hold on, hold on,” he moans out before rearing back
and driving into me a few more times. A groan falls from his lips as his head drops back and his hands hold my hips still. I can feel his dick pulse inside of me as he claims his own release, his body rocking subtly as he rides out the feeling. I lay my head back and close my eyes, allowing him a few moments to come down from his high.

I feel him shift, and then I cry out in surprise when his five o’clock shadow scrapes over my abdomen as he kisses his way up the midline of my chest. He stops beneath my jaw for a moment, as he collects his breath before murmuring, “That’s two.”

“That was most definitely two,” I tell him as the deep timbre of his laugh is muffled against my skin. I stop my hands from reaching out and running up and over his back as his weight rests comfortably on me. A touch like that is too much, too intimate when I’m just trying to keep it casual.

We remain like this for a moment, unspoken words replaced by our labored breathing, when all of a sudden Becks starts to move. I assume he is going to slip out of me and go wash up, put an end to our unexpected nightcap, so I’m surprised when he kisses his way back down my neck. He stops and takes one nipple in his mouth while his hand palms the other, both lips and fingers manipulating my tightened buds until I’m writhing again.

He slips out of me and I sigh with audible satisfaction. His mouth starts the slow descent down to the apex of my thighs, and I whip my head up to look at him.

Again?

Holy fuck, he’s trying to kill me.

He kisses the top of my sex and looks up at me with a salacious look in his eyes. “I’ve read a woman comes harder the second or third time,” he says. “Be sure to let me know.”

He kisses my skin again and chuckles. “Oh, yeah, here comes three.”

M
y eyelids are closed but it’s still so damn bright from the sunlight streaming into the room. I squeeze my eyes tighter to try to block it out, trying to clear the haze from my thoughts. I struggle to remember details from last night. How is it possible that I drank enough I can’t remember, but my head isn’t pounding like a damn tom drum?

I decide to snuggle farther into the down comforter, not wanting to wake up just yet. Wanting to forgo the headache that will inevitably hit me at full force the minute my body acknowledges it’s awake. But the fog starts to dissipate, and my thoughts replay the perfection of yesterday and what an incredible day it was. Smiles and laughter and love. Dancing and drinking and … oh fuck.

… fuck playing it safe …

… here comes three …

The words flicker through my mind and now I’m completely alert and cringe from the sun when my eyes flash open. I blink against the harsh light, and when I can focus, I’m staring straight at Becks.
Oh shit!

His head is angled to the side on his pillow, the lines of his face relaxed and his hair sticking up every which way. There’s a five o’clock shadow where I’m used to seeing his
clean-shaven skin, and I vaguely recall the feel of it grazing against my abdomen. My eyes admiringly trace the line of his throat down his chest to that sexy-as-hell infinity zone, which disappears beneath the sheet right where I want to look the most. The sight of him undressed is even more overpowering now that I am completely sober.

I admire the view momentarily and wonder if I pull the sheets a little tighter around me, will they slip far enough off of him to grant me the view I want? I start to slowly draw them toward me when last night comes flooding back to me in full high-definition color.

Whispered words and moaned sighs. The heady combination of playful teasing, unfettered need, and insatiable desire. His adept hands and skillful mouth creating an ache so intense, I felt as if my body was on fire.

I remember how he gave me exactly what I wanted—to feel physically so that I could be numb to emotion. How when I looked into his eyes, I pleaded with him to bring me to the brink, push me into that oblivion of sensation. And when he finally entered me, he was a considerate yet demanding lover who left me breathless, sated, and confused.

My thighs tense, and my core clenches as I recall all of the sensations he evoked in me. I lay my head back down on the pillow and close my eyes to try to push away the desire that’s already burning anew.

It was a onetime thing.

Sex without strings.

Exactly how I wanted it.

So why is my mind focusing on what he murmured into the silent room as I lay curled up against him when he thought I’d drifted off to sleep? His sighed words were laced with frustrated confusion.
“Goddamn strings.”

The alcohol-blurred details continue to play behind my closed eyelids like a slide show, and all I keep thinking is: What the fuck was I thinking? But I know I wasn’t really
thinking at all. I was so busy trying to mask my grief that I selfishly never considered the harm I might do to him in the end.

Fuck. Damn. Shit.

I also can’t help but think what a truly good guy he is. This is all my fault—even though my mind is floating with fuzzy bits of our time together, I can still piece together the fact that Becks tried to do the right thing. He tried to put me to bed, let me sleep it off, prevent me from getting behind the wheel.

This is on me. Completely on me. Why couldn’t I have followed through with my plan to leave and go screw around with someone who wouldn’t have given a shit if I left in the morning without another word? Why last night of all nights did I need to feel something just a little bit more? Was I afraid that the dam I’d built around my heartache might break and maybe, just maybe, I wanted someone around who I knew would take care of me if it did?

And so I used him.

Used a good man who didn’t deserve to be used. Guilt eats at me until I force myself to open my eyes again and face Becks. I take in his handsome face and all-American good looks. He’s the quintessential good guy—most definitely not my stereotypical go-to tattooed bad boy. I study him for a minute, my eyes drifting back down to where the sheet rests low on his hips … because he may not be my type but that doesn’t mean I can’t admire his hotter-than-hell physique. Soon my mind wanders back to the feel of his muscles bunching beneath my fingers, and I can’t help but wonder if I could ever get used to him. To this.

I am so used to thriving on the wild, volatile but fun-as-fuck drama-filled relationships—
well, if you can really call them relationships
—with the rebels in my past.

I can’t help my hushed chuckle when the thought hits me: Who would’ve thought that Ry would have spent the night—shit, married—the reckless bad boy, while I spent it
with the Southern gentleman? Talk about switching places. Something was most definitely screwy with the world.

When I look up, I startle as I meet Becks’s blue eyes. We stare at each other for a moment as we struggle with the awkwardness and figure out where to go from here. He looks at me from beneath half-closed eyelids and says, “Morning.” He yawns softly but never takes his eyes from mine as if he’s waiting to gauge my reaction before saying anything else.

“Good morning,” I murmur back, my fingers tracing idle lines on the sheet. A slow, sluggish smile turns up one corner of his mouth, and my heart stutters in my chest.

And panic starts closing in on my throat.

I don’t want to feel the warmth that just spread throughout my body at that lazy, boyish grin of his. I don’t want to feel the contentment I feel right now. And most of all, I don’t want to see that look in his eyes that tells me this could be so much more if I let it.