His step faltered at the sudden dismay in her voice. He stopped completely, his heart high in his throat. “What?”
“I just…” She pressed her forehead to his in the dark hallway, her breath hot on his lips as she whispered, “This isn’t why I stayed.”
Whooh. Shit, those words made it hard to breathe.
He dragged air into his tight lungs as he lifted a hand to cup her face. “This isn’t why I asked you to stay.”
Asher stared into her eyes, their breath mingling, hearts thumping in sync, the knowledge that they both still wanted it to happen heavy between them.
Nothing over the past five hours had made sense.
But this…Honor in his arms, slaying him to the soul as she offered more than she knew with those few vulnerable words?
This made sense.
CHAPTER 23
Honor felt the difference in his kiss when he laid her on his bed and followed her down. Still reeling from that moment in the hall, she told herself she was wrong. It was no different from the mindless, consuming lust that brought them to his room in the first place. She ignored the deafening boom of her idiotic heart and only allowed herself to focus on the physical.
It didn’t matter how much she liked him, this was sex. Pure and simple—until her words came back to haunt her.
This isn’t why I stayed.
She shoved them away and concentrated on the delicious sensation of his weight pressing her into the mattress. How it made her ache for him with every single breath. She shifted beneath him, spreading her legs to cradle his hips between her thighs. With the throb of his rock-hard erection against her core, she moaned into his mouth.
Yes. That’s what I want. Now.
He rocked his hips against hers in time to the slow, deep, erotic strokes of his tongue into her mouth, and out again. The simulation had her writhing, her hands searching to rip off the rest of his clothes.
The rest of his clothes? He hadn’t even taken anything off yet.
She went straight for the remaining buttons of his shirt to remedy that situation, then shoved the material from his broad shoulders. He helped her wrestle his arms from the sleeves, and as soon as she tossed the shirt aside, she went for his belt. Asher shifted onto his side to give her room to undo the buckle and slide the zipper down. The press of her palm against his rigid length through his boxer briefs elicited a low growl as his lips left hers to trail down her throat to her chest.
She slipped her hand under the waistband to push the soft, clingy material down over the firm cheeks of his butt, but became distracted when he peeled her bra cup down and sucked her pebbled nipple into his mouth. At the same time, he cupped her other breast through her bra and pinched the tip with his thumb and forefinger.
The sharp clench of her core muscles had her gasping and arching her back for more. He flattened his tongue against her skin, then swirled it round and round her nipple before latching on for another hard suck. Her hips lifted off the bed as she dug her fingers into his buttock.
“Asher. Oh my God.”
Her throaty purr of approval deepened when he hummed against her skin and did the whole thing again while she took her bra off faster than she’d ever done before so he could move to the other side. And when he palmed his free hand down over her belly to her leggings, she eagerly helped him strip them and her panties off, too. Anticipation tingled along her nerve endings as he skimmed his fingers up her calf, along her inner thigh, straight to where she wanted his touch.
But he didn’t stop there, and she whimpered a protest.
He replied with one last suck on her breast, then trailed soft, wet kisses down over her ribs, and stomach, and lower, until he hit the spot she wanted him most. Like the night on the couch, he sent her soaring in record time, gasping his name as her orgasm hit.
“I could do that over and over again,” he murmured, kissing his way up her body the same way he’d gone down.
“Not without you next time,” she vowed after he’d pressed a lingering kiss to her lips.
“Good plan.”
She grinned and reached up to gently brush his hair from his forehead. As their gazes connected and held, an unexpected hard thump of her heart in her chest knocked the wind right out of her. Her smile faded and so did his.
A shaky gasp filled her lungs again, and she quickly averted her gaze to his chest while lifting a hand to explore the hard planes with their dusting of dark hair in the middle that arrowed down to bisect his ridged abdomen.
Physical.
Muscles.