Love You Better (Better Love 1)

“Why did you stop?” I screech out, breathless. He laughs, and I smack the bed at my side.

Am I going to cry? I might cry.

My body is on fire, the tension and need for release bordering on painful. This orgasm tease is going to bring me to tears.

“Kelley!” I whine and my sexual frustration is evident.

“Did you just say fuck?” he laughs again in disbelief.

“What?” What!?

“Did I just make Ivy Rivenbark say fuck?” His stupid smile is huge and adorable, and I want to throw a pillow at him, but I don’t think I can reach one.

Oh no he did not stop, right when I was on the cusp of orgasm, because I said a cuss word.

“Kelley. Now is not the time,” I scold. “If you don’t make me come right now—”

He cuts off my threat by launching a double assault, his mouth and fingers thrusting and massaging, sucking and rubbing. I moan, low and long, threading my fingers back through his hair.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I chant in sync with my hips, rolling against his face. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.?

?

His chuckle sends me over the edge, and my body bows, arching my back and attempting to clamp my thighs shut. Kelley presses on them more firmly with his arms and continues to rub and lick and thrust until I’m trembling.

“No more. No more,” I cry, and he slips out from between my legs and props himself up beside me.

When I finally open my eyes, he is staring down at me, his grin a sexy combination of pride and awe.

“Craft fucking beer,” he says, shaking his head with a small smile.

“What?” I ask with a laugh. That’s random.

He shrugs, and then leans down to kiss me. I suck on his lower lip, tasting myself on him. It’s heady and thrilling, and I never want it to end.

Kelley deepens the kiss, sliding his hand into my hair, and I turn on my side to hitch my leg over his hip. I want him, I want this so badly, but when I feel his naked length brush over my bare center, the panic starts.

It comes on quickly and with no warning. One minute I am floating blissfully, and the next, I’m plummeting. The skin on my scalp starts to prickle, sweat dots my upper lip, and my heart races for a new, more dreadful reason.

No, no, no. Not now. Not with him.

I try to force myself to be calm, to get control of my body.

I tell myself that I’m safe, that this is Kelley, that my fear is unwarranted. But my frantic mind doesn’t hear the logic over the sound of the blood rushing through my ears. I’m trying desperately to hold myself together, but I’m cracking from the inside out, my control fracturing into fragments that I can’t grasp.

Why didn’t I do my grounding exercises? How could I possibly think I could get through this without them?

God, I am so stupid.

I let my guard down. I was careless.

The anger I feel toward myself swells, taunting the anger I feel about that night and that person. That person and night that broke me and turned me into...this.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

I can’t even have this, this one night with this one man who means so much to me. Fury and anxiety war within me. I go over the Attorney’s Oath in my head and pray to whomever is listening that I can make it through this without him noticing. And maybe, with any other man, I could have hidden it.

But not with Kelley.