“No,” I gasp out. “God, no.”
He studies me for one second, two. “Okay.”
And then he’s kissing me, lips and tongue and teeth pressing hard against my own.
It feels so good—he feels so good—and I want it to go on and on and on. Want to be here, right here in this moment, tongues and arms and bodies tangled together, forever.
But I’m restless, too, my body on fire for what only he can give. He’s already made me come once—fast and brutal—but I want more. I want what he told me on the phone. Everything he has to give me. And then more. Always more.
I dig my nails into the firm muscles of his back, relish the way he groans. The way his body bucks against mine so that his cock is pressed right up against my sex.
He starts to pull away and I know—I know—it’s because he wants to regain control. Wants to draw this out so he can torture me and make me come again and again and again. And while I’m normally all for a string of orgasms—what girl wouldn’t be?—that’s not what I want from him right now.
Not what I need.
Which is why I wrap my legs around his waist, and my arms around his shoulders and hold him tight against me. The full-body contact is what I’m craving—every part of him touching every part of me.
He groans again, a dark, tormented sound that shoots right through me and has me practically panting with desire. I bite down on his lip in response, not hard enough to draw blood, but more than hard enough to tell him that I mean business. That I want more and I want it now.
“Fuck, Aria!” he gasps as he pulls back an inch or two so he can rest his forehead against mine.
“That’s what I’m trying to get done,” I growl, right before I pull his mouth back to mine. I nip at him again, relishing the way his body jerks against mine. I lave my tongue over his poor, abused lips, sucking them into my mouth one at a time, soothing the sting of my bites.
And then I’m ripping at the thin silk of his shirt, buttons flying everywhere as I all but tear it off him. It probably costs more than I make in a month, but right now, I don’t give a damn. If I don’t feel his bare skin against me in the next thirty seconds, I swear I’m going to lose my mind.
Finally, I get the shirt completely undone and Sebastian takes his hands off me just long enough to shrug it onto the floor. For a moment, I’m spellbound by the sight of his chest—and the phoenix rising from the ashes that he has tattooed there. It calls to me, touches me deep inside as I think of how hard I’ve worked to be reborn. To rise from the ashes of my past. For the first time, I wonder about Sebastian—about what past he wants to be reborn from.
But before the thought can take hold—take root—he’s touching me everywhere—everywhere—those long, calloused, talented fingers of his brushing across my cheek, down my neck, over my breasts, across my stomach.
And still it’s not enough. For the first time I wonder if it ever will be. If this thing between Sebastian and me will ever burn itself out or if it will just keep getting hotter and hotter forever.
But his hands are on my thighs now, pushing them apart, and I can’t think anymore. I arch my back instead, push into his touch.
He curses softly, reverently, and then he’s yanking my dress over my head in one quick, powerful motion. My bra follows seconds later and then he’s fumbling with his pants, shoving them down and out of the way.
“Now!” I tell him, shocked partly at the breathy sound of my voice and partly by my own audacity.
He stiffens against me and for a minute I think that I’ve pushed it too far, have ordered him around too blatantly when it’s obvious that he likes to be the one in control.
I whimper at the thought, my hands clutching at him, pulling him closer, closer, closer as desperate tears leak out of the corners of my closed eyes.
“Don’t leave me!” I beg him as I arch and tremble against him. “Please, don’t leave me like this.”
“I’m not, baby.” His voice is smoke and gravel and long sleepless nights. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Then what—”
“Condom,” he says bitterly even as he bends down and fumbles in his pants pocket.
I hear a faint rustling as he tears the package open.
“Give it to me,” I demand, brushing his hands aside so I can roll it on him myself, in a slow, hand over hand motion that makes a growl rumble up from his chest and his eyes nearly roll back in his head. “Fuck, Aria. Keep that up and it’s going to be over before it starts.”
“Promises, promises,” I say mockingly against the hot, salty skin of his throat as I finally finish the job.
Sebastian’s hands tangle in my hair at the taunt, yanking my head back hard enough to have new tears springing to my eyes—and wetness dripping from my sex. “Now,” I tell him, grabbing frantically at his shoulders, his back, his ass. “I need you inside me now.”
He doesn’t wait for a second invitation, but slides home in one strong, powerful thrust.