His hands gripped her hips and pulled her into him, starting that mind-blurring grind again, rocking her sex against his while his lips moved to the other breast. And when his mouth closed over her nipple, Avery dropped her head back as if it were too heavy to hold up. Another surprised sound of pleasure rolled out of her. Trace growled, digging his hands into the flesh at her hips to intensify their rhythm, his lips tugging hard on her nipple.
“Ah . . .” Avery realized an orgasm was right there too late to stop it. She fisted his hair, uttered a confused, “Trace . . . ?”
He lifted his mouth from her breast long enough to kiss her mouth and murmur, “Gonna come for me, baby?”
“I . . . God . . .” The sensations just layered and deepened, and her body slipped from her control. So quickly. So easily. “Trace . . .”
“That’s it,” he murmured, biting her neck. “Easy, sugar. Relax. Let it come.”
But when his mouth slipped back to her breast and bit gently, there was no relaxing and nothing easy about the orgasm that shocked her body into a tight bow, bending her backward over his arms and pulling a scream from her throat.
Avery shuddered and fisted her hands in his T-shirt to hold on. Her hair fell from the bun, spilling everywhere. Even though she struggled to rein it in, her mind slipped right out from under her. Her body rippled with sensations she’d never experienced—not with David, not at her own hands.
And when her mind slowly returned, and Avery found Trace’s heavy-lidded, sparkling-blue eyes watching her, embarrassment flooded her in a heat wave.
She closed her eyes and lowered her head with a confused, “Jesus.”
His hand cupped her face and lifted her head. “Look at me, Avery.”
She opened her eyes but could barely meet his gaze.
“Don’t second-guess your body. It’s telling you what you need, however and whenever you need it. There is no right or wrong in sex, and that was the hottest, most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in a long damn time.”
Her chest released and emotions flooded in, wetting her eyes. She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and kissed him hard and deep. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes and before she could wipe them away, Trace licked them. He then stood, lifting her with him, and set her on her feet.
Steadying her, he let the dress fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but pink lace panties and heels. His gaze devoured her, while his hands stroked her arms, then threaded their fingers.
Avery’s mind drifted to all the light in the kitchen, to the darkness outside. “Should we turn off the lights?”
“No one could see us unless they were standing on the porch,” he murmured, distracted. Then added a soft, “You take my breath away.”
Another wave of emotion pushed through her. God, it had been so long since she’d felt wanted. And to be wanted by a man like Trace, when he could have any woman, when he’d seen her at her worst . . .
Avery had the sudden and urgent need to live up to her own promises. She stepped into him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and offered her mouth, open and eager. He enveloped her, crushed handfuls of her hair in his hands, and kissed her as if he could never get enough.
With a groan, he lifted her off her feet. Avery held his shoulders tight as he spun and dropped her ass on the butcher block. She gasped at the cold hitting her backside, steadied herself with her hands, and found them sliding in mango juice.
Trace didn’t seem to notice or care. He hooked his fingers in her panties and dragged them over her hips and down her thighs, then let them drop to the floor. His hands slid back up her thighs, his fingers tense and sinking into her flesh. His fiery gaze scoured her legs, then settled on her sex.
Avery’s nerves started to rise again. She wanted to ask him what he wanted, what she could do for him, but was embarrassed because she should already know.
So she did what came naturally and fisted the soft cotton tee in her hands, pulling it toward his head. Trace lifted his arms and let the shirt come off effortlessly, exposing all that tan skin, all those roped and ribbed muscles, and the dusting of dark hair across his chest that tapered into a line down the middle of his abdomen. And even though she’d seen his upper body dozens of times when he’d been working around the café, somehow he seemed so much bigger now, so much stronger, so much hotter. Far more . . . real. Probably because she’d become the queen of denial and suppression, and hadn’t given him adequate room in her conscious mind.
The pressure of his hands on her thighs dragged her thoughts back as her legs slid open easily, lubed by the juice covering the wood. And when he got a clear, pornographic view of her pussy, he groaned. The sound made her sex clench, and he smiled. He rubbed one hand through the juice, then stroked the cool, sloppy liquid over her skin until he reached her opening and sank one finger deep.
Avery pulled in a sharp breath and gripped the edge of the butcher block until her fingers stung.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I can’t believe I’m . . .
“Jesus Christ . . .” She barely heard her own words over the buzz building in her ears. That felt so good.
Trace watched his own hand as he single-mindedly fingered her so slowly she wriggled toward him.
“Hmm, you like that.” His lips twitched into a grin, his tongue licked his bottom lip, followed by his teeth, but those eyes stayed on her pussy. On his fingers stroking and sinking deep and stroking again. On the way his touch made her shudder and tense and pant.
And when the pleasure pushed outside her boundaries of control, her hands clenched a little more, back arched a little more, thighs tightened a little more, and the sounds escaping from her throat grew higher, louder, longer, and far more needy. But he kept one big, wet hand on her thigh, holding her open. “No, no. Let me see. Let me watch.”