Play Me Hot (Play Me 2)

I don’t understand why he’s postponing what I’m pretty sure is the inevitable, but I have enough self-control left not to ask. Still, every second I stand there, wondering, anticipating, I sink further and further into the lassitude. It’s warm and sweet, like honey, and I love the way it runs through my veins. Slowing me down. Taking me over.

My limbs are heavy, my heartbeat slow and rhythmic now instead of fast and thready. And my eyes—it’s so hard to keep them open. So hard to stay alert when all I want to do is sink into Sebastian and let him do whatever he wants to me.

I struggle against the sweetness of it for a few moments longer, but eventually I lose the fight. My eyes flutter closed again, and as they do, my knees go weak. Suddenly, the only thing keeping me upright is Sebastian’s touch. His palm against my face, his hand on my neck, his hips jerking forward to pin mine against the window and keep me from falling—or choking from the pressure of his hold on my throat.

Though his hips are doing most of the work of holding me in place, his hand is tight enough now to cause me pain. Not a lot, not even a significant amount, really. But enough—a pinch here, a tug there—to make me aware of just how much control he has over my body at this moment.

Instead of freaking me out, the knowledge only makes me wetter.

“Sebastian.” I whisper his name for what feels like the hundredth time.

“Yes, Aria?”

I can feel his warm breath against my cheek and though my eyes are closed, I know that he is close. So close. I turn my head, try to press my lips to where I know his are, but all I find is air. He’s gone as quickly as he was there.

“I need—” My voice breaks.

“What do you need, love?” His voice is lower now, deeper even than it usually is. His breath is against my other cheek, the edge of my jaw.

I turn my head again, more quickly this time, and once again try to capture his lips with my own. But he’s gone again, and this time he moves back so that his pelvis i

s no longer pressed to mine. So that the only point of contact for our bodies is his hand at my throat.

He tightens it a little bit and as I move my head back so that I’m facing directly forward again, I feel a little more pressure there than I did before. Not enough to come close to cutting off my air, but definitely enough to let me know he’s not playing around. At least, not like I first thought he was.

It occurs to me suddenly that if someone walked in right now, they wouldn’t know if he was trying to kill me or fuck me.

Considering my background—where I came from and what I’ve done to survive—the thought shouldn’t be as arousing as it is. Maybe it’s because I know the difference. I know just how careful Sebastian really is being with me.

“What do you need, Aria?” Sebastian repeats, his finger stroking the sensitive skin right beneath my ear. “I won’t ask again.”

“I need—” Again my nerve fails me. Again my voice breaks.

“There’s no shame in asking for what you need,” he tells me, and this time I can feel his breath on my lips. His mouth is right there, mere centimeters from my own. If I lean forward just a moment, just a breath, we’ll be kissing. I want that desperately, want to feel his lips and tongue and teeth against my own so badly that it’s all I can think about. But if I go for it, if I try a third time to kiss him…

Three strikes and you’re out.

The old baseball adage springs to mind and suddenly I know what Sebastian meant when he said he wouldn’t ask again.

It’s a terrifying thought.

Any other time I’d feel ridiculous and melodramatic for thinking that even for a second, but right here, right now, the idea of Sebastian walking away and leaving me like this—wet and drowning and desperate for whatever he’s willing to give me—is anything but humorous.

And so I force myself to stay exactly where I am, force myself not to move, not to tremble, not to breathe.

Seconds pass—long, excruciating seconds where every heartbeat is an agony—and then he rewards me with a brush of his lips against my own.

It’s not enough, not nearly enough to quell the burn building inside me and yet I soak it up like the parched desert soaks up the rain.

Another pause on his side. Another wait on mine.

Another kiss, this one a little bit longer and wetter than the one that came before.

And it still isn’t close to what I’m after.

“I need your mouth.” I say the words that have been bubbling inside me for what feels like hours, days, millennia.

He mutters something that sounds an awful lot like, “Thank Christ.” And then he’s kissing me, his mouth open and wet and ravenous against my own.