Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

“No,” he said. “Put your fingers in your mouth.”

I blinked open my eyes, stunned at the suggestion.

“God, look at you. Still so fucking innocent after all this time. Put your fingers in your mouth. Taste yourself.”

I opened my lips, slipped my fingers inside. I was salty. Musky. Like nothing I’d ever tasted before.

“Enough,” he groaned, like he couldn’t take anymore. “Pet yourself, Poppy.”

Breathing hard, I slipped my wet fingers down my body, back between my legs.

“Remember the first time you did this?” he asked. “A girl alone in her bed?”

I nodded.

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“What turned you on so hard you had to touch yourself?”

“Zilla’s tennis coach.”

“Tell me.”

“He was nineteen. Mom hired him, probably to fuck him when Dad wasn’t looking. He . . .” I brushed my clit, and power and lust surged through my body. I went back again. Again. Using my fingers against myself. “He . . . watched me.”

“Did he touch you?”

“No. Never.”

“Did you want him to?”

I shook my head.

“Tell me.”

“No,” I answered. “But I liked that he wanted to.”

“I want to touch you,” he said. I wanted him to touch me, too. So badly. My knees buckled, and I pushed my head back against the wall. My hips bowing.

“Why don’t you?”

“Isn’t this more fun?”

“I don’t like games.”

“That’s because you’ve been playing them with the wrong person.”

Enough. I thought. Enough of him and his games. I closed my eyes, blocking him out.

“Poppy—”

“Shut up.”

His chuckle was dark. Ominous. I waited for him to punish me, to tell me to stop. To say something mean.

“Do it, Poppy. Make yourself come.”

My body was awake under my fingers. My body was my own under my fingers. And I remembered what I liked. How I liked to be touched. I remembered what I’d pushed away and forgotten about for so long. I came rushing back to myself. To my skin. My fingers. The ridge of my clit. The tender, wet opening of my body.

That summer of Zilla’s tennis coach, I’d done this relentlessly. Finding every reason to go to my room so I could touch myself. When I started dating I was sure the boys in high school would figure out how to make me feel as good when they touched me as I was able to make myself feel when I was alone, but they just didn’t have the attention span.

In college, Damon in my work/study program, he had the attention span and applied it to my clitoris in the dusty back rooms of the Linderman Library. He’d been sweet and studious and for a very nice month before my world came crashing down, I’d been infatuated with what he did to me and what he asked me to do to him.

It was a fine education in that library.

“What are you thinking of?” Ronan asked.

“The kid who used to finger-fuck me in the back room of the library.”

“What else did he do to you?”

I was distracted by the pinch of my fingers. “Poppy? Did you let him fuck you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Such a good question. “I just . . . didn’t.”

“Did you suck his dick?”

I nodded my head. Once.

“Did you like it?”

Oh god. His voice and the memory and my fingers . . . I was going to come. I bit my lower lip, my fingers working faster over my clit.

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Did he put his mouth on you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t . . .”

“Poppy.”

“I didn’t want him to,” I blurted. It had seemed like a step too far for a back room at the library. I’d have to take off my pants, and what if it didn’t work? Or I didn’t like it? I liked it when he put his hands in my underwear and sucked on my neck. I didn’t need more.

“Did the senator?”

My bitter laugh caught on a gasp.

“Has anyone put their mouth on you?”

“No . . . oh god. Ronan—”

The orgasm that exploded between my legs made me cry out. Made my legs buckle. “Fuck,” I said, teasing it out for as long as it would last. The major explosion faded, and lightning trails rippled through me. I braced myself against the bedside table and opened my eyes.

Only to find him right in front of me. A breath away. His eyes glittering. I jerked back like there was any distance to find between us, but the wall was at my back.

“Can I touch you?” he asked, and there was no game in his voice. No purr. No trick. There was only need. And it was what I liked about the tennis coach. Being needed. Like this. Dripping wet and soft.

And that he asked . . . that was different. I felt flush with some new power he’d never given me before.

“Yes.”

What I expected; his fingers on my skin. His hand between my legs. My breasts grabbed in rough, desperate hands, none of it happened. This man . . . this dangerous mysterious man with all his secrets, went down on his knees in front of my body. His hands slid around my waist, pressing me against the wall. The heat of his hand, the shock of his touch made me gasp. My muscles shook.