He groaned. “You’re wearing a garter belt with thigh-high stockings.”
Yes, she was. Not simply because she liked the way they felt on her body, but because Noah had once let it drop that he found the look hot. It had been a passing comment while they’d been watching a movie, but she remembered everything when it came to him.
“These old things?” she said and, stepping out of the dress, bent down to pick it up. She was hotly conscious of Noah’s eyes on her ass as she walked into the wardrobe and hung the dress in the section where she put clothes that needed dry-cleaning.
A deep inhale while she was hidden from him, a slow exhale, her pulse a drumbeat.
Going back to the bed using the same unhurried stride, she put one foot on the mattress and unclipped the stocking from the garter belt. The stocking was baby fine and, to be honest, not really necessary in LA. But again, it was all about playing to Noah’s fantasies.
She rolled down the stocking with care, inch by inch. Tugging it off her foot, she dropped it to the floor and started on the second. No rushing, no visible self-consciousness, just a woman slowly, sensuously teasing her lover as she undressed for him.
Though Noah hadn’t moved from his position by the door, his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans, his breathing was audible. Her own heart thumped hard as stone against her ribs. It was so loud by the time she finished taking off the second stocking that she couldn’t hear Noah anymore. Dropping the ball of airy material to the carpet, she put both feet back on that carpet and went to undo the tiny hooks that fastened the lace of the garter belt around her hips.
It was erotic black, the same color as her panties and the demi-cup bra she wore on top. All a matched set.
Her hands trembled as she removed the lace and dropped it on the bed.
She’d just lifted her arms back to unhook her bra when Noah moved. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, stumbled when his weight hit her, but he had his hands tight on her hips, kept her upright.
“Noah,” she gasped, feeling the hard push of his cock against her lace-covered butt.
“Now, Kit,” he said harshly. “Now, while I only have you in my head.”
Kit didn’t argue. If Noah thought now was the time, now it would be. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t burning up for him. “Yes,” she said.
He turned her to the wall, pushed her forward. It was rough but controlled, Noah’s hands holding on to her until she’d braced her palms against the wall. Her chest heaved, her breasts swelling against the cups of her bra. She made a low, needy sound in her throat when he pulled down the scrap of her panties… and then they just tore, the ribbon ties on either side snapping like they were made of paper.
She felt his hands moving behind her, heard the sound of a belt buckle being opened, the metallic rasp of a zipper being lowered, braced herself for him. She was ready, her body melting, but at that moment, a dark, twisted fear invaded her heart. He was taking her from the back, the way he’d no doubt taken many of those other women. Was that all she’d become? Did he even remember who she was anymore?
Something ripped.
A condom wrapper.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he ground out.
Her panicked heart interpreted that to mean he was keeping a barrier between them. Part of her knew that was stupid, that he was doing the right thing, but her panic grew and grew. She couldn’t bear it if they did this and—
His hands back on her hips. Spinning her around, strands of her hair sticking to her cheeks, he grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her so hard that their teeth collided. But that was okay, that was better than okay, because he had his eyes open and he was looking at her and he knew damn well who it was he held.
“Kit,” he said, stroking his callused, gifted hands down her body and lifting her just enough that he could thrust into her.
Hard. Fast. Deep.
A guttural scream ripped out of her. She’d thrown out her hands for balance when he spun her, clawed at the wall as he pulled out then slammed back in. Barely able to hold herself together, she put her hands on his face, on that part of him he so rarely allowed anyone to touch, and held him, their eyes locked together and their breaths colliding as he pounded her into the wall.
The scent of him was hot, masculine, and Noah. Just Noah.
Her body knew his, wanted his, and her heart, it was his.
Her orgasm was inevitable. The last things she saw were Noah’s eyes looking into hers, the dark gray wild. His body slammed into her one final time and went rigid, his fingers digging into her flesh and his chest crushing her breasts.
Her hands never left his face.
And she heard him say “Kit” again a heartbeat before the world became nothing but a wrenching kaleidoscope of pleasure.
Noah shuddered through the clawing, violent pleasure of his orgasm. It gripped him, shook, but what held him even more tightly was Kit’s touch on his face, her skin against his.
Legs shaky afterward, he pulled out of her and got rid of the condom by trying to chuck it in the neat wicker trash basket Kit kept on one side of the room. He was fairly certain he missed, but Kit could be pissed with him for that later. Right now he just wanted to hold her.
Tumbling them both onto the bed, Kit’s eyes dazed when they opened, he braced himself over her just enough that he wasn’t crushing her. Her breasts, still cupped by black lace, moved against his chest, and her breath kissed his face. She lifted a trembling hand, stroked his jaw. It felt good, felt fucking great.
“You can have the romantic bullshit now,” he said, being the hard man when the truth was that he needed the romantic bullshit.
Lips curving in a smile that rocked his world and eyes heavy lidded, Kit stroked her fingers back to play with his hair as she put her other hand on his biceps. “Thanks,” she said and, when he kissed her, kissed him back slow and lazy.
He sank into the kiss, sank into her, feeling good after sex for the first time in his life. It hadn’t been some cheap hate fuck. Not the women, he’d never hated them. It was himself he’d hated, his anger directed inward.
This, tonight… it didn’t feel like that.
He didn’t hate what he’d done, didn’t want to escape it. He wanted to linger, wanted to wallow, wanted to wrap himself in this moment when he’d given his woman what she needed. Squeezing her breast as they kissed, he caught her moan in his mouth, squeezed again.
She squirmed under him, but her fingers stayed lazily playful just above his nape.
Lowering himself even more heavily onto her, he tugged down the cup of her bra and filled his hand with her warm flesh. Her nipple was stiff against his palm, her skin silky. Even softer than the skin of her legs as they rubbed along the hair-roughened skin of his.
They lay tangled and lazy in bed, kiss after kiss, the air hot and humid between them and his hand on her breast.
“Let me take off my bra,” she murmured when her lips were swollen and wet and her body so aroused that he could smell the erotic musk of her in the air.
He lifted himself off her but didn’t go far. She had to twist to get the bra off, and he enjoyed every small movement. The instant the lace was gone, he came down on her again, this time with his chest flush against her breasts and his hands interlacing with hers on either side of her head. His cock unerringly found her slick heat.
She arched, moaning. “Again?”
“Yeah.” He felt good tonight, felt normal, no demons howling in his head. “You got protection?” He’d only had the one condom in his wallet
Kit ran a foot up his calf. “In the bathroom cabinet.”
He groaned, not wanting to get up and out of bed to go grab it. “It’s meant to be in the bedside drawer for a reason.”
Rubbing up against him, she wiggled one hand free to run a finger down the line of his throat as the tip of his cock touched the scalding heat of her. His eyes all but rolled back in his head. A little more of this and he was done. Especially if she kept stroking him, petting him, dropping kisses along his jaw and down his throat.