Читать книгу The Dare Collection: June 2018 - Lauren Hawkeye - Страница 16
ОглавлениеASH WOKE TO the melodic sound of distant church bells.
He opened his eyes to find the hotel suite, which was situated in Paris’s Eighth arrondissement, bathed in filtered sunlight and his body wrapped around a soft, warm, sleeping Essie. His morning wood nestled between the cheeks of her spectacular ass. He ground his hips, the bite of pleasure damping down the flare of panic that waking up spooning a woman had created.
He never spooned. He rarely spent the night with someone, usually leaving after the business end of the evening was over.
He held himself rigid until the wave passed, its grip on his chest lessening until he could once again breathe.
They’d agreed.
Just sex.
Fun sex.
Astounding sex.
And, seemingly to test him to the hilt, she wanted to experience new and adventurous sex. Would he even survive? She’d been incandescent last night. First agreeing to his renegotiated terms of engagement and then stating her own, which aligned with his so beautifully that he had discovered breaking his cardinal rule was easy. For the right woman. The right...inducement.
And then she’d blown him away by suggesting they fuck in the very upmarket club that they’d come to vet. Who knew studious, bubbly, relationship expert Essie concealed such a libidinous inner vixen?
Lucky him.
He’d gladly expose her to previously untried experiences—a tough job that he relished. This was the perfect solution. Keeping things fun and playful clearly delineated the boundaries, gave him back the control he needed like oxygen. And provided an out clause—because this would end. Sooner or later the fun would dry up. And they could walk away. No feelings hurt. A good time had by all.
He breathed deeply, preparing himself, just as he did in negotiations—take control, brainstorm all possible outcomes and, if all else fails, railroad the opposition. With that strategy in mind, Ash shelved the niggling seed of doubt and gingerly untangled his limbs from hers without waking her.
By the time they’d returned to the hotel in the early hours of this morning, they’d been beat. They’d shared a quick shower and collapsed into bed.
And now he wanted his breakfast.
Sinking beneath the sheet with slow stealth, he manoeuvred himself between her thighs. Essie slept like the dead, so she didn’t wake until he’d opened her up and wedged his shoulders between her shapely legs.
She stirred, her head lifting from the pillow to level sleepy eyes on him. Eyes full of dawning realisation.
Fresh lust pounded through him, his dick burrowing into the mattress. ‘Morning. Ever experienced wake-up oral?’
She shook her head, bleary eyes rounded.
‘Do you mind?’ His voice was gruff, from the sight of her rumpled and vulnerable, her hair a wild tangle around her face, and from the vision of her open and glistening before him.
Her eyes were tinged with growing excitement. She shook her head but continued to stare. Waiting.
Ash touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip, catching the flare of heat in her eyes and the way her breasts rose and fell with her shallow pants. Her scent enveloped him. He shifted her thighs until she was splayed to his satisfaction.
Perfect, pink and pouty. The strip of fiery hair neatly trimmed framed the most exquisite sight he’d ever seen. One certainly worth waiting for. Who needed the works of art housed at the Louvre, when they had a naked Essie in their bed?
‘Are you going to watch?’ A surge of blood flooded his groin and she dropped her head back onto the pillow with a hoarse groan.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to.’
He tutted. ‘Your choice. But I will. I recommend the experience.’
She looked at him again, her cheeks flushed pink. ‘I...I’ve never come this way before.’
Heat bloomed in his belly. Man, he loved a challenge. ‘You will for me.’ Leaning forward, he opened her lips with his thumbs and touched the tip of his tongue to her clit. She jerked. Her thighs slammed against his head and her hands flew to his hair to hold him in place. Not that he was leaving. Not until he’d gorged himself and left her begging him to stop. Until he’d ruined her and set the bar sky-high.
He’d warned her last night and he never made idle threats. They weren’t leaving this hotel room until neither of them could walk.
Sucking the tiny bud between his lips, he flattened his tongue and laved at her, over and over. He watched her every reaction: the way she fisted his hair in her hands; the way, despite her proclamation, she lifted her head from the pillows every few seconds to stare at the action occurring between her thighs; and the way she urged him closer by lifting her legs over his shoulders and digging her heels into his back, demanding more.
She swelled in his mouth, her breaths now coming hard and fast.
‘Yes...oh...yes. You’re so good at that—’ Her breath caught on a keen wail. He winced as she twisted his hair, drawing back for a second to part her and slide two fingers inside her tight, velvety heat.
‘Having fun?’ He scraped his teeth along one inner thigh, delighting in the trembles that snaked across her flat belly.
‘Yes. Yes. Don’t stop.’
‘I have no intention of stopping. Best breakfast ever.’ He dived back in, this time matching the rhythmic laves of his tongue over her swollen clit to the plunging of his fingers, which he angled forward to rub her walls.
When she released his head so he could pluck and roll her rosy nipples, her neck strained as she held her head up to watch his every move and he knew she was close. He gave her everything, sucking and humming and plunging until she cried out, her voice a broken, thready cry that spoke directly to his pulsing dick.
He drew out the torture while she continued to clench around his fingers and then she pushed him away and collapsed back on the mattress.
‘Oh, wow.’ She laughed. ‘That was definitely fun.’
He clambered up the bed to lie beside her. ‘Glad I could oblige.’ He pushed the wisps of hair back from her flushed face. ‘Your exes were no good at that?’ Responsive, sensual Essie had been cheated.
She turned to face him, propped on one elbow. ‘Ex. Singular. He didn’t like it.’ Her cheeks darkened and Ash wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
What a douche. Some men didn’t know what they had in front of them. Her finger snaked through his chest hair in slow, pensive circles.
‘Of course, he didn’t like the way I dressed or laughed or the friends I kept, either.’ Her brittle laugh failed to lighten the mood.
So on top of her shitty father figure, her only boyfriend had been a controlling, insecure bully? Ash swallowed, half tempted to further ruin their morning by demanding the asshole’s address and investigating how well he liked Ash’s fist in his face. ‘Did he...lay a hand on you.’
She shook her head and looked away, her colour now a blaze across her cheeks.
‘There are other ways, verbal and emotional, to diminish someone. I put up with it for longer than I’m proud of.’
His chest turned to a block of concrete. ‘It’s okay.’ He trapped her hand under his, stilling her fingers. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right under our noses.’ Insightful, analytical Essie, so in tune with others’ needs, would hate that she’d tolerated a bad relationship for herself, just as he hated his own blindness and misguided trust.
‘Fun fact,’ he said, grinning when she levelled sceptical narrowed eyes on him. ‘That guy wasn’t worthy of the tip of this finger.’ He lifted her pinkie to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the tip. ‘Let alone the rest of you.’
Couldn’t she see that? Didn’t she understand any man would be fucking lucky to have her? He would have...once.
Essie broke the dark direction of his thoughts with an energetic kiss, tugging on his neck and then climbing on top of him and sitting astride his thighs. She sat back and looked down at him, her beautiful face soft with desire and doubt.
He gripped her waist, questions banked up in his tight throat.
‘We have to go back to London today.’ Her words gave him pause as if she’d added, ‘Back to reality.’
And Ben would return from New York. Would that alter their new arrangement? ‘I know. Still time for a few more experiences though...’ He could feed the desire and banish the doubt. Just fun.
She smiled, her hand encircling him and pumping with lazy strokes and the perfect amount of pressure.
‘Have you ever been to Paris before?’ he asked. The urge to offer more than new sexual experiences lifted the hairs on his arms. He wished they could stay a week. Wished he could wow her, wine her and dine her, as she deserved. Wished he could show her everything the French capital had to offer by day and indulge in her by night. All in the name of fun, of course.
Her thumb grazed the sensitive spot beneath his crown. He cupped her pert breast, his thumb tracing the dark tip. She shook her head, her mouth parting on a gasp and his balls rose up.
‘We don’t have enough time to see everything, but I’ve planned some sightseeing, if you’d like a whistle-stop tour.’ Anything to put that sparkle back in her eyes.
She glanced at the window and the view beyond. ‘Well, I can see the Eiffel Tower from here.’ Her thumb traced the head of his cock, spreading the bead of moisture her stroking had released. Then her eyes lit up. ‘Can we get real croissants?’ She bit her lip, which he’d come to learn was her vulnerability tell, and a damned sexy sight.
He nodded, warmth from his gut spreading to his chest at her simple request. No Learjets or Tiffany baubles for this woman.
‘Great.’ She stopped rubbing him and jumped from the bed.
He recoiled, every muscle in his body taut and pulsing with energy to drag her back and bury himself between those thighs.
‘Time for a shower, then, because I’m starving.’ Instead of heading to the en-suite, she twisted her hair while her stare lingered on his still-raring-to-go groin. ‘I’ve never experienced breakfast in the shower...’
Within seconds he’d hustled her into the bathroom and turned on the spray. She laughed and dragged him inside the glass cubicle, which was big enough for two.
Her mouth met his, her smile stretched wide. ‘I wanted to do this last night. I’m sorry I was so tired.’ And then she dropped to her knees on the tiles and gripped the base of his straining cock.
His eyes wanted to roll closed, so good was the sight of her on her knees. But he forced them open. He spread his thighs as the water pounded his back and cascaded over his shoulders. Essie smiled a sultry smile up at him, pressed her tongue to the base of his shaft and licked a path to the engorged tip. He braced one hand on the glass, terrified his jerking legs would give out before the fun was over.
Her warm mouth engulfed him, stretching her pink lips around his head. He grunted, an animal sound he was certain he’d never made before, and then he cupped her face, tangling his fingers in her wild, wet hair. An anchor.
She sucked hard and swirled the tip of her tongue over the sensitive crown, lingering on the spot that left him growling out her name and clamping his jaw so tight he worried for his enamel.
The minx had the audacity to smile around him, her mouth full, and then she bobbed her head, her eyes locked with his, full of challenge while she moaned and mumbled. He surrendered. He was always going to lose this fight. The sight of her on her knees with his cock in her mouth one he’d remember for ever. She worked him higher until every muscle screamed.
She was fantastic. Why had he battled so hard to fight this attraction? His balls tightened and boiled and fire flickered at the base of his spine.
‘Essie...’ The warning clear, no doubt by the look of twisted agony on his face.
Humming encouragement against him, she nodded her head, giving her permission. The flames licked along his shaft, lightning striking the tip at the moment he erupted on her tongue with a harsh yell and a slap of his hand on the tile.
She swallowed him down, releasing him with a pop and satisfied grin. He hauled her to her feet and crushed her close while she gripped his ass cheeks in both hands.
He pulled back, smacking kisses on her swollen, grinning lips.
‘Best.’
Kiss.
‘Fun.’
Kiss.
‘Ever.’
* * *
Essie pointed her phone at the majestic gothic spires of Notre Dame and snapped some pictures. The private pleasure cruise Ash had booked took them down the Seine from the Eiffel Tower to the Pont de Sully and back. A perfect way to see so many of the city’s iconic landmarks and to fully appreciate Paris’s endless stunning architecture.
After they’d dressed, they’d spilled out of the hotel and found a charming Parisian café where they’d sat on the pavement at a gingham-covered table for two and feasted on warm crumbly croissants that melted in the mouth. This new experiences game they were playing left her floating on air. She’d even forgone posting on her blog for that day and switched off her phone in reverence to her first orally delivered orgasm and her first visit to the French capital.
Ash approached with two flutes of what was probably real champagne—she was too scared to ask, because today had already had enough of a fairy-tale quality to leave her both swooning and restless.
Because she’d woken up in Paris next to a gorgeous man, any woman’s dream, who lived a lifestyle she couldn’t comprehend—one perhaps, had her parents been married, had she and Ben grown up together, she might have glimpsed. But that wasn’t her reality.
Her reality had been the role of odd kid out—not quite like many other kids from single-parent families but not quite like the whole families, either. Her reality had been years of loneliness, confusion and pining for an absent father. Yes, he’d sent endless gifts and she’d never gone hungry, but her reality had been an illusion. Just as her and Ash cruising the Seine drinking champagne was an illusion.
‘You look sad—Paris not what you expected?’ He sat next to her.
She shook her head. ‘It’s beautiful.’ Her lip took a severe nibbling while she tried to marshal her conflicted thoughts. ‘Your parents’ divorce... Was it while you were growing up?’
Ash sniffed as if the warm summer air offended him. ‘They’re in the process of it right now, actually. Turns out my mother could tolerate one affair, but not two. Why?’
She took the glass of champagne he offered and sipped. ‘Just imagining what your childhood was like.’
He looked away. ‘Pretty normal, I guess.’ He shrugged and slid his arm along the back of the seat.
‘Did you come here with your family?’ She picked at the scab, imagining fun-packed but rowdy Jacob holidays. All five of them together.
He nodded, eyes wary.
Essie’s glazed-over stare found the view again. ‘I only remember one holiday with Mum and my father. I was ten.’ The memories rushed in like a tidal wave, stealing the last of her high. ‘I’d begged and begged to accompany him on one of his business trips to New York, promised I’d be so good he wouldn’t know I was there. He appeased me with a trip to Chester Zoo.’ She picked at a sliver of peeling paint from the seat. ‘I didn’t mind—it was the best trip ever. He bought me a stuffed elephant, we got our faces painted and he taught me to play chess back at the hotel.’
Ash’s hand slid to her back, his palm warm between her shoulder blades, the rhythmic sweep of his thumb strangely unbearable.
‘So you didn’t see much of Frank?’
She shook her head, her face hot. Why had she even confided such a deeply personal moment with the power to shrivel her insides? The memory of what she’d done to that beloved stuffed elephant five years later when she’d finally discovered her father’s deception still brought heat to her face.
‘When I discovered the truth, that he’d lied to me and to Mum and his real family...’ She met Ash’s stare, shame and defiance warring inside. ‘I...I built a bonfire in the back garden. It didn’t end well for the elephant.’
Ash pulled her close and pressed his mouth to the top of her head, the gesture more than that of fuck buddy. But she wasn’t naive enough to see Ash’s display of romantic, even comforting, touches as anything but good manners and an attempt to keep their insatiable chemistry on the fun track where it belonged.
She sipped the frigid wine, pushing dark, dangerous thoughts away, and focussed on the view to stop the dangerous slide towards obsessing. It wasn’t just the fact that Ash was way out of her league. He possessed a quick wit and was sexy personified. He had a dry sense of humour and regularly called her out on her more outrageous bullshit. A very addictive combination for a girl sadly lacking in healthy, long-lasting relationships, either in her own life, or displayed by her parental role models. A girl who’d spent two years in a dysfunctional, emotionally abusive relationship because she was so desperate to be the opposite of her parents.
She’d promised Ash she didn’t want more than sex.
But if she ever changed her mind, ever considered herself capable of maintaining the kind of trust and commitment she frequently wrote about from a theoretical point of view, Ash represented exactly the kind of man she’d want.
Pity it was never going to happen. Not because he couldn’t be sweet and romantic as he’d just proved, as well as an astounding lover. But because he’d meant what he’d said.
The ex Ben mentioned had clearly hurt him badly enough that he’d sworn off anything beyond casual for good. Those closest had the most power to cause lifelong pain.
She shuddered. She’d certainly never been back to a zoo.
‘Oh, look.’ She latched onto a distraction and pointed at a couple on the walkway lining the riverbanks. A bride and groom, having their picture taken.
Ash followed the direction she indicated, and they stared for several stilted, silent seconds. Essie squirmed, covering the awkward moment with a blast of verbal diarrhoea to put him at ease.
‘Ah, the city of love... Oh, fun fact. Did you know that falling in love has the same effect on your brain as snorting cocaine?’ She wasn’t fishing for a proposal, but she wasn’t carved from stone like the gargoyles atop Notre Dame. Just because love hadn’t worked out for her parents, for her, perhaps for Ash, didn’t mean others couldn’t find it.
Ash looked away from the beaming couple, his stare skittering anywhere but on Essie.
‘Did you know the divorce rate in the Western world averages fifty per cent?’ He curled his lip and sipped his wine.
She gaped. She wasn’t wholly surprised—if more men were like her father and her ex...and his father... His cynicism was more than a hardened lawyer thing—it must be the woman...
The set of Ash’s mouth told her now wasn’t the right time to pry. Time to drag the conversation back to fun town. ‘I didn’t. But you’re ruining the ambience, counsellor.’
He shrugged, a smile on his face, but his shoulders didn’t drop to pre-shrug levels.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not hinting.’ She nudged him with her elbow, trying to lighten the mood. ‘From a scientific standpoint, I find it fascinating that something as nebulous as—’ she made air quotes ‘—“love” is powerful enough to induce such a rush of euphoria on a neurological level.’
He stared for long silent seconds.
Essie brazened it out, but inside she wanted to roll into a ball and protect her soft parts.
‘Do you really believe all that relationship babble?’
She bristled. Had he just ridiculed the basis of her entire research doctorate? The foundation of her precious and increasingly popular blog? The very doctrine she hoped to live the rest of her happy and contented life by, next time she was brave enough to dip a toe back into relationship waters? At least next time she met someone, she’d also have a sexual standard to measure them against, thanks to Ash.
For the first time in her life, she knew what all the fuss was about.
‘I don’t need to believe it. Just because we’ve never experienced it—it’s science.’
‘It’s bullshit.’ He flushed and then winced. ‘It may be science, but science isn’t for everyone. It isn’t for me.’
Essie’s heart rate accelerated. He was opening up. Had her earlier confessional mood infected him?
‘Without changing my plea, I meant what I said last night—just fun—why the hefty dose of cynicism?’ She glugged more champagne in case this conversation blew up in her face. The psychologist in her couldn’t help but pry. And the woman who’d had fantastic sex with him was pretty interested, too.
She couldn’t look too closely at why, preferring to believe her interest was a side effect of the spectacular orgasms, professional curiosity or her constant need to help her fellow man.
With his eyes shielded behind sunglasses, she had no non-verbal cues to help—Ash sat as still as a statue.
‘I had a fiancée. Years ago. I thought myself in love, the kind you think exists, scientifically.’
Essie’s throat tightened until she expected to hear choking sounds when she breathed. She clamped her lips shut, desperate for him to continue. To learn more about this closed-off man who had so much to offer and what had shaped him.
‘Right up to the week before the wedding, when I discovered she was cheating on me.’
Essie stared, mouth agape.
Who would cheat on Ash?
A splash of icy champagne spilled on her dress, soaking through the fabric. She looked down, busying herself with wiping at the spill with the hem of her dress, to both gather her own scattered thoughts and give Ash some time to recover from his shocking confession.
But what did she say to a temporary lover on discovering he had indeed had his heart broken, something that had tainted all his future relationships? She knew what psychologist Essie would say. She even had an idea how relationship blogger Essie would handle it. But the woman who’d spent the night in his bed and was already struggling with the boundaries she’d agreed to Essie? She was all over the place.
‘Have you...had anyone serious since then?’
He shook his head, confirming her theories. ‘Casual works best for me.’
While part of her was happy that she and Ash were on the same page in their personal reasons for avoiding relationships at this stage in their lives, his confirmation came with an unpleasant hollowness in her stomach.
He’d really meant what he’d said.
‘I’m sorry you were hurt. Your ex sounds a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, if you ask me.’ Humour seemed the safest option to claw back the light-hearted, Parisian vibe they’d had earlier. But it didn’t banish the gnawing inside, or the restlessness of earlier. Or the urge to comfort Ash. But he’d hate that. She sat on her free hand.
Ash shrugged. ‘I’m well over it. As I said, it was years ago.’ He didn’t appear over it. In fact, a greenish hue tinged his skin. ‘I just think that whatever that emotion is—that drug-like high—it passes pretty quickly, and then what do you have?’
She had plenty of answers, but none she thought he’d want to hear. And perhaps he was right. What did she really know? Everything she’d learned about men came from her ex, a pathetic excuse for a man who’d needed to put her down to make himself feel like a man, and her waste-of-space father—a man who was only in her life thirty per cent of the time and never at the important moments. If she’d grown up with Ben, at least she’d have had a stable male role model, an older brother to fight her corner, vet her boyfriends and tell her she was worthy. But Frank had robbed her of that, too.
‘Love didn’t work out for you and the lazy, critical, controlling jerk-off...’ He toyed with a strand of her hair, his stare searching.
‘No.’ As far as romantic relationships went, she’d proved her judgment was seriously lacking. She’d accepted meagre scraps, just like her mother. ‘But that was my fault. People treat you the way you allow yourself to be treated, right?’ Yes, she knew the theory down to the last detail, but putting it into practice for yourself... That was another matter.
Ash nodded in agreement, his stare fixed on the horizon.
‘But, you’re right. I haven’t found it, yet. But I do know that as humans we’re destined to strive for a meaningful connection, an interaction with other humans. We can’t avoid it. It’s evolutionary. A survival tactic.’
‘Is that why your relationship with Ben is so important?’
Essie shrugged, feigning indifference while her insides shrivelled. ‘You don’t have to be a psychologist to see I have daddy issues. I grew up thinking I was an only child. I loved my father, idolised him as a little girl, but his betrayal ruined our relationship.’ She shrugged, playing down the impact of her rolling stomach. ‘I feel cheated—Ben’s a great guy, as you know.’
Ash nodded.
And Ash? Another great guy who’d been hurt in the past, who she’d objectified on her blog in order to feel validated. Well, that ended today. No more Illegally Hot. And no more crazy ideas about Ash being anything more than a temporary fling.
Several beats passed.
‘Hungry?’ said Ash.
Essie nodded, despite her swirling stomach.
‘Let’s go to Montmartre for lunch. They have a street market today.’
And just like that they successfully hurdled the invisible barrier—with good, old-fashioned denial.
