Chapter 5

5

LARKIN

I gasped as soon as his warm mouth slanted over mine, and that was the only sign he needed to invade and conquer.

And holy hell, did he ever conquer.

My hands clutched at his forearms as my legs threatened to give out. His tongue slid deliciously, sinfully, against mine. His kiss was slow and hungry, devouring and consuming.

I slid my arms up and around his neck, finally letting my hands tangle in his soft hair like I had wanted to do for years. My chest pressed to his, my soft curves yielding to his hard edges as I tried to get even closer.

His hands tightened around my waist, and he lifted me up in his arms like I was nothing. My legs wrapped around his back, locking at the ankles as he walked us several steps until my back hit the wall.

With a low groan that made an unfamiliar ache settle between my thighs, Rhodes deepened the kiss. One hand slid up my back, twisting around my loose hair until he had it wound around his fist. He tugged, breaking our kiss and arching my neck.

His teeth nipped at the exposed column of my throat, his tongue and lips soothing the bites. His mouth closed over a sensitive spot at the base of my neck I didn’t even know existed, and I rocked my hips against his.

My breath caught, feeling the impressive and growing ridge in his jeans I could feel through my thin leggings.

I ground my hips against it a second before he pressed me harder into the wall, thrusting his hips into me.

“God,” I choked out, my breaths ragged as the world spun around me.

His teeth nipped at my collar bone. Chest heaving, he pulled back, his eyes swirled with lust and desire.

“Tell me to stop,” he ordered, licking his lips, his gaze dropping to my mouth.

I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his again. Need and want thrummed in my blood.

“No,” I whispered against his mouth.

The world spun as he whirled us around. Still holding me, he walked out of the kitchen and into the family room, dropping me onto the sectional sofa. The soft cushions caught me as Rhodes stood over me, large and dominant and... whoa.

I swallowed, terrified to move.

He looked like he wanted to devour me whole.

Or run away as fast as he could.

I could see the war raging in his head as he looked at me. His jaw was tight, his eyes practically on fire as they swept my body.

“Don’t go,” I whispered, finally reaching a hand out to him.

Time suspended as I waited for him to make a decision that would shatter me one way or another.

He grabbed for my hand, but caught my wrist as he lowered himself down, his weight pressing me harder into the cushions. I reached for him with my other hand, but his fingers quickly caught that one, too, lifting both arms over my head and transferring them into one of his hands, pinning them down.

His lips kicked up in a wicked grin, his free hand coming down my arm, smoothing across my face before slowly tracing down my chest, over my breast, my side, my hip.

His fingers curved into my thigh, lifting and wrapping my leg up around his waist, pressing us together.

I moaned, the sound low and breathy and foreign to me. I arched my back, but other than settling between my legs, he barely touched me.

I needed more.

His dark eyes swept up and down me, studying so intently I felt raw and exposed.

I tried tugging my arms down, but his grip was ironclad.

He arched a single brow. “Going somewhere?”

I huffed. “I want to touch you,” I whispered, my words a desperate plea. I tried to wiggle my body, but he dropped the full weight of himself onto the lower part of my body.

I groaned at the added friction, but now I really couldn’t move. He had immobilized me.

“Do you know,” he started softly, dropping his mouth to my neck, peppering slow, burning kisses along the skin there, “how long I’ve waited for this?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus on his words when every cell in my body was alive and being electrocuted. With each kiss, a new set of nerves came alive, sending off a cascade of sensations that rippled through me.

“What?” I finally managed.

His hand went to the hem of my shirt and dipped beneath, sliding up my ribcage. His mouth moved to my jaw.

“This,” he repeated. “ Us .”

His lips found mine, but pulled away a second later.

I groaned at the loss, but he rewarded me with a roll of his hips that had stars bursting behind my eyes.

“Rhodes.” My voice came out a breathy whimper that made him grin.

“God, I love how you say my name,” he whispered before angling his mouth over mine. He timed the thrust of his tongue against mine with a snap of his hips until I was so turned on I wasn’t sure if I was going to scream or cry.

Maybe both.

I struggled against his hold, needing to touch him. To my utter frustration, he completely froze. He lifted his hips from mine, his head coming up so I couldn’t reach his lips.

“Rhodes,” I whined, trying to wiggle my hips in encouragement. He was a guy, right? Wasn’t this a thing guys usually just went for without hesitation?

His free hand stilled my hips, holding me in place.

“You done?” he asked calmly, like he was asking what I got on my math test.

“I’m trying to be,” I snapped, letting my head flop back with a groan.

He chuckled low in his throat, the sound making my toes curl. His dark eyes swept my body, lingering on my lips, the swell of my breasts, the place between my thighs I desperately needed some sort of pressure against.

The thumb of the hand holding mine gently rubbed a soothing circle on the inside of my wrist.

“Please,” I begged.

He lowered his lips slowly to mine, his kiss sweet and wet and hot as he explored. He lifted his head after a second and glanced up at our hands before giving me his eyes.

He sighed deeply, rolling his eyes playfully. “You’re ruining my fun, baby girl.”

He slowly released me and sat back onto his knees.

I barely had a second to mourn the loss of his weight on my body before his hands were sliding up, taking my sweater with them. When he got to my bra, he hesitated, his eyes going to mine.

I finished the job for him, taking my sweater off the rest of the way and sending it sailing across the room. I lay back, watching as his eyes drank me in.

Part of me realized I should feel embarrassed or something , but watching the way his eyes darkened with lust, all I felt was a feminine smugness. His attention was locked on me, following the rise and fall of my chest with each breath I took.

I couldn’t help the grin that curved on my lips knowing he liked what he saw.

I glanced down and inwardly winced, wishing when I changed my jeans I had opted for something other than a virginal white cotton bra with scalloped lace trim.

Then again, Rhodes didn’t seem to mind that I just barely filled out my B-cups.

He traced the edges of the scallops with a single finger, his expression reverent as his eyes followed every dip and curve. I was holding my breath, every cell in my body alive and firing and poised on the edge of something incredible.

His dark eyes flicked up to mine as his finger landed on the front clasp of my bra. His eyes were absolutely blazing.

“Tell me to stop,” he repeated, his voice huskier and rougher than before. I felt the finger pressed in the valley between my breasts tremble for just a second.

I held his gaze with mine. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Any last traces of hesitation melted away, replaced with something hot and needy. He deftly undid the clasp and the cups of my bra fell away, exposing me. His hand slid over one mound, cupping it, testing its weight in his hand.

I arched into his touch, wanting more. Needing more. My hands curled in his shirt, trying to pull him down.

He pulled his hand away quickly, fixing me with a reproving look that had me flushing for an entirely new reason.

“Rhodes—”

“Hands above your head,” he told me. Demanded of me.

Swallowing, I did as he said. I clasped my hands together, stretched above my head.

He hummed in approval and moved a hand back to my breast, slowly kneading the flesh around my nipple. Every time his fingers got closer to the tight peak, they ghosted away. After he did this for a fourth time, I voiced my protest with a frustrated cry.

Which made him smirk .

I huffed. “Dammit, Rhodes—”

He suddenly lowered his mouth, closing it over one tip and sucking deeply.

“Shit,” I hissed, almost reaching for him as my back arched up. I remembered my hands at the last second and put them back over my head, fisting them in a throw pillow I found tucked into the corner of the cushions.

“Good girl,” he praised, turning his attention to the other breast, his teeth scraping the tender skin there before he laid his tongue against it, drawing it between his lips and kissing it as thoroughly as he had kissed my mouth.

My body was going to combust. I was going to explode into a million tiny pieces.

The hand he had kept at my hip started to move then, first skirting the waistband of my leggings. Boldly, he reached down and cupped me between my legs.

I gasped, my eyes going wide at the sudden feel of him touching me there. A surge of wetness slicked the skin between my thighs, and I briefly wondered if he could tell I was completely soaked.

A low growl of approval rumbled deep in his chest as he lifted his head from my breast, his eyes going to where his hand gently, but firmly, held me.

It took absolutely everything in me not to move my hips, not to try and find some sort of relief from the pressure building in me. I was ready to detonate like an atom bomb.

He looked up at me through a fringe of dark lashes, a lock of hair falling in his eyes. The look he gave me was a complete cross between an adorable boy next door and a hot, sexy bad boy. His fingers curled against my center.

A shiver tripped up my spine as I sucked in a shuddering breath.

The corner of one side of his mouth hitched up in a gorgeous grin. “Still with me?”

I nodded quickly.

His hand relaxed. “Words, Larkin. I need to hear the words.”

“I’m with you,” I whispered in a rush. “Don’t stop. Please , don’t stop.”

He gave me a dazzling, brilliant smile that was all Rhodes. He slid his hand into the front of my leggings, into the front of my panties.

The first touch of the calloused pad of his finger against the taut bundle of nerves nearly made me scream. The sensation was overloading me. Every nerve ending short circuited and fired to life at the same time.

His fingers glided easily between my legs, the wetness that had been gathering since he first kissed me making it easy for him to ease a finger inside of me.

I hissed a sharp breath, not sure if I liked this feeling, this invasion. The pressure was strange and new. Not painful, but not exactly comfortable either.

He waited, gauging my reaction, his eyes missing nothing. His thumb gently smoothed down the side of my clit, making my hips jerk. Like pieces of a puzzle clicking together, that fullness I felt from him inside me combined with that simply touch had my body understanding why people made such a big deal out of sex and how good it felt.

I blew out a long, shuddering breath, my eyes damn near rolling back in my head.

His thumb stroked the other side, his finger hooking slightly inside of me.

“Oh, God,” I choked out, white knuckling the pillow. “Rhodes.”

He slowly pulled his finger out, then thrust it back in as his thumb started rubbing lazy circles around my clit. My head started to spin.

“Touch me.”

He barely finished the command before I let the pillow go, my arms coming around him and tangling in his long hair. I pulled his mouth down to mine desperately, our teeth clicking together as I arced up, pressing myself harder against his hand.

His tongue invaded my mouth thoroughly as he tucked a second finger into me, his thumb never giving up the deliberate, torturously slow circling of my clit.

He kept part of his weight braced on his free arm so as not to crush me, but I pulled at him harder until he surrendered, falling half on top of me.

“Come on, Lark,” he murmured against my lips. “Come for me.”

He curled his fingers inside of me, hitting a spot that had the world going white around me while his thumb pressed more intently against my clit.

I rocked my hips into his hand once. Twice.

The third time, my body came apart, a ragged cry falling from my lips as Rhodes kept pumping his fingers in and out, dragging out my orgasm. My entire body convulsed around him, every muscle clenched tight as I rode out the wave. I shuddered through the aftershock ripples, his hand slowing, easing my body down back to earth.

His mouth crashed down onto mine again, his fingers still inside me, not moving, as he kissed me slowly, languidly. My arms felt heavy around his neck, my body sinking deeper into the cushions.

Rhodes pulled away slowly, sliding his fingers out of my body and then out of my pants. To my utter shock, he lifted his fingers to his mouth and licked them clean. My empty core clenched at the insanely hot visual.

“You taste incredible,” he murmured, something dark and unreadable in his gaze that had my body struggling to come alive again.

“Rhodes,” I started slowly, trying to sit up. Reality was starting to sink in.

Rhodes reached behind me, pulling a blanket off the back of the couch and wrapping it around us both. He tucked me against the back of the couch, stretching out beside me and pulling me into his arms.

“We’ll talk in the morning, Larkin,” he said softly, his lips pressing against my forehead.

I could still feel how aroused he was, the hard length of him pressed against my hip. “But-”

He kissed me softly, gently. “Sleep, now. We’ll talk this all out tomorrow.”

My eyes were already drooping. “Promise?”

His warm breath fanned over my face. “Promise.”