Chapter Thirty-Three

Daphne hesitated, only for a moment, but he must've registered it because his hands tightened on her back.

"Why don't you want me to, sweetheart?"

If you'd asked her only a second ago, she would've said she wasn't much of an endearment person. But suddenly, she was very partial to sweetheart. There was something almost charmingly old-fashioned about it, and the way Chris said it, it was like he didn't have any hang-ups about it at all. It was just a word he thought of when he thought about her.

"It's not that I don't want you to," she said. "It's more…"

She tried to think of how to phrase it in a way that wouldn't make her sound pathetic, or risk inadvertently insulting him. "I've never gotten off that way. It just seems…" She gave an awkward shrug of one shoulder, her hands still in his hair. "Like a lot of trouble for nothing."

He frowned, and for a minute she thought that was it, she'd killed the vibe, just like she had been afraid of doing. But then he brought her back down on his lap, so she was nestled against him, and she could feel how hard he still was, how he made her core pulse just from that single sensation.

"What do you mean by trouble?" he asked. "For you, or for me?"

"Both, I guess."

"Okay," he said. His hand skimmed down her side, clutching briefly at her thigh, like he wanted to ground them both, before he pressed one finger against where she was most throbbing through her underwear. "Let's get me out of the way first. It is absolutely no trouble for me. It is the opposite of trouble. Do you want to hear just how not trouble it is?"

He'd started to rub slow circles over her clit, and she swallowed hard, wanting to say yes but unable to get the word past the lump in her throat.

"I've literally dreamed about burying my face in you," he said. "Of my tongue in your pussy, as far as it can go. If you're worried about your smell, don't. I love the way you smell. If you're worried about your taste, please don't."

He'd slipped a finger inside her before she even realized he'd moved her underwear aside, and she gasped, sinking down on him for one brief, delicious moment before he left her empty again. He brought his finger to his mouth, sucking on the tip.

"I fucking love the way you taste."

The rasp in his voice crackled all the way down her spine. She couldn't help but believe him, when he looked at her like that.

He took her hand, guided it to the hard length of him through his sweatpants. "If you're worried whether it'll be good for me," he said, "I can promise you that it will. I would spend all night down there if you'd let me."

She pressed the heel of her hand against him, stroking up in one firm motion, and he briefly closed his eyes, his head falling back as he took a shuddering breath. She was able to wrap her fingers around him enough to get a rhythm going of stroking him through the soft fabric, feeling him swell underneath her even when she'd thought he couldn't possibly get any harder.

Finally he lifted her off him by her hips, depositing her on the couch while he came to kneel in front of her in one fluid motion. "Don't change the subject," he said. "Tell me how I can make this good for you."

She didn't even know. That was the problem. She was sure that oral sex could be great—if everyone hated it, you wouldn't hear about it anymore, right? It would've been phased out a long time ago, okay, we tried that, didn't work, moving on. And when Chris talked about what he wanted to do to her, that felt good by itself. Maybe they could just keep talking, simulate the act without having to worry about the act itself.

But she craved his mouth on her. It wasn't enough to talk about it, she wanted to feel it.

"How about this," he said. "I'm going to touch you, and I'll ask how I'm doing. Okay? You just tell me how it feels, if you want me to keep going, if you need me to do anything different. Your only goal here is to enjoy it, so don't feel pressured to come. If you've had enough, just tell me, and I'll stop. There's lots of other stuff we can do."

He looked up at her, and she could've gotten lost in those eyes. She nodded to let him know she'd heard him, that she agreed, and he hooked his fingers into her underwear, giving them a tug as she lifted off the couch to accommodate him. Even that slide of fabric created a sort of static spark down her legs, and she was trembling when he pulled her closer to him, pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh.

"How's this?" he murmured against her skin, continuing his openmouthed journey up her thighs, nudging at her center with his nose.

She'd never thought of noses as particularly erotic before, but there was something about Chris', strong and a little sharp and applying a teasing amount of pressure against her. She braced her hands on either side of her body, her fingers digging into the couch.

"That's fine," she said, her voice choked.

"Fine," he repeated with a quiet laugh, like he knew what an understatement that was. She felt the warm burst of his breath against her, and couldn't help but squirm. "Okay. We can do better than fine."

He touched her with his tongue then, a quick, darting slide, like he was sneaking a taste. Her hips jerked in response, and he slid his hands up to press his thumbs against her hip bones, holding her in place as he went back in. This time his tongue was slow, exploratory, as he licked and sucked. I've literally dreamed about burying my face in you.

"Ah," she hissed as he hit one particular spot, trying to retreat, but she had nowhere to go.

"There?" he said, his tongue pressing against it once again, until she felt heat pool in her belly. "If it feels good, tell me. Don't hide from it."

"I—" She clutched at his shoulders, not sure if she was trying to push him away or draw him closer. Her first instinct was to hide—the better it felt, the more she wanted to escape from it, like she was at the top of a roller coaster and scared of the drop.

But then he gave her clit a hard suck, and she couldn't help it. She shuddered against him, releasing a low, throaty moan that turned into a whimper when he did it again.

"You like that."

It wasn't really a question, but she felt compelled to answer anyway, panting as she looked down at him between her thighs. "Fuck," she said. "Yes."

He lifted his head to look at her, his pupils blown out, his lips wet. "Tell me," he said. "Tell me how it feels."

"God," she said, clenching his hair as he continued his agonizing rhythm. "It feels so good. Don't stop."

"Stop?" He gave her a wicked grin, and she pushed his head down, her hand at the nape of his neck as she guided him back to her.

"Don't stop," she said. "Please, Chris, don't—"

He didn't stop, but he did slide his whole tongue inside her, and something about that, the memory of the way he'd said my tongue in your pussy, as far as it can go, was all she needed. She exploded in a thousand tiny pinpricks of light, her body tensing up with the orgasm and then releasing slowly, slowly, until she felt the last of the aftershocks ripple through her.

He leaned forward to rest his head on her stomach. She ran her fingers through his hair, her chest still heaving, her breathing a little ragged. "I thought," she said, "that wasn't the goal."

"For you," he said. "It was absolutely my goal to make you come. And I'm very goal-oriented."

She laughed. "Get up here. And take your pants off."

"Someone's bossy." But it took him only a second to comply, his sweats on the floor, his dick jutting out. The hand-drawn abs were ridiculous, they should've taken her right out, but somehow they didn't. She'd had no idea that sex could be so intense but also so…fun. She was having a great time.

"You know," she said, straddling his lap once he'd joined her on the couch. "I'm on birth control."

"Yeah?"

She figured he probably knew that—she hadn't hidden her pill container when she left it on the bathroom counter in her hotel room. But she wasn't just giving her medical history, and she figured he knew that, too.

"We could…" She slid against him, grinding her pelvis into his erection. She was still extra sensitive from her orgasm before, and even that slight friction made her vision go a little blurry. "Without a condom. Do you want to?"

"Fuck, you have no idea." He was holding himself so taut she could see the corded muscles in his neck, the veins in his forearms ridged as he gripped her thighs.

"I bet it would feel really…" She pressed against him harder, deliberately teasing. "…really good."

Chris gave a groan, his fingers digging into her as he lifted her up and settled her right on his dick. That feeling of being suddenly full, of being stretched around him, was so exquisite that another orgasm rolled through her body, taking her by surprise. He held her through it, letting her put all her weight on him, her cheek flattened against his shoulder. It wasn't until she'd stopped trembling that he started to move under her.

"Meet me here, Dee," he said. "Come on, baby."

She bracketed his body with her knees, taking him even deeper as she pumped her hips once.

"That's it," he said. "Ride me."

She felt boneless and wrung out, but humming with enough adrenaline that she could fuck him hard, barely noticing when she was moving on her own versus when he was lifting her hips and bringing her down on him again and again. She knew he was going to come a second before he did, the way his body tightened, the choked growl he let out from his throat. And then she could feel him filling her up, the warm rush of it.

They stayed like that for a few moments, whether because they were too spent to move or because they were afraid of whatever mess they'd make when they did, she didn't know. Probably both.

"You might need a new couch," she said.

"Mmm," he said. "I have a steam cleaner."

"Industrial?"

He laughed, lifting her off him finally and setting her down on the couch. "Wait here just a minute."

She thought maybe he meant to go get the steam cleaner right there and then, but when he came back, he was holding a wet washcloth. He knelt in front of her, using the warm cloth to wipe the stickiness off her inner thighs.

"Oh," she said, suddenly embarrassed. "I can do that. You don't—"

"I want to," he said.

He washed her carefully, then pressed a kiss to her knee before offering her his hand. "Need some help up?"

"I'm going to stay here," she said. "I can't move."

"Don't make me sleep in that giant bed all alone."

"That wouldn't make me a very good guest," she said.

"No," he said, his eyes sparking. "It wouldn't."