“Michael . . .”
“Stella,” he replied, breathing heavily in her ear.
Something hard prodded at the entrance of her body and pushed inside slowly. Stella stopped breathing. Sex had hurt in the past, but there was nothing now but a sensuous stretching that went on and on until Michael seated himself fully inside her. She tried to swallow, to talk. Couldn’t. They fit perfectly.
For long moments, Michael remained immobile. Sensing the tension in his body, she looked at him over her shoulder.
“Michael?”
His face was drawn as if in pain. “I’ve been wanting this too long. It’s too good. You feel . . .” He exhaled. “If I move, I’m going to lose it.”
She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She wasn’t alone in this. “Move.” She arched her back and rocked against him. The motion pushed him in even deeper, filled her.
A raw groan escaped his throat. “Stella, I’m serious. Give me a moment to cool down. This is our first time. I want fireworks for you.”
Our first time. He made it sound like there would be lots of times. The thought made her so happy her heart wanted to burst. She didn’t need fireworks. She just needed him.
Wet kisses landed on her neck, interspersed with teasing nips and greedy licks. He traced the folds stretched tightly around him before sliding his slick fingertips higher. When he rubbed her there, she clenched on him and moaned.
Only then did he begin moving. He withdrew, thrust back into her, retreated, returned, picking up a driving rhythm. The twin assaults of his fingers and invading sex kindled flames beneath her skin that spread outward in widening rings.
“Stella,” he said with a groan. “You feel too good. Sweet Stella, my Stella.”
His words soothed and excited. She tried to speak as he’d asked her to, but all that came out were gasps and sighs of pleasure. Instead, she communicated how she felt with her body. She spread her thighs wider and writhed to match him thrust for thrust. Did he like that? Or was she being too debauched? The hand propped against the mattress captured hers, and he interlaced their fingers.
“Just like that,” he whispered. “Perfect.”
Her sex fisted tight. For a timeless moment, she hovered on the brink, breathless, possessed, loved. The orgasm crashed over her. She rippled around him as he drove into her relentlessly. She attempted to meet his thrusts, but the strong convulsions gripping her body stole her coordination.
His lips traveled from her neck to her jaw, and when she turned toward him blindly, he captured her mouth, stroking his tongue deep. The caresses between her legs did not ease, and before the last orgasm had finished, she felt another building. Her muscles fluttered around his impalement, clamped down, and exploded yet again. With a hoarse groan, he surged into her one last time.
He
rubbed his jaw against her cheek and neck and lowered her shaking body to the bed, held her close like she was his. She stroked clumsy hands over the strong arms wrapped around her and held him back.
Until she remembered sex didn’t mean anything to him, and she loosened her grip somewhat. Michael enjoyed physical intimacy. That was all.
Emotion clogged her throat, anyway. If this was just practice, she never wanted the real thing. How long could she live in a fantasy?
{ CHAP+ER }
16
As Michael embraced a boneless, contented Stella, his heart stumbled around his chest like a drunken man.
That hadn’t been practice fucking for a practice relationship or pro bono fucking to prove he was better than his dad.
He’d fucked hundreds of women, but he’d never been so in tune with one woman’s body. He’d never been so desperate to please or so elated when she cried his name and came for him again and again and again.
He didn’t know what that had been, but it sure as hell hadn’t been fucking.
She hugged him tighter, pressed sloppy kisses to his shoulder and neck, and grinned up at him. She arabesqued her fingers on his chest—apparently this was not always a bad sign—and it tickled like hell.
He flattened her fingers against his heart to still their tapping and tried to put himself in a professional state of mind. “Look at you. I’m expecting another five-star review.”
“Six stars.” Her grin widened, and chocolate eyes shone at him and forgot to dart away, letting him really look at her for the first time that morning. It made him feel like he’d won something priceless, kicked the breath straight out of his lungs.
“You’re bad for my ego. It’s big enough as it is,” he made himself say in a light tone.