“Here it is,” I whispered, my eyes never leaving his. “Here is the thing I’ve been chasing all my life.”
The words came out of their own accord. I hadn’t intended on saying them. They were honest, raw. I was never honest or raw with a man. But the truth spilled out of me because I had been chasing this feeling. All over the world. With many different men. I’d been waiting for one to awaken me this way. To make me feel this alive.
And he hadn’t even fucking touched me.
Karson’s expression shifted. That was the only way to explain it. As if the stoic badass thing was just a mirage.
He lifted up his hand to stroke my cheekbone with a featherlight touch. Barely there.
I flinched nonetheless, my skin reacting viscerally to his hand on me.
“I’ve been thinking, dreaming of what your pussy tastes like,” he murmured, almost a whisper. “I’ve been obsessing over what it’s going to feel like clenching around my cock.” His hand cupped my jaw, slightly firmer this time. “I need to see your face when you’re full of me, exploding around me. And I have a feeling that you had a lot planned before we fuck.” He leaned in to brush his lips against mine, my mouth opening reflexively because it was impossible not to open to this man.
He kissed me gently, with reverence, taking me completely by surprise. In the short time I’d known him and fantasized about what it would be like to kiss him, everything had been brutal, frantic, violent. And I’d loved the thought of that.
I wasn’t one for tenderness. Too vanilla.
But holy fucking shit.
I’d never tasted vanilla like this before.
“You’re used to being in control,” Karson murmured against my lips, his hands settling on my hips now, firm and heavy. “And I’ll be happy to let you take the wheel…” His hands skimmed over the sides of my waist, brushing my breasts. I sucked in a ragged breath. “Once I’m done with you.” He kissed me again. Hungrier this time. Fiercer. I responded enthusiastically, desperate to taste him, all of him.
Karson pulled back once more, and I barely suppressed a groan of protest.
“Though I’m starting to get the feeling I’ll never be done with you,” he added, voice rougher now.
Somewhere deep inside, a voice told me to challenge him on that, to play some kind of part, be the sexually free, sexually fierce woman I was. But an instinct, a deeper, older and truer instinct, told me to submit. To release all of my expectations and let this happen exactly how it was supposed to—with Karson in control.
His hands trailed along my collarbone, right down the middle of my chest, not touching my nipples which were aching for his touch. No, he didn’t go there. Instead, his hands gripped the thin silk of my nightgown and tore it down the middle.
Tore it down the fucking middle. Until it fluttered to the floor, leaving me naked in front of him while he was fully clothed.
My breath left me.
I blinked at him then looked downward to the ruined silk on the floor.
“I had that custom made for me in Paris,” I hissed, my voice raspy and thin.
My eyes met Karson’s, glittering, liquid, pure fucking sex. “I don’t give a fuck,” he replied, his tone as close to a growl as I’d ever heard.
My pussy clenched at the tone, at the look in his eyes, at my skin being exposed to him.
Instead of doing what I expected him to do, what every nerve ending in my body needed him to do—touch me, fuck me, give me some kind of release—he stepped back, giving me empty, cold air. My nipples pebbled in response, in desperate need.
As much as I wanted to, I didn’t follow his movements, didn’t take charge and tear his clothes off as I might’ve in other situations.
No, I just stood there, naked. Shivering despite the night being balmy with humid air blowing through the doors I’d just opened to the pool area.
Karson stood a few feet from me, his eyes moving slowly over every inch of my body, drinking me in. Fucking devouring me.
It was even more erotic than if he’d touched me right away. He was taking me in like I was a piece of art, like he’d never seen a naked woman in the flesh before.
And I’d bet my left tit he’d seen many naked women before.
“Are you going to fuck me or stare at me?” I asked, suddenly uneasy, almost self-conscious. The way he was staring at me made me feel things I’d never felt from a man touching me.
I’d never felt self-conscious in my fucking life. Especially not with a man. But when other men looked at me, all they saw was skin. With Karson, I couldn’t shake the feeling he was seeing my fucking soul—even though the mere thought of such a thing was fucking insane.