“I have condoms,” he confirmed.
“You’ll wear one?”
“Yes.”
Hope flared in his expression and that nudged me the last millimeter over.
“Then yes, Archie. I want to go upstairs and kiss every inch of you, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Boom
My lips tingled from the kiss he’d given me when I said yes. The kiss he continued to give me. Interspersing sharp bites with short licks as he devoured me. His damp hands on my face kept me focused on him, how his breath teased me and how he stroked my tongue. The rigid line of muscle along his shoulders flexed as we moved together.
When he finally let me up for air, I couldn’t catch my breath. Archie smiled, stroking his thumb down my cheek and then he whispered kisses against my lips before mouthing a gentle pass to my ear. The scrape of his teeth against my earlobe had me clenching my thighs against his and digging my fingers into his shoulders.
“I have to ask you a question, babe,” he whispered.
Drunk on him, I slid my fingers against his throat. The rapid beat of his pulse fluttering beneath my fingers was heady stuff. “Hmmm?”
“No details, just yes or no…” The soothing croon stroked over my senses. I loved the sound of his voice like this. “First time?”
No details? I tried to unstick the tangle of thoughts and then leaned back to look at him. The intensity in his expression made me want to kiss him again. His cleverness and intelligence all focused on me. Not my first time making out or getting off…no those went to Ian and then Jake respectively, but the rest? “Yes.”
“Okay,” he whispered, gripping my nape as he sucked in a deep breath.
“Bad?” If I’d thought he seemed intense before, it had nothing on the way a muscle in his jaw ticked or how his nostrils flared.
“No,” he assured me, squeezing my nape gently. “Babe, nothing about you is bad. Just need to make sure I get my head in the right space to not lose my mind because I’ve been thinking about this for four years.”
Heat swept through me, and I leaned in to nuzzle his jaw. His pulse leapt and I had to smile against his cheek, before pressing another kiss. “Just tell me if I do something wrong.”
Rich, warm laughter rolled over me. “I’m going to make it good for you…trust me?”
He’d already made it good for me. “Yes,” I whispered. “But we have to get out of the tub to go upstairs…”
“Yeah,” he groaned. “That means I have to let you go.”
We clung together like that, and then he shifted and his mouth was on mine again. This kiss was slower, gentler, and it soothed almost as much as his croon had. The crashing tempo of my heart slowed. When he stood abruptly and carried me up with him, I had to lock my thighs to his hips.
A startled laugh escaped as he climbed out of the hot tub. I held on tighter, but not once did I slip.
“Well,” he murmured when we stood beside the hot tub. “Look at that, I didn’t have to let you go after all.” Thunder rumbled like bowling pins colliding and crashing. Lightning flashed and the misting rain changed to a sudden downpour.
I lifted my head to look out at the curtain of rain falling. Archie nipped at my jaw, pulling my attention back to him.
“What are you thinking about?” He asked as he set me down like I was something fragile. He snagged a towel from the cabinet and then began drying me off, swift and efficient, and the soft roughness of the towel on my skin had me shifting. Especially when he lingered over my breasts then down my belly to my hips.
“That I’m really glad it rained…”
On one knee, he toweled off my legs, his hand hesitating right between my thighs and then he grinned. “Me too.” Then he pressed his lips to one of my thighs and I shuddered. He kissed the other one and, despite the chill in the damp breeze, I was burning.
When he pressed a kiss to my abdomen just above the line of the bikini, I sucked in a breath. Was he going to right here?
His dark eyes gleamed and held a smile as he rose and toweled himself off with a couple of careless rubs. Done, he tossed it aside then picked up our wine glasses. “To us?”
When we clinked them together, I drained the glass as he drained his and we never once looked away. The air seemed to vibrate even as my pulse slowed. Excited. Wound up. Soothed. One of those things was not like the other. He left the wine glasses on the table, then caught my hand and led me back inside.