“Of course you did,” he said.
His fingers extended to caress the skin around my wrists, and I imagined how it would feel to be in his tattoo chair, to sit while he used my skin as his canvas. Except for the needle part, it didn’t sound so bad, I decided. Sexy, even, to carry a reminder of Ian Pallas under my skin.
Ian insisted on paying the tab, telling me with a laugh that his mother would kill him if he didn’t, and we walked back out to the parking lot with hands loosely clasped. His nearness practically made me shiver—everything from his height to the lopsided grin he slanted down at me as he opened the door of the restaurant for me to go through first.
“Can I come back to your house?” he asked as we strolled slowly through the parking lot. His fingers flexed around mine. “No pressure, I’m just…I’m not done with tonight. With you. And I want to see some of your art.”
I nodded, that blooming warmth spreading through my belly and down, down, down. “I’d like that.” I moved in closer and ran a finger down his firm chest. “You have a toothbrush at my place and everything now.”
He grabbed my hand and lifted it to his mouth for a quick kiss. “Good. With as much as I’m going to be around, I’ll need it.”
* * *
Ian’s sweet words—the promise that he would stick around for a while—warmed me inside and out, and my smile still hadn’t faded twenty minutes later, as I unlocked my front door and led him into my darkened house.
“My studio’s over here.” I led him past the creaky old staircase, and into the den that I’d converted into my workspace when I inherited the house three years before. “It’s not much, but it works for now.”
A small loom dominated one corner of the room, while my scarred old desk and beat-up chair took up space just in front of a small bay window, where a few potted plants stretched toward the ceiling. The rest of the room was full of shelves and bins for supplies and some completed projects, a couple of standing embroidery frames and some other odds and ends. It was messy and cramped, but it was my favorite room in the house, the place where I felt like my best and most capable self.
Ian wandered over to the loom, where a half-completed piece waited for me. I’d been working on it halfheartedly for a while, but it was time to get back in the saddle and finish it for the gallery show. Crisp blue-and-white triangles marched across the warp threads—it was finicky work, but some of my favorite kind of weaving. I hoped whoever bought it would see the effort and the love that I put into it.
“Sam,” Ian breathed, his voice suffused with something that sounded like awe. Affection. “This is incredible work.”
I was still processing the compliment as he moved over to my desk, where two finished pieces of embroidery lay, free of their embroidery hoops and ready to be framed for presentation. His fingers hovered over the pieces, as if he was afraid to touch them until he glanced over at me for permission.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I trust you.”
I walked up behind him as he picked up a piece of canvas by the edges with careful fingers, holding it closer to look at the intricate stitching, at the colors and textures that I worked into it. He was silent for a long moment as I held my breath, waiting for his verdict. It mattered, I realized—even though I hadn’t known him for long, and this thing between us—whatever it was, whatever it would become—was just beginning, I cared deeply about what he thought, what he would say about my artwork.
Just as carefully, he set the piece down on the desk and turned to me. His eyes were bright with that precious light that seemed unique to him, and I could barely breathe as he moved in closer and cupped my cheeks with those big, gentle hands.
“It’s so beautiful that I can barely believe it’s real.” His tone was husky, vibrating straight down my spine as he ran a thumb across my cheekbone. “You have such a gift, Sam. And I’m so glad that you’re sharing it with me right now.”
His lips felt warm and soft against mine, and the kiss was careful. Undemanding. I twined my arms loosely around his neck and moved in closer, just savoring his nearness, his fresh smell, his warmth against my body and the light rasp of his scruffy chin against my face.
The sex with him last night and this morning had been great. Explosive, even. But this sense of intimacy, this new closeness we were sharing—it felt like everything that had been missing from my life.
His tongue licked at the seam of my lips, a gentle request for entry, and I complied, my body going practically boneless as his tongue swept into my mouth, tangling with mine as our arms tightened around each other. Every languid stroke seemed to pulse through me, all the way to my throbbing center, where warmth pooled and spread.
More, my body seemed to demand, and I felt like I couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t kiss him back fiercely enough. And he seemed to feel the same, groaning against my lips as his hands moved demandingly down to my breasts and the hard bulge of his cock grew against my lower belly.
“I have to taste you,” he muttered between hungry kisses as his hands shaped and cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing the sensitive nipples until I groaned. “I have to.”
“Yes,” I whispered against his mouth while one of his hands crept down to cup me through my jeans. “Yes.”
Almost immediately, he sank to his knees in front of me as I carefully moved my embroidery out of the way and perched on the nicked and scratched wooden surface of the desk. His fingers almost shook as he pulled at the button of my jeans, but he was determined and tenacious, until he pulled them and my panties over my hips and down my legs, knocking my ballet flats off my feet and leaving me bare and vulnerable from the waist down.
“So pretty.” He ran a long finger down my seam and chuckled at the full-body shiver that shook me before leaning forward to press a kiss on my mound. “God, I could stay down here all night.”
“I don’t think it’ll take—" I gasped, temporarily robbed of speech as his tongue darted out to flick against my throbbing clit. That long, I meant to say, but I forgot speech entirely as he leaned forward again to drag his tongue along my slit, fingers spreading my pussy wide for his inspection. For him to enjoy.
“Your pussy tastes so good,” he murmured, and I felt myself pulse again, spurred on by his dirty words, by the soft swipe of his tongue against the achingly sensitive flesh. He glanced up at me from where he knelt on the floor. “Let me see your tits, sweetheart. Play with your nipples for me.”
With the burning weight of that gaze on me, so turned on that I thought I might shatter any second, I swept my blouse over my head and quickly released the clasp of my bra, hissing with pleasure as my breasts tumbled free and my nipples met the relatively cool air of my studio. I pinched and pulled at them to the rhythm of Ian’s slow licks, sighing at the erotic sensations that rocketed through my body.
My soft sighs turned to sharp gasps as Ian’s tongue slid inside my fluttering, empty channel and he framed my clit with two deft fingers, manipulating my sensitive flesh expertly as that wicked tongue fucked in and out of me. I’d been on the receiving end of oral sex before, but never like this, with someone who treated it like it was the main course, like there was nowhere else he would rather be and nothing else he would rather do.
“Love to eat this beautiful pussy,” he muttered as I rocked my hips against his tongue, his fingers. He pinched my clit and chuckled at my strangled shriek as he soothed the slight sting with a swipe of his tongue. “You have the most gorgeous pussy I’ve ever seen.”