“I’m not letting you go after one date,” he said softly. “I’m not letting you go at all. You’re where you belong, Layla, right here.”
“In your bed?” I said, trying to joke.
I was trying not to let him see how much it affected me for him to say things like that. The kind of things I’d heard before in bed with a guy I didn’t know very well, a guy who would say anything to get what he wanted. I didn’t think Ty was like that, but it was hard to believe him when all I’d had in bed before were lies. But his touch was real, the heat of his breath on my skin, the way his work-roughened, calloused hands worked my sensitive flesh. I loved the scrape of his palm on my inner thigh, the tease of his rough thumb around my belly button giving me a spike of unexpected pleasure. It was that gentleness of his touch, the deft knowing of his fingers mixed with the rough scrape of his skin on mine that was so tantalizing.
“I’ve only ever—ever had men with soft hands,” I said on a gasp.
“You only ever had boys,” he scoffed, “you’ve never had a real man’s hand on you. How do you like it?” he said, voice taunting as he drew his thumb languidly down the length of my slit. I bucked up off the bed, gritting my teeth against the wash of bliss that rushed over me.
“I like it,” my voice was high and tight.
“Do you think you want more of it?” he said, dragging his thumb back and forth, opening me with his fingertips. As I felt myself spread for him, his calloused fingers dipping in my sex, making me clench, I grunted, whimpered, and worked my legs helplessly. Finally I lifted my hands and grabbed his biceps, squeezed them, glad to have something hard to hold on to as he worked me mercilessly, never slowing down to give me quarter, to give men an instant to breathe.
“You like how I touch you. Say it,” he said.
“No one—ever—touched me—this way. You have the best hands. I want you all the time. You’re not the only one who couldn’t stop after we met. I went so hard with my vibrators, and I couldn’t get—couldn’t get close to this. Flesh and blood,” I smiled weakly.
He dipped his head and worried my nipple with his lips and tongue, giving me appreciative licks and sucking me in to his hot, liquid mouth. His teeth scraped my pebbled nipple. He tucked his fingers inside me again, filling me with them, made me clench.
“No,” I said, scrambling up the bed away from him.
“Did I hurt you?” worry clouded his handsome face. I shook my head, a little frantic, drew my knees to my chest.
The bed was so narrow that there was no getting away from him. I turned my face away instead. But he engulfed me, arms, hands, his mouth on my cheekbone, my forehead, kissing me, kissing me like I was his.
“Let me touch you. Let me make it good,” he said, parting my lips, kissing me so deeply, so sweet and long that I shook again in his arms.
“Why don’t you want me touching you?”
“I do want it. I want it too much. I’m just—afraid that after I have you, it’ll hurt twice as much to be alone.” I confessed.
Tyler didn’t hesitate, didn’t reassure me with empty words. He put his hands on me and drew me down onto the mattress, moving on top of me.
“I don’t have a condom. I don’t keep them,” he said.
“Just us. Just you and me, nothing in between,” I moaned. “I’m so empty without you, Tyler. Please,” I said. My words ignited him. I could see it, could feel it in his touch, rougher and more frantic.
“I won’t let you be empty,” he said, his mouth a curious frown as if trying to hold back. Then I felt him there, the flare of the hot, velvety head of his cock, the wetness.
I touched his face, brushed back the hair that had fallen across his brow. The rush of affection I felt was strong and full. I rose against him, nudging my lips to his. His tenderness had shocked me—a big Marine with rough hands, a man who hauled wood and massive sacks of dirt and mulch. A man whose big, brutal body could punish and crush, but cherished instead. With the clever stroke of his fingers between my thighs, my legs opened more for him.
Tension rolled through me, my body stiffening with apprehension. It had been so long since I’d been with a man this way. Logically, it could hurt. I didn’t want to kill the mood by mentioning it, by asking him to go slow and be gentle. I wanted to be with him, not ruin it. It was typical of me—I couldn’t just relax and enjoy myself. Not even when I’d made the impulsive decision to call in sick so I could go to bed with a former patient. I tried not to frown, made an effort to smile up at him.