I also feared that if I drew him back into another round of such intense pleasure, I’d end up a sobbing, inconsolable heap on the floor.
The flood of release that followed me was obscene and mind melting, but I mentally patted myself on the back at the mess we’d made, then extracted myself with excruciating slowness from his embrace.
I padded to the en suite bathroom and cleaned myself up quickly, except for the remains of the tears.
I left those.
Maybe I was a little dramatic, after all.
After finding the softest washcloth available, I ran warm water over it and wrung it out so it wouldn’t drip. When I returned to the bedroom, my breath caught as I found Liem had shifted. He was still sprawled on top of the quilt but had one arm resting across his stomach and the other above his head. The sunlight that filtered through the sheer curtains bathed his entire body in soft golden light, and I cursed myself for not asking him his stance on explicit photos before he’d fallen asleep.
Several long, lusting moments later, I put my knee on the bed and slowly opened him to me, biting my lip at the sight as I delicately cleaned him.
He stirred, but not much, a quiet “Mmmmm” of pleasure sounding in his throat. When I was done, I dropped the cloth back onto the sink and hurried back to him, grabbing the blanket I’d brought with me on the way, just in case this had been a possibility.
Then I crawled onto the bed beside him and threw the dark-blue knit blanket over our naked bodies.
The blanket I’d stolen from the cottage. The one that smelled like charcoal, salt, and sunshine.
I eased my leg over his and rested my head on his chest. His arms wrapped around me easily, hugging me to him, and I counted one, two, seven slow heartbeats before I knew nothing more.
36
Liem
Wandering hands woke me,and as Cody hitched my leg back over his hip, I decided those were the best kinds of hands.
My favorite, perhaps.
I arched my back as my blood rearranged itself in my veins, gasping as Cody took me firmly into his already-slickened palm—somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered when I’d gotten hard again—and glided his fist along me in long, even strokes.
Wandering,preparedhands. Those were most favored.
His bracelets grazed me in the most enticing way as he worked me over, but it was his eyes that nearly did me in.
Cody’s head was resting on my bicep, facing me, and I couldn’t help but gasp when our gazes met. Those beautiful hazel eyes, with the browns and greens that I’d committed to canvas just this morning, ensnared me. Hooded with sleep and darkened with desire, they watched me with such intensity that I could do nothing but stare down my impending surrender.
But I wouldn’t go without him.
He worked me so beautifully, alternating tender care with brutal and glorious disregard in the pace and grip of his strokes, his brows furrowing and mouth agape every time he transitioned to the latter.
It was stunning. I was stunned.
I reached over with my free hand and offered my open palm to him in invitation that he understood and accepted. Lifting his head off my arm, he ran his tongue from my wrist to the tip of my longest finger twice, and on the third stripe, he swirled his tongue around the tip of my finger and sucked it into his mouth.
“Cody,”I rasped in prayer and admonishment as my pelvis bucked into his fist. The suction on my finger was so foreign, so mind-numbing compared with the grip of his fist, all of it setting my nerve endings ablaze. He smiled around my finger—not that I could see it, but I certainly felt it—before sucking on it one more time.
His head fell back to my bicep then, a new flush to his cheeks as he smiled, looking entirely pleased with himself.
As he should be.
His hand never faltered in its work toward my pleasure, but my consciousness was spread thin, not sure whether to focus on where he worked me, his face, or my newly tingling extremities.
As a result, my hand remained suspended in the air between us for several long moments as I simply basked in overloaded dysfunction until Cody reached over me, grabbed my wrist, and carefully turned us toward each other.
Then he lowered my hand to his erection.
I gripped him automatically, bundling the experience into a bouquet of memories.
