“Bliss.” His response was choked, like he was in pain.
I smiled. This was kind of fun.
“Garrick,” I returned, eyes wide and as innocent as I could make them.
“This is the opposite of slow.”
I exhaled, swaying forward so that my bottom lip barely grazed his. I rubbed against him, grinding at the slowest pace I could. I said, “I think we’ve gone slow enough.”
The arm at my back pulled me in more, until my chest pressed against his. He still had a shirt on. I wanted it gone.
“What does that mean?” Ah, there was that look I loved—dark, a bit unfocused.
“It means,” I said as my hands found the bottom of his shirt, “That I’m done going slow.”
I pulled, and his arms followed automatically, allowing me to pull the shirt over his head before his hands went right back into their previous positions. Our chests met, skin sliding against skin, and he groaned. He said, “I’m going to need you to be very clear about what you’re saying right now, Bliss.”
All right, it was time to just say it. And no euphemisms like beast with two backs or horizontal tango or anything ridiculous. Sex. If I was going to have it, I could sure as hell say it. I leaned in and kissed him for courage. To hell with making him come to me. That took too long. When I pulled back, his lips tried to follow. I appeased him with another quick kiss and said, “Make love to me?”
Everything about him tensed—his hands on me, his gorgeous face, and his body beneath mine.
“Bliss, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do for me.”
“What about tonight has felt like I was being forced to do anything? In fact, I feel a little like I’m forcing you.”
His lips crushed against mine—teeth and tongues and heat. It was just enough to make me shake with want, and then it was over.
Garrick was panting when he replied, “You’re not forcing me to do anything. I just want you to be sure. You can say stop at anytime.” His lips pulled wide. “You don’t need to make up a new pet.”
That grin… it was so infuriating and sexy at the same time.
I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed away, standing up. “If you’re going to keep trying to talk me out of it…”
I hadn’t even taken one full step away before he’d grabbed me, and spun so that my back hit the mattress. My breath left my lungs in a rush, and the sight of him prowling above me made heat curl low in my belly.
“I wasn’t trying to talk you out of anything. I was trying to be a gentleman.”
Huh. He’d tried to pull the gentleman card that first night, too. He was still hovering over me, and I looped my fingers into the belt loops on his jeans, and tugged him down on top of me.
“Do me a favor? Be a gentleman tomorrow?”
I was fairly certain he said, “Yes Ma’am,” but then he was kissing me, and I couldn’t care less.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He kissed me hard, and long enough that I could taste more of him in my mouth than myself. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders, because I had learned that every time I did, he pressed his h*ps harder against mine.
If he weren’t careful, I would draw blood soon.
His hands smoothed up my sides, sending shivers across my skin when he passed the sensitive spots. And finally, one hand stole around my back, reaching for the clasp of my bra.
His lips left mine for the hollow of my neck, His chin, once again covered in scruff grazed the top of my br**sts.
I arched up toward him at the same moment that the snaps on my bra came undone. The cold air hardened my n**ples into little buds, and I ached for him to touch me. He said once that we could own each other, and I wanted nothing more in that moment. Garrick kissed down between my br**sts, his cheeks grazing slightly across the swells. I dug my fingernails in again, and his h*ps pressed down at the same moment that he took one breast into his hand and the other into his mouth. Something sparked beneath my skin, and I moaned, bucking up against him in response.
He rolled one nipple between his fingers, and the other he squeezed lightly between his teeth, and I could feel darkness creeping in on my vision.
Words streamed from my mouth, some familiar, some not.
The last of which was, “I love you.”
He rose up off me with a grin. “If I’d known it was that easy to get you to admit how you feel, I would have done this a long time ago.”
My brain was beyond responding with words. Instead my hands found his belt. I unbuckled it, and then flicked open the button to his jeans.
His cheeky smile was gone now.
Slowly, I pulled down his zipper, and the sound alone made a moan rise in my throat. I pushed his jeans and boxers down together. When he pulled back to shuck his pants off completely, I took the moment to slip my panties down and off, and grab a condom from my drawer.
When he looked up, he froze for a second in shock, as if he just now realized how serious I was. He shook it off quickly, and swooped in for a kiss.
“You know I love you, right?”
“I do.” I told him. I don’t think I could have done it if I didn’t know that. That was what I’d needed. That’s what made the fear, the nerves bearable.
He kissed me again, and his fingers found my entrance. He slipped two inside at the same time that his tongue met mine. He started slowly, then his kisses sped up along with his fingers. I squeezed his shoulders, my fingernails scraping lightly, and was rewarded with a crooking of his fingers inside me.
I moaned, breaking our kiss.
His lips returned again to my chest, placing feather light kisses everywhere he could reach. I could feel a pressure building low in my core, and I pulled his head back up to mine. He pressed his forehead against mine, our lips touching, but not kissing, then his palm pressed down against me, and an explosion ignited beneath my skin. Like a string of fireworks, my world detonated into bursts of light and color.
The world was coming together and crumbling to pieces behind my closed eyes, and my mouth was still open in a silent scream. I felt his kiss below my ear, and I reached for him, wrapping my arms around his middle.
The length of him pressed against me, and my whole body shuddered in response.
“Are you sure?” He asked me again.
My brain didn’t know how to play it cool at the moment, so I said, “Please, God, yes.”
There was a pinching sensation, not pleasant, but the rest of my body was too relaxed to really think too much of the pain. He kissed me as he pushed inside, then broke off with a groan.
“Oh God, Bliss.”
His whole body was tense above me. I could see the pronounced lines of his flexed muscles in his shoulders, in the arms braced on either side of me. I could feel it in the warm chest pressed against mine. I distracted myself from the pain by following those lines with my eyes and hands.
After a few moments, he took a deep breath and gazed at me. He soothed me first with his lips, and then with whispers of “love” and “beautiful” and “perfect.”
He stilled completely once he was inside, crushing his lips against mine. My limbs felt a bit like Jell-O, so I just wrapped myself around him, holding him as tightly as I could.
He pulled out, just a little, before pushing back in.
I breathed out sharply, biting my lip against the twinge of pain.
Garrick’s lips captured that bottom lip between his own, soothing, careful.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
I nodded, not sure I could speak.
“Do you need me to stop?”
I shook my head. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted him to feel what I’d felt earlier. I wanted to hold him as he came apart in my arms.
He repeated the action, and this time, it wasn’t so much pain as discomfort.
“Keep going,” I whispered.
Garrick burrowed his head into the curve of my neck, dragging his mouth over my pulse point as he pushed in and out again. The next time I was coherent enough to tip my h*ps upward to meet him halfway. His response was a groan that I felt all the way down to my toes.
His mouth memorized the skin of my neck and shoulders as we developed a rhythm between us. Something pushed and pulled inside of me, and each time our skin connected, I felt the pressure build a little bit more. His hand cupped my breast, and I felt the pleasure snake down my middle to the place where our bodies met.
I wrapped my legs around his h*ps and pulled him farther into me. His rhythm stuttered for a moment, his eyes closed, and he was beautiful as he tried to hold himself together.
My whole world was expanding in the circle of his arms.
He started moving again after a moment, and this time he reached a hand between us. I’d worry about how he got to be so good at this later, but for now I was too busy reaping the benefits. I was so close, and every muscle in me was clenched tight. I dug my fingernails into his shoulder one final time, my favorite new trick, and his h*ps snapped forward.
“Bliss,” He ground out.
I just wrapped my legs tighter against him, and rolled my h*ps upward. His head dropped to my neck, his breath hot against my skin. He thrust forward again so hard that my whole body shifted and pleasure poured through my body so fast that my vision went spotty. His body stilled against mine, his face still pressed into my neck, his arms cradling me. I lifted his face to mine, watching as his eyes clenched shut and his mouth fell open, and his whole body shuddered over mine.
When his eyes opened, they were still dark, but focused on me. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then each cheek, and finally my lips.
“I love you,” we said together.
He slipped out of me, and I immediately reached for him, missing him, missing the way we fit together. He settled beside me and gathered me in his arms. I laid my head onto his chest, where I could hear his heartbeat. It was just as fast as mine. He laced our fingers together, and pressed his cheek into the top of my hair.
It was perfect.
I was full of perfect moments today.
And I wasn’t sure if what I said next would make it more so or ruin everything, but I’d found that not thinking too much worked well with Garrick. When my breathing calmed, I said, “I looked at apartments in Philadelphia.”
“You did?”
I nodded, still unsure what he was thinking.
“I know we still haven’t talked about this,” I began. “But I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided I do want to focus on acting, not stage management, and since I can’t afford New York, Philly seems like a pretty good place. I mean, I haven’t made any final plans. I’ve only done some research. You know, looked at some theatres, upcoming auditions, apartments, and day jobs, that kind of thing. But if you don’t think it’s a good idea, I don’t have to—“
“Stop right there, crazy talker.”
This was an awful idea. I’d just ruined a great moment… like I always did. Seriously, I was going to invent some kind of machine to shock me or punch me in the face whenever I did shit like this. It would be like conditioning, and maybe eventually I’d learn to shut the hell up. His hand found my jaw, and titled my face up toward his. His thumb grazed my lip, and his eyes gazed into mine.