Last Dance Read online

  Pushing my knees apart, he moved between them, still kneeling on the floor so his head was level with my breasts. I ran my fingers through his hair and he leaned into the caress, then cupped my breasts. Wrapping my legs around him, I tried scooting closer, but he maintained some distance, weighing my breasts and caressing them, learning that part of me, too.

  I murmured encouragingly when he dropped kisses onto the upper curves, enjoying the more gradual rise of arousal. This was a dance I knew well. The opening notes of touching my breasts, sucking my nipples, followed by the increasing tempo of intercourse and the predictable male climax.

  Indeed, he drew one nipple into his mouth, doing a lovely job of licking and lightly nipping. My vulva clenched, aching for penetration and I wriggled, sliding my hands down his back to tug up his shirt.

  “No,” he said. “Let me.”

  I froze at that, nerves and arousal spiraling into a sudden, unexpected crescendo. Just as he’d somehow already taught my body to respond to a brush of his hand on my back, when he uttered those soft words, I viscerally anticipated something that would drive me wild.

  “I don’t think I can take much more.” I sounded desperate, even to my own ears.

  Still cupping my breasts, he studied my face. “Would you rather go home? We can stop.”

  Bastard. “Are those my only choices?”

  Thoughtfully he licked my nipple, sucking harder until I squirmed. Then nipped it so I squeaked and dug my nails into his shoulders. “You have three. Call in your favor, call it a night, or let me do what I want to.” His gleaming gaze challenged me and my stomach fluttered.

  “You owe me two favors. I assume the bonus points for making myself come in the shower earned me the same prize.”

  His hands tightened on me and he transferred his mouth to my other breast, holding me in place while he applied the same treatment, even down to the piercing bite of his teeth. “Very true. Going to call in either one of them?”

  He waited now, stroking his hands down my ribs to my waist, expression full of polite attention, no sign of the savage inside. For the moment.

  “What are you going to do if I say I’m in?”

  With an immaculate poker face, he considered the question. Then shook his head. “If you want to know, you have to let me do it.”

  Well shit. My breathing started to get ragged again. “You’re killing me here.”

  He didn’t look the least bit sorry. “All according to plan then. Take your time to decide. I’m a patient man.”

  “That much is obvious. What if I can’t stand it, whatever it is?”

  “You know how to say no,” he taunted me with my own words.

  Like he knew I couldn’t back away from that. “Okay. Do it.”

  He smiled with a feral edge and I nearly reneged at the sight of it. Taking my left breast in his hand, he kissed and licked, drawing my already taut nipple into a hard point. Then with that wicked glance at my face, he held up the elastic band and eased it over my breast. My breath caught painfully, both in shock and arousal. He watched me intently, holding my nipple pinched as he wound the elastic tighter around the hard point, taking in my expression, his own growing more savage with whatever he saw in me. By the time he had it so tight my nipple throbbed, I was nearly frantic, making light mewling sounds that I couldn’t quite make into words.

  He observed his work and flicked his tongue against my tormented nipple. The sensation went through me like a lightning bolt and I didn’t recognize the noise that came out of me.

  “Too bad there aren’t two,” he commented, squeezing my other nipple.

  “In the pocket of my hoodie.” I stared back at his widening grin, aghast at what I’d suggested.

  “Stay just like that.” He went to the bathroom and returned with one of the many spare elastic bands I keep on me at all times. Coming back, he stopped, giving me one of those long looks, and seemed about to say something. Then shook his head at himself and kneeled in front of me again. He tapped the nipple he’d already banded and I drew in a breath. “Does it hurt?”

  “No, just tight.”

  “Good.” With meticulous care, he coaxed my other nipple into a point and wrapped it in elastic, too. I tried to absorb it, that I was here, letting him do these things that were so much less invasive than sexual acts I’d indulged in with near strangers, and yet that felt so much more intimate. As if he’d found a way to crawl inside my head and affect my thoughts, turning me inside out.

  “What are we doing here?” I didn’t realize I’d asked the question out loud until he met my gaze seriously.

  “We’re having sex,” he replied, as if it were a profound answer. “You’re letting me do what I like to you, and I’m giving you intense pleasure in return.”

  “Oh.” Bizarrely it made sense. Or, at least, I couldn’t find an argument against it.

  “Aren’t I?” He asked, putting hands on my thighs, stroking towards the juncture, kissing one sensitized nipple, then the other.

  “Yes,” I gasped, clutching at him.

  He laid a gentle finger on the hood of my clit and rocked it back and forth. “And now?”

  “Yes. God yes.”

  “I want to watch you come this way. Will you let me?”

  As if I’d stopped him from doing anything so far. Maybe later it would bother me the way I’d uncharacteristically let him take the lead. For the time being, I only nodded, moving my hips with the rhythm of the one finger, lightly stroking my clit, taking me up with shuddering intimacy. I want you naked. In bright light. He had me that way, keen gaze taking in every flicker of my expression, searching my face and adjusting the speed, pressure and tempo until he found the exact right one, then backed off.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “Yes, gorgeous. Take your time. All for you.”

  “I need.”

  “I know.”

  It took me fast, for all the slow build up. I convulsed, tipping my head back and clamping my thighs hard around his hand. He cupped me, holding my mound as I writhed on his hand, crying out as his teeth scraped off one rubber band and then the other, driving me over the brink and up again. The aftershocks of it rumbled through me, raking me with their busy claws before finally subsiding. I opened my eyes to find Daniel crouched over me, mouth laving my aching breasts.

  “Okay, that’s it,” I declared with a reasonably steady voice.

  He lifted his head, giving me a politely inquiring smile, as if his hand weren’t buried between my thighs. Firmly I moved it away and sat up.

  “Had enough?”

  “Not even close. Time for payback.” And to get a grip on myself. “I’m calling in a favor.”

  ~ 10 ~

  “What terms?” He asked, eyeing me as if I’d surprised him. He raised his brows as I unknotted and pulled off his tie, then began unbuttoning his dress shirt, soaked here and there with shower water still. Somewhere along the way he’d taken off his jacket.

  “You’re going to let me do whatever I want to you.” I scraped my nails down his chest. “And you’re going to like it.”

  “I see.” He’d gone breathless now, then buried his hands in my hair when I pushed him back. “Wait.”

  “Let go. You can pull my hair all you want later. I’m in charge now.” I pulled free and worked open the fastening of his trousers.

  “Charlotte, I—” He lost the words in a strangled noise when I took his cock in my hand through his cotton boxers. I paused, giving him my own polite smile. “Did you say something?”

  He had his hands over his face, digging into his forehead like a man in pain. Did I mention paybacks are hell? Working slowly, I peeled away the cloth, freeing him, stroking his shaft until he was shuddering in my grasp. He sat up and seized my wrists. “Don’t do this. Not yet.”

  “No?” I licked my lips, dragging his gaze with the movement and gave him a malicious smile. “I think I can change your mind about that.” Holding his gaze, I licked the head of his cock, happy
with his groan of despair and that he couldn’t seem to look away. “Don’t worry, Danny Boy—I’ll see to it that you rise to the occasion more than once. Trust me on that.”

  He laughed, shaky, then drew in a long hissing breath as I sucked him into my mouth. To my surprise he stroked my cheek. “I’m having trouble believing you’re really here,” he murmured.

  I let him go and regarded him thoughtfully, leaning my cheek into his caressing hand. An oddly tender gesture for that particular moment, and given our relationship thus far, if you could call it that. Not how most guys treat the girl they’ve obsessed about and who’s currently blowing them. The look in his face both moved and frightened me. “Relax. We’re having sex, you’re letting me do what I like to you and I’m giving you intense pleasure in return.”

  He smiled, almost sadly, at hearing his words thrown back at him, and stopped me when I moved to take him into my mouth again. “I know this is your favor, but—for the first time I come with you—I’d really like to be inside you. Let me have you that way.”

  That took me aback. Pretty much no guy turns down a blow job. A less confident girl than I might doubt her technique, but I happened to be quite certain mine was excellent. “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” He urged me up and laid me on my back, hands stroking down my body, gaze following their path as he outlined my curves. Not meeting my eyes. “I just…let me do this.”

  Him and his ‘let me’ thing. I felt strangely irritated by the shift in energy, though I couldn’t pin down why. “Whatever.”

  Now he searched my face. “I’ve annoyed you.”

  “No. I’m not mad. I’m just not entirely sure what to make of you, of all this. I feel like I’m having one of those dreams where I’m in a play and I don’t know the script.”

  He leaned down and kissed me, cupping my breast and taking me into that sensual haze he created so effortlessly. “No script,” he whispered against my lips. “Let me make love to you.”

  “Okay.” My voice wobbled, the romance of the phrase hitting me in that unexpectedly revealed soft spot. Unthinkingly, I undulated under his hand, a cat purring at the affection in his caress. Had any guy ever used that term with me? No. In fact, I don’t think I had ever spoken those words in real life, certainly not unironically. That kind of idealization belonged to the world of Marcia and her virginal longing for Prince Charming. I pushed at Daniel’s bare chest, needing to assert something, anything. “But if you’re going to fuck me, you’re wearing a condom and you are not wearing your shoes and socks. Get naked, slick.”

  He raised his head and looked right through me, making me want to squirm a little at the certainty that he knew I’d deliberately meant to change the tone of things between us. Without commenting, he levered himself up and stood, toeing off his shoes and sliding off his pants. I propped myself on one elbow to watch, admiring his lean physique. Not a dancer’s body, but I didn’t expect that of a desk jockey. Good muscle tone, though. Decent abs, very nice thighs. Seriously excellent cock.

  “You have a majorly hot body—do you work out?”

  He cocked his head at me, opened the bedside drawer, pulled out a handful of condoms and tossed them next to me on the bed. “Care to discuss my gym routine?”

  I considered him and the glitter in his gaze, the set of his jaw. “Now it seems I’ve annoyed you. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You meant to annoy me.”

  “That’s not true, I—” My indignant words died a breathless death when he pushed me back, pinned my wrists to the bed on either side of my head and kissed me senseless. Sudden, vicious arousal punched through me, from slow dance to sweat-drenched salsa, and I writhed against him, the utter deliciousness of his naked skin against mine sweeping me up and making me forget what we were arguing about. Maybe it was waiting so long to get him here, or the extended foreplay he seemed so devoted to, but I wanted him with a desperation that chased every other consideration out of my mind.

  Off-the-charts chemistry. Definite high score. I couldn’t quite recall the scale or the other categories. Rules of some sort. Fuck it, I didn’t care.

  “Oh my God.” I gasped out the words when he let me, groping for some grounding, straining to touch him but having to settle for wrapping my legs around him. “Fuck me. Fuck me now.”

  “Shh.” He rained kisses over my face. “Hold on.”

  He let go of my wrists to grab a condom packet and I seized the opportunity to run my hands over his back and the taut ass I hadn’t even seen yet. “Hurry.”

  Laughing in what sounded like exasperation, he rolled the condom on and settled back between my legs, resisting when I tried to pull him into me. “No.”

  No? No what?

  This time he took my hands and laced his fingers with mine, easing his hips back so his cock just nudged my entrance. He laid the line of his body against me, kissed me in that leisurely, unhurried way of his, then smiled, smooth and sensuous. “I won’t let you rush this.”

  He eased partly into me and I moaned at the sensation, greedy for him, for more. Watching me with that discomfiting intensity, he slid deeper into me, and I had to close my eyes.

  “No, look at me, Charlotte.” He held still until I did. “Be with me. Let me.”

  Mesmerized, I did as he asked, watching him in turn as he stroked in and out of my body, invading me at that intimate level he seemed to be able to reach whether he touched me or not. With our bodies and gazes joined, I couldn’t escape it. As the precursor to orgasm bloomed, an odd sense of panic fluttered through me. Too soft. Too sweet somehow. Too something.

  “Harder.” I lifted my hips in demand, pushing up against him.

  “No.” He kept the rhythm gentle, his grip unrelenting, expression rapt as he watched my need build.

  I sobbed a little, thrashing my head from side to side. “I can’t stand it.”

  “Just feel.”

  “Daniel…” I struggled against the climax, instinctively, not knowing why, just somehow profoundly overwhelmed by it all.

  “I’m here. I’m with you. Let me have you.”

  He undid me. With a thin cry, I broke, crying out his name and coming apart at the seams. It wasn’t the strongest orgasm I’d ever had, but it ravaged me, continuing on in endless ripples, circles expanding outward and spreading through my body and mind, emptying me and leaving me clinging to him.

  Gasping, completely shattered, I became aware that I held his hands in a death grip and had my face buried in his shoulder. Daniel pressed kisses to the side of my neck, his weight relaxed against me as he murmured soothing, cherishing words.

  Jesus Christ, was I weeping?

  So not cool. I mean, I’m a dramatic girl and I can cry when the script calls for it, but I am not a weeper. Definitely not during sex, of all things. I’d heard of women who cried when they orgasmed and it always sounded so… tawdry. Weak, silly, and stupid. And now that was me. I’d lost my sense of direction on some deep level. I had no idea if Daniel had even come, I’d been that far out of it.

  Either way, I needed to deal with the tears before he noticed. Nothing like reducing a brand new lover to a sopping mess of emotion. If there was ever a reason to ditch a girl fast, that had to be it. Run, Daniel. Escape while you can.

  Except I was the one desperate to escape.

  I tried to slip my hand out of his, but he tightened his fingers enough that I had to tug in earnest. He started to lift up to look at me and I managed to duck my face away and push at his shoulders. “Ugh—get off of me you lout. I can’t breathe.”

  Obligingly, he rolled to the side, but he snagged my hand when I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. At least I’d gotten so I faced away from him and could scrub away the evidence with my free hand.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To clean up. I’m disgusting and sticky. Let go of me.”

  “Charlotte…”

  “I’m going to take another shower. Alone, this time. Just…leave me alone.”


  * * *

  Such a stroke of luck that my clothes were still in the bathroom. I ignored the images their scattered pattern evoked, the way Daniel had slowly stripped me. To the bone, apparently.

  Or whatever the hell had happened.

  I locked the door, just in case he took it in his head to check on me or something. If he tried the knob and got offended that would fall into the realm of his own damn problem. I took my time, making the water uncomfortably hot to scour the too-recent memories of all we’d done and how I’d responded.

  I could not believe I’d fucking cried.

  Because I’d forgotten to tie it up and, hell, I needed the time, I went ahead and washed my hair, then blew it dry. I never carried makeup with me, since I was pretty much always either at home or at a place with piles of it, so no armor for me there. Oh well. The day had not come when I couldn’t face down one humiliating sexual encounter and brazen my way out of it.

  He was waiting for me when I opened the door—no shocker there—leaning against the wall just outside the bathroom. He’d put on clothes, old jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I couldn’t tell if he’d tried the handle or not, but I kind of thought he hadn’t. Probably part of his peculiar code of honor or whatever drove him. Giving him my best sunny, I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anything smile, I smacked him lightly on the pec above his folded arms and delivered a fast smooch.

  “See you, slick. This was great. I’m out of here.”

  I wasn’t quite fast enough, because he caught my wrist, eyes dark. Oh wow, was he pissed.

  “What’s going on?” He asked in a quiet, level tone that didn’t fool me for one hot second.

  “Which part was unclear? I’m going home.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, yes. Seeing as how I’m a free human being and all that.” My temper rose up, a relief after those dangerously soft emotions that had threatened to carve me open. I tugged against his grip, but he held on.

  “You’re not walking out of here at four in the goddam morning, taking the El all alone and leaving things between us this way.”