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Synopsis
"A must read . . . lyrical, stunningly sexy, and brings swoons for days."-- Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author on Seven Nights to Surrender
In this stunningly sensual sequel to Seven Nights to Surrender, acclaimed author Jeanette Grey reunites readers with a young artist and the man who'll stop at nothing to have her . . .
EIGHT WAYS TO ECSTASY
Kate Reid's whirlwind romance with billionaire playboy Rylan Bellamy complicated her life in ways she'd worked to avoid. She'd fallen hard for his flirtatious charm and given him the one thing no other man had: her trust. Just as Kate began to imagine a future with Rylan, everything fell apart.
Now she's starting over in New York...but even the glittering streets of Manhattan can't erase the memory of Rylan knocking her off her feet and sweeping her into the most erotic, unforgettable week of her life.
It's been months, and Rylan still can't forget Kate. Months since he bared his soul at her feet. Months since he drove away the only woman to ever make him feel. Kate changed his world and now Rylan is determined to win her back-no matter what it takes. After crossing an ocean to reach her, he makes a deal with Kate: One more week, for one more chance. Now it's up to Rylan to show Kate all the ways they fit together . . . and prove that this player has met his perfect match.
Release date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 368
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Eight Ways to Ecstasy
Jeanette Grey
Chapter ONE
“Then you had better make it count.”
Rylan Bellamy’s heart pounded as he stared up at Kate, scarcely daring to believe what he was hearing. He’d come to her prepared to beg—of course he had. She’d changed his life, made him want things he’d forgotten he could have. He’d do anything he had to for the chance to win her back.
And yet somehow, a part of him had honestly never believed that she’d say yes.
He remained there, literally on his knees for her, palms on her thighs and lungs burning as he waited for the catch. But nothing about her expression changed. This was real. She was giving him his shot.
Seven more nights together. Seven nights to prove he was the same man she’d fallen into bed with in Paris.
Damn right he was going to make them count.
Darting his gaze from her eyes to her mouth, he released his breath and licked his lips, flickering images of all the things he wanted to do to her heating his blood. Resolve made him firm up his grip. He’d prove to her exactly how good they could be together. With his flesh, with his body. The only way he was sure he could. The only way she’d made it clear she would accept.
Sliding his hand up higher on her thigh, he leaned in, and it was like the walls and miles between them shivered, ready to collapse. But instead of going for her lips and taking the kiss he’d been dying for these endless months, he skimmed his way to her jaw. With a rasping inhalation, she tipped her head to the side, inviting him in, and the first, uncertain lick of arousal in him ignited.
He could have this. After all this time, longing for her and cursing himself for his mistakes. Three months of self-imposed celibacy, and the nearness of her had him shockingly, achingly hard. He moaned as he pressed his brow to her temple, letting his nose rest just beneath her ear.
He’d done the difficult part, convincing her to let him touch her at all. But as his body vibrated, suddenly starved for contact, a whole new difficulty blindsided him.
How was he supposed to do this? To contain himself, when he wanted so much?
Forcing his eyes closed, he fought for control and prayed for patience. He shook his head, and the words that came out were too honest by half. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted this.”
The sparkling sound of her laughter filled the air. She smelled and tasted just the same as she ever had as he laid a soft, closed-mouth line of kisses down the column of her throat.
“I think I have some idea,” she said, tilting her head farther and threading her fingers through his hair.
God, it felt good to be touched.
He slid a hand up to grasp the back of her neck, holding her where she was as he traced his lips to her ear. He bit there as softly as he could, sucking at the lobe and letting out a wet breath. “What do you want me to do to you?”
“Oh God.” Her fingers tightened in his hair. “Make me—make me come.”
Lightning shot down his spine and went straight to his cock. But at the same time, her bluntness made him pause.
How long had it taken him to coax the barest hint of a request from her their first time around? She’d been terrified to touch herself in front of him, had scarcely been able to admit she knew how to.
Something in his stomach squirmed. With all the steadiness he had, he fit his hand to the juncture of her thigh and hip, digging his thumb into the seam of her jeans. “Has anybody else?”
She stiffened a fraction in his arms, and a jealous flame fired off inside his chest.
Running on instinct, he dug his thumb in harder and skated his other hand to hover just above her breast. “Tell me. Has anybody else been taking care of your sweet little pussy? Giving it the attention it deserves?”
She pressed her hips into his hand and arched her back, pushing her tits out like a written invitation he was only too happy to accept. She swallowed a whimper when he molded his palm to that curve.
“Well?” he insisted, but he read his answer in her moan.
No way had another man laid a hand on her. She was too primed, too desperate. She’d been left unattended for far too long, and damn if it wasn’t his new mission in life to correct that.
And her body fucking loved that he had asked.
She shook her head, and possessiveness sang through his blood. Who even cared that he had known what the answer would be? He’d been the last man to touch her—he wanted to be the last man to ever touch her.
He scraped his teeth against the shell of her ear as he snapped his jaw closed.
It wasn’t exactly a foreign thought. You didn’t cross oceans for casual; you didn’t decide to change your entire life for anything less than forever. But here and now, it was too much, too soon. He’d only barely managed to talk her into giving him a chance at all.
Shaking his head, he put the thought out of his head and bent to his task again, wringing those perfect, breathy sounds from her with fingertips and lips. With words. She’d always loved it when he talked. “Let me hear you say it out loud, beautiful.”
“Nobody,” she panted, finally. “There’s been nobody else.”
Deep inside, he crowed. “And how about you? Have you been taking care of this?” He rubbed at her clit through the fabric and blew a breath across her ear. “Bet it gets so hot and achy. Needs so bad to be touched.”
“Sometimes.” Her other hand came to rest at his side, a warm weight against his abdomen. “When I wasn’t—” She cut herself off, and he didn’t like that at all.
He pulled away to look her in the eyes, and what he saw there was even worse. His gut churned. “When you weren’t what?”
“When I wasn’t too pissed at you to get myself off.”
It stung like a slap. And yet he knew the story all too well. His body had needs, but they’d been muted these past couple of months. He’d taken care of them perfunctorily, almost mechanically. How could he blame her for admitting to much the same? Only with that twist. That edge of accusation.
It’d take more than a few orgasms for her to forgive.
For a second he feared the moment was lost, but she hadn’t let go of his side or his hair. The husk to her breath, the darkness of her eyes—they weren’t gone.
Slowly, he pulled his hand from between her legs to wrap his arms around her. “I’m sorry.” He murmured the apology into her neck, breathed his regrets against the heat of her skin. “I’m so sorry.” With soft, chaste kisses, he worked his way over collarbones and ribs, until his mouth lay right above her heart. He turned his gaze upward and then kissed her there, too. Pitching his voice lower, he promised, “I swear I’m going to make it up to you.”
Kate couldn’t decide where to put her arms.
One second, Rylan had her panting, a new kind of possessiveness she’d never seen on him before driving him to whisper the filthiest things in her ear. The next she’d been saying something stupid, bringing up the rift between them again when she was supposed to be ignoring it.
That was their agreement after all. He got his chance to try to win her back, and she got sex. She got another shot at the kind of pleasure she’d thought she’d lost for good.
When it all inevitably fell apart again, she got to walk away without any doubts.
After a moment, she settled for resting her hands on his shoulders, letting him keep pressing his apologies into the tops of her breasts. Clenching her jaw, she swallowed the instinct to tell him it was all going to be okay. She couldn’t promise him that. Not even close.
She’d probably been insane to promise him even his seven nights.
Restless, she shifted. The ache between her thighs hadn’t abated at all despite the awkwardness, and the heat of his breath at her chest had her ready to drag him down onto this bed with her and tell him to just get over it already. She was fine—a little more guarded and maybe still a tiny bit brokenhearted for his presence in her life. But fine. He hadn’t done anything to her she shouldn’t have expected, considering. The people she trusted had a habit of making her wish she hadn’t. Of turning mean as soon as they’d lured her in. After the way her father and her ex had treated her, Rylan’s conveniently forgetting to tell her he was the heir to a billion-dollar company was nothing, right?
She gritted her teeth and fought to push those thoughts away. She’d moved past the hurt, goddammit all. She’d been so close to moving on entirely, right until he’d shown up at her door, looking gorgeous and saying all these things she shouldn’t believe. Things that’d struck her to the quick, regardless. And then he’d touched her.
And filled her with a need she’d nearly forgotten was even possible.
Stroking her thumbs against the collar of his jacket, she shifted her hips. It would be something if she were the one to throw him down and have her way with him, wouldn’t it? In their past encounters, he had always been the one urging her on, challenging her to tell him what she wanted and to take her pleasure with neither shame nor reservation. That kind of sexual freedom had come more and more easily for her as they’d gone on.
But she’d been so comfortable with him then. And he was the one who was supposed to be making things up to her, after all.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he kissed up higher on her chest, withdrawing one of his arms from around her body to tug the neckline of her shirt down. Warm, damp lips met skin, his tongue darting out to taste the hollow between her collarbones, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“I think you were saying something about making it up to me?”
He chuckled against her ribs and nudged her shirt even lower. “Do you have some suggestions for how you’d like me to?”
“I can probably think of a couple.”
“Be sure to let me know if you do.”
With that, he pulled away from her flesh, wrapping both his hands around her hips and shoving her bodily toward the center of the bed. She swallowed hard. Now that’s what she was talking about.
Still on his knees, he nodded to himself, and the doubt that had seemed to cling to him these last few minutes fell away.
“For now,” he said, voice deliciously firm, “I have a few ideas of my own.”
Standing, he fixed her with a gaze so hot it threatened to sear straight through her. Intent lay heavy in the clear blue of his irises, the thick fall of his lashes against his cheeks. All steady, precise movements, he loosened his tie and pulled it free, folding the stripe of silk before setting it aside. His jacket came next, revealing the breadth of his shoulders. Draping it over the end of the bed, he undid his cuff links with deft flicks of his fingertips against the polished silver studs, then dropped them in a pocket and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
And it was almost too hot. Crisp, charcoal slacks and a vest to match, a sapphire-blue shirt with the collar open, and his forearms, thick and muscular. And above it all, still, that look in his eyes like he was planning to eat her alive.
If there was something lingering around his mouth that seemed more lost than domineering, it was easy to ignore, if she tried.
He settled one knee on the bed, grasping her feet and hauling them apart to make space for him to rest between them. With one ankle held in his hand, he worked the laces of her shoe as he talked. “Lie back.”
He said it with an edge behind the command, one that was on a direct line to her clit. Her breath caught. “Why?”
“Because.” He pried her first shoe off and sent it rolling across the floor, then started on the other one. “I’m planning to eat you out until you cry.” The corner of his mouth twitched up. “If you aren’t lying down for it, I’m afraid you might hurt yourself.”
Jesus.
Holding his gaze, she settled herself down. Lifted her arms to rest her hands above her head.
“Good girl.” He gave her calf a teasing slap as he released her leg. He nodded toward her hands. “Now keep them there.”
“While you do what?”
“First”—he climbed up higher on the bed and hooked his hands in the waistband of her jeans—“I get these abominations off you.” The button all but melted beneath his fingers, the teeth of the zip too loud in the quiet room.
Somehow, she kept her cool, arching a brow while her chest heaved, heat pooling in her abdomen, nipples tightening. “Abominations?”
But it wasn’t just arousal making her flustered. The whole time they’d been apart, she’d second-guessed his reaction to everything. Her hair, her barely-there makeup, her taste in restaurants. Her naïveté.
Her clothes.
She lacked both the money and the time for high fashion, and half her wardrobe ended up covered in paint and charcoal anyway, so why bother? Who cared if these jeans were old, if they weren’t a brand name? They were hers.
He just shook his head and clucked his tongue, peeling the denim from her hips. “They don’t begin to do you justice.” He dragged them lower, dipping to press his lips to the bare skin of her knees, her thighs. Warm fingertips brushed every new inch of flesh he revealed. “Then again, I’m not sure anything could.”
How did he always know precisely what to say?
Oh. Right. Practice. She steeled herself and lifted up so he could pull her jeans the rest of the way off, her socks going with them. His lines had always worked on her before, but she’d never let him know that.
She was pretty sure it was why he’d decided to keep trying.
“I don’t know.” Her voice shivered despite her efforts to keep it steady. “You’re rocking the suit thing pretty hard.”
“Oh?” Warmth seeped into the question. He braced his hands to either side of her hips and lowered down, dropping kisses along the hem of her panties. “You like?”
“It does you justice,” she admitted, tipping her head back and groaning aloud as he nuzzled right above the place she wanted him the most, nose brushing skin while his breath washed hot across her sex.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The first firm pressure of his mouth on her was a rolling thunderclap, a deep rumbling burst of pleasure that held the promise of so much more. Even through the cotton of her underwear—the normal everyday ones she wore when she wasn’t expecting billionaire moguls to show up at her door—the intensity of the contact had her hips bucking, thighs tightening as if to close around his head. To push him off or draw him in until she was a shivering mess of satisfaction beneath him, she couldn’t decide.
“Easy.” His lips pursed around her clit, a gentle nibble that just wasn’t fair. He fit his forearm across her belly, holding her down. “Stay still for me.”
She shook her head. How could she?
And then he tongued at the fabric. Everything got wetter, the swelter between her thighs too much. She grasped at the sheets, reaching for her pillow for something to hold on to.
The first time he’d done this for her, it’d been this impossible sort of journey to her peak. No man had ever managed to make her come before, and she’d wanted so badly for him to be the one, but her mind had fought her. It’d been stop and start, the edge of oblivion a taste at the back of her throat, darting close only to fall away from her again and again, until she’d been ready to cry for it. When the pleasure had finally washed her away, she’d been left forever changed, her world tilting on its axis at this whole new realm of possibility.
Her orgasms had come easier every time since then, and that last lazy morning before everything had fallen apart, she’d found her pleasure with hardly any kind of effort at all.
But that was when she’d been on the receiving end of Rylan’s attentions daily—sometimes more than daily. She’d gone months without that now. It should’ve had her tensing up, her mind and body warring again.
And yet when he slid a finger over soaked cotton, teased at her opening through the panel of her underwear, and closed his lips around her clit and sucked—
Her eyes snapped open, and she arched off the bed. How could she be— Was it even possible to— Reeling, she dug her nails into her palms and fought to keep her hands where they were, where he’d told her they should be as climax ambushed her, quick and sharp and almost violent, and she pulsed and pulsed and pulsed. Empty, and suddenly more ravenous than she had been before.
Rylan didn’t quite manage to hide his shock as she struggled to lift her head. Mouth slack with surprise and lust, eyes hungry and dark, he met her gaze. And then, slowly, his expression shifted, morphing into the worst, most shameless smirk, so sexual, so overconfident, she wanted to wipe it off his face. Or maybe ride it.
“Oh, baby,” he all but crooned. “You’re just primed for it, aren’t you? Dying for it.” He traced a single finger down the still-throbbing line of her slit. “Ready to give it up with barely a touch.” He pressed his lips to the fabric again. “With barely a kiss.”
Rolling her eyes felt like too much work when she was shivering with aftershocks like this, but she gave it her best damn try. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Believe me.” His eyebrows slanted meaningfully. “It’s going to my head.”
Her fingers twitched. What she really wanted to do was swat at him. Or press him down. Get him to do that to her over and over.
“It’s practically a crime,” he said. More soft, lingering kisses brushed over her, cruelly teasing glances of licks when she was wriggling, was writhing for the full-on embrace of his mouth. “You being so neglected like this.”
And there was still that hint of a pang. She’d been all alone because of him. Too wounded to go out and find someone else because of him.
She’d known what she was missing because of him.
He slid his finger along the edge of her underwear, across the inside of her thigh, and her body gave another little tremor. God, she was slick even all the way over there, his touch so easy as it glided across her flesh.
“I won’t let it happen again.” His finger slipped a little deeper beneath the cotton. “I’ll eat you out every night and every day if you want me to.”
She’d almost forgotten he could be like this. Shameless. Unreal.
She let her head fall back against the mattress. “You can start by”—she faltered, then closed her eyes and soldiered through it—“by eating me out right now.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t mean. If anything, it sounded painfully turned on. “Look at that. Kitten’s grown claws.” He kissed the inside of her thigh. “But since I offered…”
Her whole body strained as he tucked his thumbs into her underwear and inch by inch dragged them down. Cool air hit heated skin. Naked from the waist down, she spread her legs. It was wanton, wasn’t it? Slutty? Opening up for him, asking this of him.
Taking this, when she had no idea what they were to each other anymore. Didn’t even know what she wanted them to be.
But then he ran his nose all the way from the inside of her knee to the juncture of her hip and thigh. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed this.” And he dove in.
Jesus. She’d thought the touch of his lips to her through her panties had been intense. The first hot stripe he licked along her lips was like coming home, soft and wet, this broad stroke he painted with the flat of his tongue. He fit his whole mouth to her, and she didn’t even have a chance to be self-conscious.
“You taste so fucking good,” he said with a moan. His tongue traced circles all around her clit, never touching it, and this was torture, was heaven. “How many times do you think I can get you to come?”
She’d managed three in one day before, but that had been with her very best vibrator and then with her hands.
But this was better. This was insane.
She was breathless, eyes clenched tight, hands curled in shaking fists. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
“Hell yes, we are.”
And it was so visceral—so obscene. Spreading her with his thumbs, he licked inside and all around, cupped her thighs as those clever hands of his rose, pushing her legs up and apart. One clothed shoulder came to meet the underside of her knee, and she had to look.
The vision had her on the edge of coming again right then and there.
Because it was almost too much. Shirt and vest still on, basically all his clothes still on. Hell, he even had his watch affixed to his wrist. And his hair was all tousled, dark and messy, his bright eyes fixed on her, her thigh draped over his shoulder.
He finally pressed a finger inside, flicked his tongue fast and strong against her clit, right where she liked it, because of course he would remember that, of course he still knew—
Her body shattered with a whole different kind of strength this time, practically pulling her inside out. His moans against her sex were another layer to the symphony crescendoing through her, were a match for her own, and she had to bite down on his name. It wanted so badly to be let out.
In that moment, screaming and undone before him, she wanted so badly to let him in.
But no. No.
She lowered her hand to push him away, oversensitive and done, but then he raised his head from between her legs, eyes fierce, and he practically growled, “Leave them where they are.”
It made her freeze in her tracks.
His eyes flashed with need. “I am so fucking far from being finished with you.”
And he drove back in, thick fingers filling her, curling up and pressing just the right side of too hard to that spot inside. With warm, wet strokes of his tongue, he coaxed her straight back up to the high plateau of arousal she hadn’t imagined she’d be able to climb again so quickly after coming twice already. But there she was, the twitchiness of post-climax giving over beneath the heat of his mouth, that hunger and that rush for more returning.
“Oh my God.” She shook her head back and forth, dropping her hand to her forehead where she was flushed and feverish. Sweat pooled at her lower back, and her nerves were screaming at her, her throat parched.
“Give it up again, beautiful.”
And she couldn’t—there was no way she could. Except he’d never given her a chance to come down, and so she was still soaring, air beneath her fingertips, and she would fall someday. She had no doubt. But for now…for now she’d take what he was offering, and she wouldn’t look back.
She arched her throat and closed her eyes, lost to it, ready to fly apart, all her barely recombined pieces tearing at their seams.
Then his thumb nudged farther back, a grazing touch between her cheeks, and her eyes flew open. “What are you—”
“Trust me.”
A steadier pressure, not quite in, not taking this other way to be inside her, but close, uncomfortable in a way that was more than physical. Dirty and weird and nothing she’d ever felt before, and that alone sent another rush of wetness flowing over his tongue, even as she twisted away, because it was too much. It might hurt.
“Don’t overthink it,” he said against slick flesh, lips brushing her clit with every syllable. “Just let it feel good.”
“But—” But what if she didn’t like this?
He shook his head, silencing her with that alone, and her ass gave beneath his slow, steady pressure. She choked on a breath as the very tip of his thumb, wet with her liquid, dipped inside, and there was no question about whether or not she liked it. Illicit fullness, a raw hint of a stretch, painless in the way that it burned right through her, and she loved it. The fingers in her sex thrust harder, and he did something with the point of his tongue.
And this time, she just about blacked out. The first wave overwhelmed her, made her shudder and curl, and she tossed her head to the side as it crashed into her. Without her leave, her hand found his hair and dug in deep, nails rough against scalp as she held him where she wanted him, kept his mouth right there—just there—
How was it possible she could still be coming? Her third climax flowed straight into her fourth, and it hurt and it felt unreal, and how did he do this to her? Push her boundaries and convince her to try? To let herself have things she’d never imagined could be for her?
By the time she came up for air, she was shaking, and she really did tear his mouth away from her before he could try to kill her any more.
Only there was way more than one kind of death that could be had at this man’s hands. He came willingly enough, let himself be dragged up the length of her body, pushing her shirt up as he went, smearing her skin with what was left of her desire on his lips. When he met her mouth, he paused, hovering for just a moment.
Dimly, it struck her that he’d used his tongue to make her come and touched her someplace no one else had ever touched her before, but they hadn’t kissed. Not once. A nervous little shiver curled through her, because did that mean something? Would letting his lips meet hers, now, mean even more?
She had only the span of a breath to worry about it. His eyes dipped closed. And then he kissed her full-on, pushing her own taste into her mouth, pushing her reservations away. It was all wet musk and bitter salt, and she swallowed them down, because he’d asked her to, and how had they gone so long without this? How was this not the very first thing they’d decided to do?
“Please,” he said against her lips. It was the second time he’d begged her for something tonight, and she was lying down, but her knees went weak all the same. “Please.”
He surrounded her wrists with his hands and pressed them back above her head. Her heart rate skyrocketed. Because she couldn’t take any more, but she would. For him, she would.
And then he reared back, and he had never looked so powerful above her.
“Please tell me I haven’t fucked this up so bad you won’t let me be inside you.”
Chapter TWO
Rylan was pushing his luck. Their first time around, it’d taken him days of tender care, of proving to Kate she didn’t owe him anything. He’d waited for intensely enthusiastic consent before asking her to so much as touch him then.
A lifetime of being told she didn’t deserve to be taken care of, followed by a bad one-night stand and a worse relationship had left her too shy to ask for what she wanted in the bedroom. Even before he’d known the details, he’d made it his personal mission in life to make her see that sex was for her, too, not only for the morons who wanted to get their dicks in her—and sex could be amazing, when it was done right. Patiently. Tenderly.
And now here he was, his mouth and chin and fingers wet with her, and patience was a thing of the past. He was so hard it hurt, his body singing for it. She’d come so hard that last time, with both her ass and her pussy clenching around him. He’d never so much as grazed her there before. It’d been more than enough work getting her comfortable with the attention he liked to lavish on her pussy, but it’d always been on his list of things he’d hoped she’d let him try.
Sure enough, she’d loved it. Watching and feeling and hearing her had been the hottest experience of his life, and he needed her right the fuck now, before his dick fell off or his brain ran out of blood.
Months. It’d been months since he’d had this, and part of him had thought he’d never get to have it again.
His skin itched and his jaw ticked as he searched her eyes. She gazed back at him, brow furrowed. His stomach dropped.
Shit, he really had pressed his luck. He should’ve known better than to ask for this so soon, but he was desperate, and she felt so good.
“I don’t know.” She curled her fingers to stroke. . .
“Then you had better make it count.”
Rylan Bellamy’s heart pounded as he stared up at Kate, scarcely daring to believe what he was hearing. He’d come to her prepared to beg—of course he had. She’d changed his life, made him want things he’d forgotten he could have. He’d do anything he had to for the chance to win her back.
And yet somehow, a part of him had honestly never believed that she’d say yes.
He remained there, literally on his knees for her, palms on her thighs and lungs burning as he waited for the catch. But nothing about her expression changed. This was real. She was giving him his shot.
Seven more nights together. Seven nights to prove he was the same man she’d fallen into bed with in Paris.
Damn right he was going to make them count.
Darting his gaze from her eyes to her mouth, he released his breath and licked his lips, flickering images of all the things he wanted to do to her heating his blood. Resolve made him firm up his grip. He’d prove to her exactly how good they could be together. With his flesh, with his body. The only way he was sure he could. The only way she’d made it clear she would accept.
Sliding his hand up higher on her thigh, he leaned in, and it was like the walls and miles between them shivered, ready to collapse. But instead of going for her lips and taking the kiss he’d been dying for these endless months, he skimmed his way to her jaw. With a rasping inhalation, she tipped her head to the side, inviting him in, and the first, uncertain lick of arousal in him ignited.
He could have this. After all this time, longing for her and cursing himself for his mistakes. Three months of self-imposed celibacy, and the nearness of her had him shockingly, achingly hard. He moaned as he pressed his brow to her temple, letting his nose rest just beneath her ear.
He’d done the difficult part, convincing her to let him touch her at all. But as his body vibrated, suddenly starved for contact, a whole new difficulty blindsided him.
How was he supposed to do this? To contain himself, when he wanted so much?
Forcing his eyes closed, he fought for control and prayed for patience. He shook his head, and the words that came out were too honest by half. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted this.”
The sparkling sound of her laughter filled the air. She smelled and tasted just the same as she ever had as he laid a soft, closed-mouth line of kisses down the column of her throat.
“I think I have some idea,” she said, tilting her head farther and threading her fingers through his hair.
God, it felt good to be touched.
He slid a hand up to grasp the back of her neck, holding her where she was as he traced his lips to her ear. He bit there as softly as he could, sucking at the lobe and letting out a wet breath. “What do you want me to do to you?”
“Oh God.” Her fingers tightened in his hair. “Make me—make me come.”
Lightning shot down his spine and went straight to his cock. But at the same time, her bluntness made him pause.
How long had it taken him to coax the barest hint of a request from her their first time around? She’d been terrified to touch herself in front of him, had scarcely been able to admit she knew how to.
Something in his stomach squirmed. With all the steadiness he had, he fit his hand to the juncture of her thigh and hip, digging his thumb into the seam of her jeans. “Has anybody else?”
She stiffened a fraction in his arms, and a jealous flame fired off inside his chest.
Running on instinct, he dug his thumb in harder and skated his other hand to hover just above her breast. “Tell me. Has anybody else been taking care of your sweet little pussy? Giving it the attention it deserves?”
She pressed her hips into his hand and arched her back, pushing her tits out like a written invitation he was only too happy to accept. She swallowed a whimper when he molded his palm to that curve.
“Well?” he insisted, but he read his answer in her moan.
No way had another man laid a hand on her. She was too primed, too desperate. She’d been left unattended for far too long, and damn if it wasn’t his new mission in life to correct that.
And her body fucking loved that he had asked.
She shook her head, and possessiveness sang through his blood. Who even cared that he had known what the answer would be? He’d been the last man to touch her—he wanted to be the last man to ever touch her.
He scraped his teeth against the shell of her ear as he snapped his jaw closed.
It wasn’t exactly a foreign thought. You didn’t cross oceans for casual; you didn’t decide to change your entire life for anything less than forever. But here and now, it was too much, too soon. He’d only barely managed to talk her into giving him a chance at all.
Shaking his head, he put the thought out of his head and bent to his task again, wringing those perfect, breathy sounds from her with fingertips and lips. With words. She’d always loved it when he talked. “Let me hear you say it out loud, beautiful.”
“Nobody,” she panted, finally. “There’s been nobody else.”
Deep inside, he crowed. “And how about you? Have you been taking care of this?” He rubbed at her clit through the fabric and blew a breath across her ear. “Bet it gets so hot and achy. Needs so bad to be touched.”
“Sometimes.” Her other hand came to rest at his side, a warm weight against his abdomen. “When I wasn’t—” She cut herself off, and he didn’t like that at all.
He pulled away to look her in the eyes, and what he saw there was even worse. His gut churned. “When you weren’t what?”
“When I wasn’t too pissed at you to get myself off.”
It stung like a slap. And yet he knew the story all too well. His body had needs, but they’d been muted these past couple of months. He’d taken care of them perfunctorily, almost mechanically. How could he blame her for admitting to much the same? Only with that twist. That edge of accusation.
It’d take more than a few orgasms for her to forgive.
For a second he feared the moment was lost, but she hadn’t let go of his side or his hair. The husk to her breath, the darkness of her eyes—they weren’t gone.
Slowly, he pulled his hand from between her legs to wrap his arms around her. “I’m sorry.” He murmured the apology into her neck, breathed his regrets against the heat of her skin. “I’m so sorry.” With soft, chaste kisses, he worked his way over collarbones and ribs, until his mouth lay right above her heart. He turned his gaze upward and then kissed her there, too. Pitching his voice lower, he promised, “I swear I’m going to make it up to you.”
Kate couldn’t decide where to put her arms.
One second, Rylan had her panting, a new kind of possessiveness she’d never seen on him before driving him to whisper the filthiest things in her ear. The next she’d been saying something stupid, bringing up the rift between them again when she was supposed to be ignoring it.
That was their agreement after all. He got his chance to try to win her back, and she got sex. She got another shot at the kind of pleasure she’d thought she’d lost for good.
When it all inevitably fell apart again, she got to walk away without any doubts.
After a moment, she settled for resting her hands on his shoulders, letting him keep pressing his apologies into the tops of her breasts. Clenching her jaw, she swallowed the instinct to tell him it was all going to be okay. She couldn’t promise him that. Not even close.
She’d probably been insane to promise him even his seven nights.
Restless, she shifted. The ache between her thighs hadn’t abated at all despite the awkwardness, and the heat of his breath at her chest had her ready to drag him down onto this bed with her and tell him to just get over it already. She was fine—a little more guarded and maybe still a tiny bit brokenhearted for his presence in her life. But fine. He hadn’t done anything to her she shouldn’t have expected, considering. The people she trusted had a habit of making her wish she hadn’t. Of turning mean as soon as they’d lured her in. After the way her father and her ex had treated her, Rylan’s conveniently forgetting to tell her he was the heir to a billion-dollar company was nothing, right?
She gritted her teeth and fought to push those thoughts away. She’d moved past the hurt, goddammit all. She’d been so close to moving on entirely, right until he’d shown up at her door, looking gorgeous and saying all these things she shouldn’t believe. Things that’d struck her to the quick, regardless. And then he’d touched her.
And filled her with a need she’d nearly forgotten was even possible.
Stroking her thumbs against the collar of his jacket, she shifted her hips. It would be something if she were the one to throw him down and have her way with him, wouldn’t it? In their past encounters, he had always been the one urging her on, challenging her to tell him what she wanted and to take her pleasure with neither shame nor reservation. That kind of sexual freedom had come more and more easily for her as they’d gone on.
But she’d been so comfortable with him then. And he was the one who was supposed to be making things up to her, after all.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he kissed up higher on her chest, withdrawing one of his arms from around her body to tug the neckline of her shirt down. Warm, damp lips met skin, his tongue darting out to taste the hollow between her collarbones, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“I think you were saying something about making it up to me?”
He chuckled against her ribs and nudged her shirt even lower. “Do you have some suggestions for how you’d like me to?”
“I can probably think of a couple.”
“Be sure to let me know if you do.”
With that, he pulled away from her flesh, wrapping both his hands around her hips and shoving her bodily toward the center of the bed. She swallowed hard. Now that’s what she was talking about.
Still on his knees, he nodded to himself, and the doubt that had seemed to cling to him these last few minutes fell away.
“For now,” he said, voice deliciously firm, “I have a few ideas of my own.”
Standing, he fixed her with a gaze so hot it threatened to sear straight through her. Intent lay heavy in the clear blue of his irises, the thick fall of his lashes against his cheeks. All steady, precise movements, he loosened his tie and pulled it free, folding the stripe of silk before setting it aside. His jacket came next, revealing the breadth of his shoulders. Draping it over the end of the bed, he undid his cuff links with deft flicks of his fingertips against the polished silver studs, then dropped them in a pocket and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
And it was almost too hot. Crisp, charcoal slacks and a vest to match, a sapphire-blue shirt with the collar open, and his forearms, thick and muscular. And above it all, still, that look in his eyes like he was planning to eat her alive.
If there was something lingering around his mouth that seemed more lost than domineering, it was easy to ignore, if she tried.
He settled one knee on the bed, grasping her feet and hauling them apart to make space for him to rest between them. With one ankle held in his hand, he worked the laces of her shoe as he talked. “Lie back.”
He said it with an edge behind the command, one that was on a direct line to her clit. Her breath caught. “Why?”
“Because.” He pried her first shoe off and sent it rolling across the floor, then started on the other one. “I’m planning to eat you out until you cry.” The corner of his mouth twitched up. “If you aren’t lying down for it, I’m afraid you might hurt yourself.”
Jesus.
Holding his gaze, she settled herself down. Lifted her arms to rest her hands above her head.
“Good girl.” He gave her calf a teasing slap as he released her leg. He nodded toward her hands. “Now keep them there.”
“While you do what?”
“First”—he climbed up higher on the bed and hooked his hands in the waistband of her jeans—“I get these abominations off you.” The button all but melted beneath his fingers, the teeth of the zip too loud in the quiet room.
Somehow, she kept her cool, arching a brow while her chest heaved, heat pooling in her abdomen, nipples tightening. “Abominations?”
But it wasn’t just arousal making her flustered. The whole time they’d been apart, she’d second-guessed his reaction to everything. Her hair, her barely-there makeup, her taste in restaurants. Her naïveté.
Her clothes.
She lacked both the money and the time for high fashion, and half her wardrobe ended up covered in paint and charcoal anyway, so why bother? Who cared if these jeans were old, if they weren’t a brand name? They were hers.
He just shook his head and clucked his tongue, peeling the denim from her hips. “They don’t begin to do you justice.” He dragged them lower, dipping to press his lips to the bare skin of her knees, her thighs. Warm fingertips brushed every new inch of flesh he revealed. “Then again, I’m not sure anything could.”
How did he always know precisely what to say?
Oh. Right. Practice. She steeled herself and lifted up so he could pull her jeans the rest of the way off, her socks going with them. His lines had always worked on her before, but she’d never let him know that.
She was pretty sure it was why he’d decided to keep trying.
“I don’t know.” Her voice shivered despite her efforts to keep it steady. “You’re rocking the suit thing pretty hard.”
“Oh?” Warmth seeped into the question. He braced his hands to either side of her hips and lowered down, dropping kisses along the hem of her panties. “You like?”
“It does you justice,” she admitted, tipping her head back and groaning aloud as he nuzzled right above the place she wanted him the most, nose brushing skin while his breath washed hot across her sex.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The first firm pressure of his mouth on her was a rolling thunderclap, a deep rumbling burst of pleasure that held the promise of so much more. Even through the cotton of her underwear—the normal everyday ones she wore when she wasn’t expecting billionaire moguls to show up at her door—the intensity of the contact had her hips bucking, thighs tightening as if to close around his head. To push him off or draw him in until she was a shivering mess of satisfaction beneath him, she couldn’t decide.
“Easy.” His lips pursed around her clit, a gentle nibble that just wasn’t fair. He fit his forearm across her belly, holding her down. “Stay still for me.”
She shook her head. How could she?
And then he tongued at the fabric. Everything got wetter, the swelter between her thighs too much. She grasped at the sheets, reaching for her pillow for something to hold on to.
The first time he’d done this for her, it’d been this impossible sort of journey to her peak. No man had ever managed to make her come before, and she’d wanted so badly for him to be the one, but her mind had fought her. It’d been stop and start, the edge of oblivion a taste at the back of her throat, darting close only to fall away from her again and again, until she’d been ready to cry for it. When the pleasure had finally washed her away, she’d been left forever changed, her world tilting on its axis at this whole new realm of possibility.
Her orgasms had come easier every time since then, and that last lazy morning before everything had fallen apart, she’d found her pleasure with hardly any kind of effort at all.
But that was when she’d been on the receiving end of Rylan’s attentions daily—sometimes more than daily. She’d gone months without that now. It should’ve had her tensing up, her mind and body warring again.
And yet when he slid a finger over soaked cotton, teased at her opening through the panel of her underwear, and closed his lips around her clit and sucked—
Her eyes snapped open, and she arched off the bed. How could she be— Was it even possible to— Reeling, she dug her nails into her palms and fought to keep her hands where they were, where he’d told her they should be as climax ambushed her, quick and sharp and almost violent, and she pulsed and pulsed and pulsed. Empty, and suddenly more ravenous than she had been before.
Rylan didn’t quite manage to hide his shock as she struggled to lift her head. Mouth slack with surprise and lust, eyes hungry and dark, he met her gaze. And then, slowly, his expression shifted, morphing into the worst, most shameless smirk, so sexual, so overconfident, she wanted to wipe it off his face. Or maybe ride it.
“Oh, baby,” he all but crooned. “You’re just primed for it, aren’t you? Dying for it.” He traced a single finger down the still-throbbing line of her slit. “Ready to give it up with barely a touch.” He pressed his lips to the fabric again. “With barely a kiss.”
Rolling her eyes felt like too much work when she was shivering with aftershocks like this, but she gave it her best damn try. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Believe me.” His eyebrows slanted meaningfully. “It’s going to my head.”
Her fingers twitched. What she really wanted to do was swat at him. Or press him down. Get him to do that to her over and over.
“It’s practically a crime,” he said. More soft, lingering kisses brushed over her, cruelly teasing glances of licks when she was wriggling, was writhing for the full-on embrace of his mouth. “You being so neglected like this.”
And there was still that hint of a pang. She’d been all alone because of him. Too wounded to go out and find someone else because of him.
She’d known what she was missing because of him.
He slid his finger along the edge of her underwear, across the inside of her thigh, and her body gave another little tremor. God, she was slick even all the way over there, his touch so easy as it glided across her flesh.
“I won’t let it happen again.” His finger slipped a little deeper beneath the cotton. “I’ll eat you out every night and every day if you want me to.”
She’d almost forgotten he could be like this. Shameless. Unreal.
She let her head fall back against the mattress. “You can start by”—she faltered, then closed her eyes and soldiered through it—“by eating me out right now.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t mean. If anything, it sounded painfully turned on. “Look at that. Kitten’s grown claws.” He kissed the inside of her thigh. “But since I offered…”
Her whole body strained as he tucked his thumbs into her underwear and inch by inch dragged them down. Cool air hit heated skin. Naked from the waist down, she spread her legs. It was wanton, wasn’t it? Slutty? Opening up for him, asking this of him.
Taking this, when she had no idea what they were to each other anymore. Didn’t even know what she wanted them to be.
But then he ran his nose all the way from the inside of her knee to the juncture of her hip and thigh. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed this.” And he dove in.
Jesus. She’d thought the touch of his lips to her through her panties had been intense. The first hot stripe he licked along her lips was like coming home, soft and wet, this broad stroke he painted with the flat of his tongue. He fit his whole mouth to her, and she didn’t even have a chance to be self-conscious.
“You taste so fucking good,” he said with a moan. His tongue traced circles all around her clit, never touching it, and this was torture, was heaven. “How many times do you think I can get you to come?”
She’d managed three in one day before, but that had been with her very best vibrator and then with her hands.
But this was better. This was insane.
She was breathless, eyes clenched tight, hands curled in shaking fists. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
“Hell yes, we are.”
And it was so visceral—so obscene. Spreading her with his thumbs, he licked inside and all around, cupped her thighs as those clever hands of his rose, pushing her legs up and apart. One clothed shoulder came to meet the underside of her knee, and she had to look.
The vision had her on the edge of coming again right then and there.
Because it was almost too much. Shirt and vest still on, basically all his clothes still on. Hell, he even had his watch affixed to his wrist. And his hair was all tousled, dark and messy, his bright eyes fixed on her, her thigh draped over his shoulder.
He finally pressed a finger inside, flicked his tongue fast and strong against her clit, right where she liked it, because of course he would remember that, of course he still knew—
Her body shattered with a whole different kind of strength this time, practically pulling her inside out. His moans against her sex were another layer to the symphony crescendoing through her, were a match for her own, and she had to bite down on his name. It wanted so badly to be let out.
In that moment, screaming and undone before him, she wanted so badly to let him in.
But no. No.
She lowered her hand to push him away, oversensitive and done, but then he raised his head from between her legs, eyes fierce, and he practically growled, “Leave them where they are.”
It made her freeze in her tracks.
His eyes flashed with need. “I am so fucking far from being finished with you.”
And he drove back in, thick fingers filling her, curling up and pressing just the right side of too hard to that spot inside. With warm, wet strokes of his tongue, he coaxed her straight back up to the high plateau of arousal she hadn’t imagined she’d be able to climb again so quickly after coming twice already. But there she was, the twitchiness of post-climax giving over beneath the heat of his mouth, that hunger and that rush for more returning.
“Oh my God.” She shook her head back and forth, dropping her hand to her forehead where she was flushed and feverish. Sweat pooled at her lower back, and her nerves were screaming at her, her throat parched.
“Give it up again, beautiful.”
And she couldn’t—there was no way she could. Except he’d never given her a chance to come down, and so she was still soaring, air beneath her fingertips, and she would fall someday. She had no doubt. But for now…for now she’d take what he was offering, and she wouldn’t look back.
She arched her throat and closed her eyes, lost to it, ready to fly apart, all her barely recombined pieces tearing at their seams.
Then his thumb nudged farther back, a grazing touch between her cheeks, and her eyes flew open. “What are you—”
“Trust me.”
A steadier pressure, not quite in, not taking this other way to be inside her, but close, uncomfortable in a way that was more than physical. Dirty and weird and nothing she’d ever felt before, and that alone sent another rush of wetness flowing over his tongue, even as she twisted away, because it was too much. It might hurt.
“Don’t overthink it,” he said against slick flesh, lips brushing her clit with every syllable. “Just let it feel good.”
“But—” But what if she didn’t like this?
He shook his head, silencing her with that alone, and her ass gave beneath his slow, steady pressure. She choked on a breath as the very tip of his thumb, wet with her liquid, dipped inside, and there was no question about whether or not she liked it. Illicit fullness, a raw hint of a stretch, painless in the way that it burned right through her, and she loved it. The fingers in her sex thrust harder, and he did something with the point of his tongue.
And this time, she just about blacked out. The first wave overwhelmed her, made her shudder and curl, and she tossed her head to the side as it crashed into her. Without her leave, her hand found his hair and dug in deep, nails rough against scalp as she held him where she wanted him, kept his mouth right there—just there—
How was it possible she could still be coming? Her third climax flowed straight into her fourth, and it hurt and it felt unreal, and how did he do this to her? Push her boundaries and convince her to try? To let herself have things she’d never imagined could be for her?
By the time she came up for air, she was shaking, and she really did tear his mouth away from her before he could try to kill her any more.
Only there was way more than one kind of death that could be had at this man’s hands. He came willingly enough, let himself be dragged up the length of her body, pushing her shirt up as he went, smearing her skin with what was left of her desire on his lips. When he met her mouth, he paused, hovering for just a moment.
Dimly, it struck her that he’d used his tongue to make her come and touched her someplace no one else had ever touched her before, but they hadn’t kissed. Not once. A nervous little shiver curled through her, because did that mean something? Would letting his lips meet hers, now, mean even more?
She had only the span of a breath to worry about it. His eyes dipped closed. And then he kissed her full-on, pushing her own taste into her mouth, pushing her reservations away. It was all wet musk and bitter salt, and she swallowed them down, because he’d asked her to, and how had they gone so long without this? How was this not the very first thing they’d decided to do?
“Please,” he said against her lips. It was the second time he’d begged her for something tonight, and she was lying down, but her knees went weak all the same. “Please.”
He surrounded her wrists with his hands and pressed them back above her head. Her heart rate skyrocketed. Because she couldn’t take any more, but she would. For him, she would.
And then he reared back, and he had never looked so powerful above her.
“Please tell me I haven’t fucked this up so bad you won’t let me be inside you.”
Chapter TWO
Rylan was pushing his luck. Their first time around, it’d taken him days of tender care, of proving to Kate she didn’t owe him anything. He’d waited for intensely enthusiastic consent before asking her to so much as touch him then.
A lifetime of being told she didn’t deserve to be taken care of, followed by a bad one-night stand and a worse relationship had left her too shy to ask for what she wanted in the bedroom. Even before he’d known the details, he’d made it his personal mission in life to make her see that sex was for her, too, not only for the morons who wanted to get their dicks in her—and sex could be amazing, when it was done right. Patiently. Tenderly.
And now here he was, his mouth and chin and fingers wet with her, and patience was a thing of the past. He was so hard it hurt, his body singing for it. She’d come so hard that last time, with both her ass and her pussy clenching around him. He’d never so much as grazed her there before. It’d been more than enough work getting her comfortable with the attention he liked to lavish on her pussy, but it’d always been on his list of things he’d hoped she’d let him try.
Sure enough, she’d loved it. Watching and feeling and hearing her had been the hottest experience of his life, and he needed her right the fuck now, before his dick fell off or his brain ran out of blood.
Months. It’d been months since he’d had this, and part of him had thought he’d never get to have it again.
His skin itched and his jaw ticked as he searched her eyes. She gazed back at him, brow furrowed. His stomach dropped.
Shit, he really had pressed his luck. He should’ve known better than to ask for this so soon, but he was desperate, and she felt so good.
“I don’t know.” She curled her fingers to stroke. . .
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Eight Ways to Ecstasy
Jeanette Grey
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