Then she was fully exposed to his gaze, all but one tiny triangle of lacy fabric.
Her hand trembled as she lifted it to the side of his face. He twisted his neck enough to press a kiss on the center of her palm, and affection and desire melded together and streaked through her in a molten stream.
Gavin planted a hot, open-mouth kiss on her lips before lavishing attention on her breasts. Pleasure corkscrewed up her core as he flicked one of her nipples with the tip of his tongue. Her back automatically arched off the bed, chasing the high and ready for another hit.
As he moved to her other breast, his breaths sawed in and out, dampening her skin, and she panted along with him as the amount of air left in her lungs neared zero.
Not important, her body screamed as she rubbed herself against him, rolling her hips over and over until her heart hammered tachycardia fast. She lifted two fingers to her neck and felt the same rapid, thready rhythm. “Dude, if I were hooked up to a heart monitor right now, it’d be beeping like crazy.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, painting the question onto her skin with his tongue.
“Uh-huh. And in a minute or two, I’m going to beep you like crazy.”
His laugh vibrated across her skin, and she mentally smacked her forehead. At long last she was jumping into bed with a man she instinctually knew could provide the rapturous time she’d craved between the sheets, and she couldn’t stop ruining it with her jokes and running commentary. “Can we pretend I didn’t make that cheesy joke?”
Gavin lifted himself enough to look into her eyes. He swept her hair off her face and ran his thumb over her lower lip until she’d nearly forgotten about her inquiry. “No way. I’m going to hold on to that one forever. Maybe even see if my teammates will pick it up. No more F-bombs. Just lots of beep this and beep that.”
“And beep you,” she said.
“I certainly hope so,” he said with a laugh, and she giggled along.
“How’d I find a guy for my Great Fling Experiment who doesn’t consider my sense of humor a mood ruiner?” A rhetorical question, one she answered aloud anyway. “Oh yeah. I chose the one person already accustomed to my particular brand of weird.”
Gavin’s stubble tickled the top of her abdomen as he began kissing his way lower, and lower, and lower…
“It’s a real hardship,” he murmured before dipping his tongue into her belly button. “But I’m conditioned to persevere.”
A hum of pleasure escaped Julie as his mouth breached the elastic strip that held up her thong. While she’d groaned over needing the barely-there underwear to avoid panty lines in her dress, she quickly repented, asking for forgiveness from the lingerie gods.
“Full disclosure, this is a lot more like the buzz from winning a big game than training camp.”
“Should I call your name while flashing you from the stands to make you feel more at home? Maybe hand you a Sharpie to sign my boobs?”
“I prefer you flashing me from here, but I’ll gladly write my name across your boobs. Maybe plant one of those flags on the highest peak so everyone sees they’ve been claimed already.”
Before she could come up with a clever retort, Gavin slipped one of his deft fingers inside her thong and graced her with one long, steady stroke. Her entire body shuddered with pleasure, and given the chance, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to relay how many blood vessels were in an umbilical cord.
Okay, so she did remember that, but she dealt with roughly thirty a week.
Gavin looped his fingers through the tiny strips at each of her hips and peeled off her panties. Then he knelt on the floor, his face so close to her center that she could feel every one of his breaths as they swept across her sensitive flesh.
One beat.
Two.
Then he put his mouth on her and ASKLDJNFJLH. As soon as she returned to her body, she realized she was just lying on the bed, basking in the intoxicating sensations and not doing anything for Gavin.
She sat up so abruptly that he paused his ministrations, and her sex pulsed, cursing her out for stopping the fun.
“What’s wrong?” He placed his hand on her thigh. “If something’s not working, or you prefer another method, all you gotta do is let me know.”
“That method is the best I’ve ever experienced, hands down,” she said. “What should I do so it’s good for you too, though?”
“Here’s the thing, Jules. A real man is going to care about your pleasure as much as his—probably more. Sex isn’t a competition. It’s a team sport.”
She raked her fingers through his hair, separating the curls. “Were we supposed to start with a huddle, then?”
“That’s an orgy you’re thinking of,” he said with a smirk, and she tugged at the ends of his hair. Considering the groan, the move had been more of a reward than a punishment—looked like she wasn’t the only one in favor of hair pulling. His eyes fell closed, and his voice came out husky. “That. You can do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of something important.”
He hooked his hands in the crook of her knees and spread her wider, and then he dove in for round two. She continued to rake her fingers through his hair until a full-body tremor robbed her of autonomy over herself.
Haziness set in.
At some point she fell back on the bed. Every muscle tightened, some of which she swore were never taught in any of her anatomy classes. Gavin eased up on the pressure and slowed his tongue’s pace, keeping her at the precipice until every last inch of her had been consumed and conquered.
Then came the rapturous free fall.
Weightlessly plummeting and spinning and “Yes, yes, omigod yes,” she screamed as her orgasm rocketed through her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The bed dipped slightly as Gavin placed both of his palms on either side of her, his large body blocking out part of the overhead light. Considering his arousal, evident beneath the fabric of his boxer shorts, he’d enjoyed the show as much as Julie had enjoyed being the star.
Between that and the euphoric afterglow, summoning her inner vixen took relatively no effort. She sat up, snagged hold of his hand, and tugged him onto the bed.
Then she slung a leg over his waist, pushing herself up to straddle him. “I’d hate for your coach to call and yell at me for making you overexert yourself.” She patted his chest, marveling at the hard muscle and that this was actually happening. “You just lie back and let me run the show for a little while.”
“I gotta say, I do like the view from here.” He inched his large hands up her thighs. “I’ll do as instructed for that little while you mentioned, but…” He pressed his thumbs into the junction where her legs met her torso, and she nearly melted on top of him. “Fair warning, I’m more of a partaker than a spectator.”