She sticks out her hand. “Deal.”
I take her hand in mine to shake it, and it’s warm and soft. I let my fingertips graze against the pulse point on her wrist as I end the handshake, and I’m gratified to see a small shiver move through her.
“You have to go first though,” she says, pulling her hand back. She narrows her eyes at me. “And no cheating.”
“Cheating? Moi?” I put a hand to my heart as if staggered by her accusation, although I’m actually having more fun than I’ve had in ages. “I would never.”
“Good. Because this only works if you really do it. Don’t use it as an excuse to feed me some flirty line about how pretty I am and how you’d like to get to know me better.”
My hand still on my chest, I drop my head forward in mock defeat. “You’ve got me.” Because that’s exactly what I was planning on saying—which technically wouldn’t have been cheating. “Those things are also true though,” I add, lifting my eyes to hers.
She makes a circling gesture with her hand, yeah-yeah-yeah, and gives me another one of those arched eyebrows. “Say something you wouldn’t say to just any girl you wanted to get into bed.”
“Fine,” I say, and I set my glass down on the ledge next to us. “I think you’re more than pretty. I think you’re fucking gorgeous, and you’re not impressed by me, which makes me want to work very, very hard to impress you. I want to impress you with my mouth…” I take a step toward her, my hands safely in my pockets, so she sees I’m not going to touch her. “…and impress you with my fingers…”
Another step forward, and she lifts her face up to see mine better, her mouth parted and her eyes wide and blinking. I can see the vulnerable place where her pulse thrums in her throat, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. The tight furls of her nipples against the silk dress.
“…and with every other part of my body.”
We’re so close now that my shoes brush against the hem of her dress, and I keep the distance just as it is—no touching, no pressing, no grinding, just my words and the electricity sparking between us. “And I do want to get to know you better. I want to know if you scream or if you moan when you come, I want to know if you prefer my mouth or my hands, I want to know if you like it deep and slow or fast and hard.”
She swallows, her eyes searching mine in fast, dazed flicks.
“And right now I can see the V between your thighs under that dress, and all I want to do is press my cock against it. I want to see if you’re sensitive enough that I can get you off through the silk, I want to see if I can lick you through the fabric.” I lower my voice. “I want to taste you. I want to taste you so badly that I’m hard just thinking about it. I want to see how your little pussy unfurls when I part it with my fingers, I want to know if your clit gets hard and plump when I suck on it. I want you to feel the place my nose presses into you as I eat you out from the front…and from behind.”
Her eyes are huge now, copper-brown rings around massive pools of black. “You can…you can do that?”
I cock my head a little, amused. “Do what?”
Her feet do a little shuffle as she looks down. “The, um. The eating. From behind.”
Jesus. She’s young, but surely not that young? Twenty-one is more than old enough to have found at least one boy who’s decent in bed. And oh God, what does it say about me that this sudden revelation of innocence is such a fucking turn-on? That she doesn’t know…that I could be the first to show her…my cock is pushing against the placket of my zipper like it’s ready to burst the seams, and my skin feels hot and achy and tight. And my tongue is desperate for the satin texture of her secret place, for the hidden taste of her, and I run it along my teeth, needing some kind of sensation to quiet the rioting storm inside me.
She watches my mouth, entranced. I watch her watching me.
“Yes,” I say huskily. “Yes, you can do that.”
“I, ah,” she says, and even in the indirect light, I can see a new rosy hue blossoming underneath the warm tones of her skin. “I didn’t know.”
I can show you, I want to say. Let me take you up to a deserted balcony. Let me show you how to brace your hands on the railing and present your ass to me. Let me show you exactly how a man uses his mouth on a woman from behind.
I don’t say that, though. Instead, I lower my head ever so slightly, just enough to make her lips part even more, and I murmur, “Your turn.”
The rosy hues are even more pronounced now, spreading across the sweet skin along her collarbone and up her neck. “My turn?” she asks breathlessly.
“To be honest. Remember?”
“Oh,” she exhales, blinking. “Right. Honest.”
“No cheating,” I remind her. “I was honest with you.”
“Yes,” she agrees, nodding, her eyes dropping to my mouth again. “You were honest with me.”
I give her a moment, even though all I want to do is crowd her against the cable and rub my aching erection against her silk-clad dress. Even though all I want to do is bury my face in her neck and suck at the sensitive skin there as I ruck up her skirt and cup her heat in my palm.
“Okay. Honesty.” She takes a deep breath and then peers up at me. “I want you to kiss me.”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” she confirms. There’s the tiniest bit of quaking bravado in her voice, and I don’t like it. I mean, I’m halfway to dropping to my knees and begging her to let me see her cunt, but the better part of me wants her to be completely ready and certain. I don’t want her to fake bravery in order to be kissed—I don’t want her to require bravery at all. I pluck her drink from her hands and set it next to my scotch on the ledge, then I hold out my hand for her to take.
She looks confused. “Are you not going to kiss me? I thought—after all you said—”
“I want to kiss you very much. But right now can be as long as we want to make it, right? Maybe it’s the next ten minutes, maybe it’s the next twenty. However long it is, I don’t want to rush it. What if this is the only kiss I get to have from you for the rest of my life? I want to take my time. Savor it.”
“Savor it,” she repeats. And then she nods, relaxing. “I like that.”
She takes my hand and I lead her farther onto the terrace, where a tent with a dance floor has been erected, waiting for the after-dinner crowd to come for drinks and dancing. But it’s mostly empty now, and there’s only a lone employee carrying out trays of waiting champagne flutes and a speaker piping in music from the sextet in the lobby.
“How about a dance first?” I ask.
She looks around the tent, and some of her earlier confidence creeps back into her expression. “Are you sure you’re any good at dancing?”
“I’m excellent at dancing,” I say, nettled. “I’m like, probably the best in the world at it.”
“Prove it,” she dares, and so I do. I do what I’ve been hungry to do since I saw her, and I slide my hand around the dip of her waist, resting it against the tempting dimples at the small of her back and fighting the urge to slide my hand even lower. And then I pull her close to me as my other hand tightens around hers.