I end up in bed with someone, it’s usually because I’m going to have a relationship with him.
Like Rugged.
I don’t want to think about Rugged anymore, because the truth is, the news that he’s getting married has shifted my world off its axis. I don’t know why. There was no chance we could ever make a life together.
And yet …
And yet what? If I don’t want him, certainly someone else can have him.
Damon’s deep baritone interrupts my thoughts of Rugged. “Hello?”
“Hey, Damon. It’s Lishelle.”
“Lishelle, hi.” He sounds tired. No surprise there. We were up quite late.
“I was wondering what you were up to.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.” And then I add in the best seductive voice I can come up with, “I was hoping we could pick up where we left off last night.”
“Really?” Damon sounds surprised, but I’m not sure if he’s pleased.
“There’s no time like the present.” He also lives in Buckhead, not too far from my place.
He chuckles softly. “I can’t argue with your logic.”
“Is that a yes?” I ask, my voice almost a purr. “Do you want to see me?”
“Definitely.”
I’m grinning as I press the button to end the call. The smile intensifies when I get to Damon’s door and he opens it, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans that hang low on his hips.
His eyes light up when he sees me. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“What’s the point in playing that childish game of waiting for the other person to call first?” I place a hand on his chest, forcing him to take a step backward so that I can enter the house. His lips curl in a slow, devilish grin, the kind that says he can’t wait to get his hands on me.
The feeling is mutual.
Seriously, to look at him now, in the daylight, his body all hard, magnificent muscles, I wonder how I kept myself from jumping his bones last night.
But I don’t think about that now. All I think about is quenching my thirst for lust.
This is totally out of character for me. I’m very selective about who I go to bed with. A guy has to really turn me on for me to be interested, and I generally prefer for my brain to be stimulated as well as my body. But every so often, I guess a woman meets a man who connects with her on a carnal level.
That’s Damon.
Honestly, I didn’t expect that when I ended up at his place he would honor his word not to get me naked. That had been his promise to me at Sambucca lounge—that if I went home with him, we’d chat, hang out and nothing else.
Somehow—except for one hot kiss—exactly that had happened. And I’d appreciated it. The fact that he honored his word has endeared him to me more.
“You don’t want to talk?” he asks me, his voice playful.
“Maybe later,” I tell him. “But first, I want you to kiss me again.”
Damon’s smile says he knows he’s got me. Last night, the kiss damn near had me taking my clothes off, but I had refrained because we had both been playing the “we’ll-be-good” game.
Damon moves toward me, and the next instant, my eyes are fluttering shut as his mouth connects with my skin. His kiss begins at my neck, with broad, sweeping strokes of his tongue. His tongue moves from the base of my neck to the underside of my jaw, eliciting sweet sensations over every part it touches. When he has done the same to the other side of my neck, he gently sinks his teeth into the skin on my cheek. From there, his mouth moves to my mouth, where instead of simply kissing me, his teeth graze my bottom lip. His fingers stroke the baseline of my jaw as we neck, adding to the delicious tingling going through my body.
I’m standing, frozen, letting him work his magic over me. I have never been kissed quite like this before, and I can’t help but savor it for a long moment.
Once Damon has suckled my bottom lip, he pulls back and looks down at me. He grins, and it is clear that he knows just how effective his kiss is.
“You didn’t kiss me like that last night,” I say, as if it is an accusation of some sort. If he had, I think I would have quickly gotten naked.
“Last night, we agreed that we weren’t going to go to bed together. So I gave you a … tamer kiss. But now, you want something more.” He suckles my earlobe.
“Ohhh,” I moan, my pussy throbbing. Suddenly, I need to be naked. I need to have this man’s hands and mouth all over my body.
I reach awkwardly for the zipper at the back of my dress to drag it down. After I fumble for a couple of seconds, Damon says, “No. Let me.”
I expect him to turn me around so that he can have access to the back of my dress, but instead his hands encircle me as he reaches for the zipper. And as his fingers find the zipper, his lips find mine.
Again, Damon’s lips move over me with the skill of someone who has perfected the art of the tease. He knows exactly how to use his lips to excite. What starts as a slow kiss—the kind that says we are equally enjoying every exquisite moment of it—soon turns to raging lust, with both of us hungrily opening our mouths wide, tangling our tongues together as if we cannot get enough of each other. Our breathing is suddenly ragged, our emotions raw. Damon urges the dress over my shoulders and then my hips, and I feel it slip to the floor.
I am surprised when Damon abruptly ends our fiery kiss. Stepping back from me, his eyes move over my upper body—my naked breasts—and he emits the deepest of moans. He likes what he sees. A lot. That kind of knowledge to a woman is power.
“Damn, you’re hot,” he whispers into my ear. Then he covers both my breasts with his hands, letting my nipples grow into taut peaks against his palms. Once they’re hard, he brushes the pads of his thumbs over my nipples again and again. Closing my eyes, I arch my back and moan, wanting more than just his teasing touch.
I flinch when I feel Damon’s tongue between my breasts. I open my eyes and look down at him. I want to see the moment his lips close around my nipples, but instead, he only kisses the area between my breasts and then raises his head to look at me.
“Come on,” he whispers. “As much as I want to do you right now … “ He kisses my cheek. “Right here … “ He kisses my other cheek. “I say we should make it past the doorway. I’ve got a perfectly good bed.”
“I know,” I say, sounding breathless.
Damon takes my hand and walks with me through his loft to the steps that lead upstairs. His bedroom occupies the entire second level, and with the blinds open this afternoon, it affords a great view of Buckhead Triangle Park.
Now that we’re in his bedroom, he gently pushes me and I fall
