0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. (20 page)

I couldn’t help the stomach flip, didn’t even know if I wanted to. I felt like a kid, or at least like I imagined most kids did when they found that first love back in school, the one person they wanted to be near all the time. I burrowed closer to Erik and nuzzled my lips against his. I didn’t mind being smaller, since I knew he’d never try to intimidate me. I liked how I felt wrapped in his arms. I
loved
how it felt to have his mouth rubbing up against mine all soft and new and strangely familiar. It was right.

We kissed for a long time, slow at first, with little touches and tastes, but at some point I noticed we weren’t just kissing anymore, and holding had turned into clutching and trying to get closer and closer.

My face was getting hot, and I wanted out of my sweatshirt. I didn’t want Erik to freak out. If this was new and a little scary for me, I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

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Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

“Erik, I’m a little hot. I was going to take off my sweatshirt, but I didn’t want you to think….”

He reached for the hem and started tugging it up himself. “It’s okay, Rue. It’s good.” Erik took his shirt off too, and then pulled me back into his arms. We both trembled for a moment, like we were acclimating ourselves to the feeling of being together like that. Then he started trailing his fingers up and down my spine, testing the texture of my skin.

“It’s so soft,” he murmured.

“Your skin is soft too.” I pressed a wet little kiss on his chest. My mouth felt tender and swollen, pleasantly worn from our kisses. I hadn’t simply
kissed
for this long in years. Maybe not ever. I liked the texture of his skin against my lips and took a long time to explore his collarbone, the relaxed muscles of his chest, the valley in between.

Erik’s breath caught in his throat when I kissed a nipple and tasted it with my tongue. “Is that okay?”

“
Yes
.”

“Erik?” I knew what I wanted to do for him. I didn’t know if he’d be receptive.

“Hmmm?” His eyes were all sleepy and sexy. He was so different from the guy I’d met back in the fall.

“Can I?” I pulled at the waist of his boxers. “I think you’ll like it.” Erik looked a little nervous, but he lifted his hips and let me pull his boxers down and off. He was pretty. I wanted to taste and touch and feel him in the back of my throat. I was good at giving head. I’d been complimented before. But I didn’t want to be just “good” with him. I wanted to drive Erik insane. Wanted to show him what it could be like with me. I shimmied down and nudged Erik’s legs open with my thigh.

I thought it was hot, his bare skin against the fabric of my sweats. I liked that I was still covered. I was usually the one showing it all off.

He quivered when I licked his stomach, trembled when I sucked on one of his hipbones, and jammed his fist against his mouth to catch a shout when I covered his cock with my mouth. God, I’d missed how that felt. He was substantial, thick and warm and pulsing against my tongue.

[132]

one small thing

“
Rue
….”

I could hear it in his voice, he was crazy turned on, maybe even a little panicky, and he wanted to come. He
needed
to come. And I needed to give that to him. I pushed on his legs until he bent his knees, making more room for my body, then I wrapped my arms under his legs so I could touch him, feel his body as it arched in the air. I undulated my tongue against the back of his crown, then sucked him down deep so he was pushing at the back of my throat, just how I liked it.

I knew he was unraveling. His breathing was all over the place, and he kept tossing his head back and forth and arching his hips into me. I didn’t mind; I knew he’d never learned what to do. His sweet inexperience was more of a turn on for me than the most skilled and seasoned lover. I cupped his balls in my hand, feeling them tighten, draw close to his body.

Just a few… more… touches.

I pushed with my thumb up against the taut skin behind his balls, took him deep in my throat, and watched him explode utterly and completely. It was hands down the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. When he was done, I released him slowly, not wanting the moment to be over.

I laid my head down on Erik’s stomach, which was damp and warm and musky with his scent, and wrapped my arms around his waist. He was silent, but cupped my head in his hand and rubbed my hair while he let his heart slowly calm. I tightened my arms and kissed his belly again, inhaling contentedly.

I don’t want to let go of you….

Erik

IT WASN’T how I thought it would be, and yet so much more than I expected. Even as curious as I’d been after reading those books, after all of the thoughts and dreams I’d had about Rue, I never thought I

[133]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

would actually
like
it. The descriptions I’d read made it seem so messy, so invasive, so… personal. And it
had
been all of those things, but somehow none of that had mattered when Rue touched me, put his mouth on me.

My heart still raced from the feel of it, the pressure, the tight, wet heat. Rue’s head was on my belly, his soft hair under my fingertips, and suddenly I wanted more. I wanted to touch him. All of him. I wanted everything I’d read in those books, everything I’d imagined, every kiss and caress I’d ever envisioned… but only with him. With Rue.

It should’ve been scary. But it wasn’t.

“Can I touch you?”

Rue’s head jerked as if the sound of my voice had startled him, and he looked up at me. In the dim light from my lamp, his eyes were evergreen, his face powder-pale from the makeup he wore, his eyeliner and purple eye shadow smudged.

I could tell he was really tired, and right away I wanted to take the question back. But then he smiled at me, sleepy and slow.

“Of course.”

Rue moved up to lie beside me on the bed. He still had his sweatpants on, and I knew if I took them off, I’d find the purple fishnet tights and those tiny little pink briefs that had driven me crazy earlier.

But no matter how angry the clothes had made me before, when I thought of all of the other guys who would see him dressed that way, right then I wanted to look my fill.

I sat up and moved onto my knees. Rue lifted his hips when I reached for the waistband of his sweatpants, making it easier for me to tug them off. In the next second, my shaking hands were on his legs, and I was touching him with the sort of careful reverence people usually reserved for something precious. To me, he was.

I ran my palms along his shins and calves, then up over his knees to his slender thighs, feeling the contrast between the material of the tights and the softness of his skin. Rue’s legs were smooth, not hairy like mine. In fact, I noticed he was smooth
everywhere
. His chest and stomach. His arms. He didn’t even seem to have much facial hair. I wondered if it was natural or if he removed it all somehow, and that led

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one small thing

me to wondering whether or not the skin around his cock would be hairless too.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I hooked my fingers into the top of his briefs—well, I guess they were more like bikini bottoms, really, since they looked similar to what Jabba made Princess Leia wear in
Return of the Jedi
—and glanced up at Rue for permission. When he nodded and gave me another little smile, I drew them slowly down, along with the tights he wore underneath. I had my answer right away.

There was no hair on him
there
either. I liked the way it looked. More than liked it.

I tossed the clothes aside and reached out to touch. He was already half-hard, and when my trembling fingers brushed over him, his erection filled all the way. I was surprised to see that, despite the difference in our heights and body types, he was bigger than me.

Definitely longer and maybe even a bit thicker too.

Rue made a quiet sound as my fingers explored him. A shiver moved over his body, and goose bumps broke out on his skin. I watched in fascination. I’d never seen another naked man in person before, let alone touched one. The thought that I had the power to affect him in such a way, just by putting my hands on him, filled me with a strange sense of awe.

I trailed my fingertips over the tautness of his abdomen, circled pale pink nipples, traced the line of his collarbone and the dip in the middle. I followed the elegant line of his throat up to his jaw and then higher, to his lower lip. I paused there to drag my thumb across it, toy with the rings he wore, the ones I felt against my mouth when we kissed.

Rue’s lips parted, and his tongue darted out to lick the tip of my thumb. He took it into his mouth and sucked a bit, and the warm, wet suction reminded me of the way it felt to have those lips wrapped around me and his hands on my hips. His eyes were on my face, and whatever he saw there made him release my thumb and reach up to brush the hair out of my eyes.

“Erik….”

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Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

My fingers continued their exploration. I traced the dark lines of his eyebrows, drew my finger down the bridge of his flawless little nose. “You’re so b-beautiful.”

I hadn’t planned on saying it, wasn’t even sure if was the right thing, but it must have been because Rue’s eyes softened, and he pulled me down for a kiss.

As our mouths met, I settled on top of him, nestled in the cradle of his hips. It felt so good to have his bare skin against mine, his arms wrapped around me. Being touched by him didn’t make me nervous or uncomfortable the way it always had with everyone else. It was perfect and soothing and exhilarating all at once. I didn’t want to pull away; I only wanted to press closer.

So I did. I kissed him and ran my hands along his sides and down to his hips, memorizing every curve and hollow. “I could touch you forever,” I murmured into his mouth. And it was true. He was the only person I had ever wanted to touch, to hold, or be close to. I wanted to be what he needed me to be. I wasn’t sure why or what it meant. All I knew was when I thought about Rue, there was an ache in my chest, and when I wasn’t with him, I wanted to be, and whenever he left me, it was like he took a part of me with him, and I didn’t feel whole until he came back again.

“You can touch me whenever you like,” Rue said. I could hear the smile in his voice and feel it against my lips. “Wherever you like.” I kissed him again. Every time it got a bit easier, a little more familiar. It felt natural to swirl my tongue around his, to nip at his lower lip and gently tug one of his rings with my teeth. He moaned and ground up into me. I felt the length of his erection against mine, both hard and silky-soft. Another contrast. I liked it. I liked it a
lot
.

The kisses went on and on, sometimes just the light brush of lips, sometimes fast and hot and greedy. Our bodies kept moving, at first nothing more than that slow, steady grind, until that wasn’t enough anymore. It built and grew, and we strained together, skin slick with sweat. I knew it was going to happen again, but I wanted Rue to be with me. I wanted to do for him what he’d done for me.

[136]

one small thing

I reached down to grip Rue’s hips and jerked him harder against me. I didn’t know what I was doing or if I was doing it right. I was working on pure instinct alone, but Rue’s lips hadn’t left mine, and he hadn’t stopped moving beneath me, so I knew it couldn’t be bad. It didn’t feel bad to me. It felt incredible, frantic and wild and out of control. That wasn’t normally a feeling I would welcome, but with Rue’s fingernails digging into my back and his legs tight around me, I embraced it, let it wash over me and run through me.

As my body splintered apart and came back together, Rue was my anchor. He held me so close, even as the shudders overtook us both, even as we both spilled and cried out, the sounds thankfully muffled by the unending kiss we’d been sharing since the very start. And then we drifted back down together, his fingers in my hair, holding my head to his rapidly rising and falling chest.

I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat as my racing pulse began to slow. It had been a total roller coaster of a night. So many emotions, from anger to fear to desire. I’d been so terrified earlier, not knowing where he was, or if something had happened to him. I never wanted to go through anything like that again. If I could do something so that he didn’t have to work in that place anymore, I would. But there was nothing I could do, and it made me sad.

“I wish I could take care of you.”

“Hmm?” Rue said drowsily.

I lifted my head to look up at him. Our eyes were only inches apart. His were half-closed, and I could tell he was on the verge of sleep. “I wish I could take care of you and Alice.” Rue’s eyes widened, and he suddenly looked more awake. “You do, babe. I don’t know what I would have done without you all these months.”

“But I wish you didn’t have to work so much and you weren’t so tired all the time. I wish I could give you what you want.” Rue’s fingers trailed along my cheek. “You already have,” he said, his voice sleep-slow and soft.

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I hoped the words were true.

He’d already given me everything I never knew I wanted.

[137]