Page 58 of Perfect Praise

When he throws me back against the pillows, I pause to take in his room. This feels monumental, like I’ve made it to some marker that qualifies me to see it.

I angle my head upside down to stare at the white abstract painting above his headboard. The ceiling is so high it seems like an optical illusion, and the black canopy bed is connected at the top in a modern open square. To my right there are large French doors, which I assume open into a bathroom, and to my left sit two low chairs in front of the biggest pane of glass I’ve ever seen.

It’s exquisite, but there is no way he decorated this. I’d never imagine Locke as someone with a canopy bed.

“I bought it furnished,” he says, voice low, watching me from the end of the bed.

I’m suddenly very aware that Locke somehow managed to get my golf dress off down to my waist between the car and here, and it’s blindingly bright. I start to cover myself with my hands.

“Don’t do that,” Locke says gruffly. “Arms above your head.”

I listen, although it’s not fast or unhesitant enough for him based on his look of annoyance.

He steps up against the end of his bed, grips my dress bunched around my waist, and starts tugging. “You’re going to feel as sexy as you actually are when I get through with you, Maren.”

My dress goes down my hips and causes my legs to fly up in the air when Locke pulls it down and off my body completely. He lets it fall to the floor next to his feet, but his eyes never leave mine.

Part of my brain doesn’t want my legs to fall open and be this exposed for someone who has never seen me naked, but the majority of my body fights that thought. Since last night, I haven’t had a moment to calm myself enough to not be turned on, and I want him to touch me desperately, no matter what it takes.

Locke smirks, closed-lip and not enough to make his dimples appear, but enough to make his devilish look send a shock straight to my clit.

“Do you normally go commando under your dresses?” he asks, voice gravelly, “Or were you hoping I’d find you today in the photography closet and fuck you?”

“Both,” I whisper, widening my knees.

He’s still clothed, just staring at me, but the crotch of his pants is pulled out tight. “Wider,” Locke says.

This time my obedience earns a hum from deep in his throat as he slinks to his knees. He grabs my thighs and slides me closer to the edge of the bed.

Locke licks two of his fingers and runs them over my clit. The cold sensation snaps through my blistering hot core like a slingshot. I gasp when two of his fingers enter me.

“This pussy is perfect,” he says, eyes never straying from between my legs. “I wish you could be inside my brain right now. See how perfect you feel. How warm and tight you are.” He pulls his fingers out slowly before he sucks them into his mouth. I whimper at the loss. “How good you taste. I would give up every single thing I have to be inside you right now.”

“You can be,” I huff under my breath, “without giving up anything.”

Locke shakes his head. His palm rubs over me, two fingers go in quickly before he pulls them out and stands to hover over me. “Repeat after me,” he says, running his fingers over my lips. “‘My pussy is perfect.’”

I’ve never called or thought of my vagina as my pussy in my life. But something about thinking about it this way makes mypussypulse, fire violently rushing down my core.

“My pussy is perfect,” I whisper.

He smiles, this time with dimples, then presses his fingers into my mouth and praises me, “Good girl.”

I moan around his fingers as my veins ignite.

“Have you ever been edged before?” he asks, dropping his face into my neck.

He kisses his way to my boobs and circles his tongue around each of my nipples.

Every time I suck in a breath, Locke looks me in the eye and does it again, like he’s making sure he got it right, memorizing my body. Every curve, every dip, every notch, every blemish. The intensity is every bit as… intense as I imagined. What made me ever think this would be a bad idea? Because Locke Hughesnotices. He learns and keeps learning, and he demands perfection from himself.

He bites my hip bone. “Focus.”

“How can I focus when you’re looking at me like that?” I ask breathily and shake my head. “Except for the last twenty-four hours, no, I’ve never been edged.”

Based on his stare, he likes my answer. “Do you want to be?”

I pick my head up to look down my body at him as he trails his fingertips along the inside of my thighs.

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