Page 85 of Just This Once

“Yeah, you can.” Grasping her chin lightly with my free hand, I lifted her mouth back to mine and slanted my lips over hers, kissing her again, my tongue mimicking the plunge of my cock.

Her nails dug into my back.

I pumped faster.

Her thighs clutched me tighter.

My free hand ran down her spine to grip her ass and hold her up longer each time I pushed into her.

My scrotum drew in. I was getting close. Gnashing my teeth, I tore my mouth from hers and buried my face in her hair, trying to hold off, even as I thrust more fervently, losing any semblance of dignity as I started to pound.

“It’s too much,” she panted, going taut beneath me. “I can’t—I can’t?—”

And then she did.

She came in a flash of shudders and cries, and it was the most glorious sound I ever heard. As her body began to milk me, I surged deep and clutched her hard, releasing into her with a long, tortured groan. “Fuck…”

For the longest time, we stayed like that, gripping one another and pressing close. Then I exhaled and went limp on topof her, trying to brace most of my weight on my arms so I didn’t crush her.

I didn’t want to leave, and Hope certainly didn’t push me away. But my arms were beginning to shake from how much she’d taken out of me, and I finally rolled off to the side to collapse next to her.

We lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and collecting our thoughts before she finally managed a breathless, “Holy shit. You actually made me come. During sex.”

I smiled. “Told you you didn’t need any of that fancy shit.”

Hope rolled onto her side to face me so I could see her grin at my dry joke. I rolled to face her as well. We studied each other as if amazed by this odd ceasefire that seemed to bloom between us. Then her eyes brightened as she asked, “Can we cuddle?”

My eyebrows lowered into an immediate frown. “I don’t cuddle.”

“It’s just this once,” Hope encouraged, poking my arm. “What’s the harm?”

“Idon’tcuddle.”

She said nothing, just sent me a look, and I gave in, hiding the fact that I wanted to touch her again with a disgusted sigh. “Fuck. Fine.” I reached for her, asking, “Head on my chest or spoon?”

“Head on your chest,” she answered, curling in against me with one thigh thrown over mine and her arm looped around my waist. Her shoulder tucked into the crook of my arm so one of my pecs could pillow her cheek as her head settled naturally on my chest.

“I can hear your heart,” she murmured a moment later.

“So I actually have one?” I asked dryly.

“You definitely have one,” she answered. “And it’s beating. For me.”

I swallowed in dread because I thought she was right.

The shifting of her soft fingers along my abdomen made the muscles underneath tense greedily, craving more.

She was soft and naked and curvy against me. I slipped my hand from her shoulder to stroke its way down her arm as I tipped my face over to bury my nose in her hair, inhaling deeply.

Her thigh moved so she could rub her leg down mine, and from there, we simply luxuriated in the feel of each other, unable to stop touching and exploring with lazy, content strokes. I found a mole on the small of her back, a bruise on the inside of her arm, a birthmark just above her ear in her hairline. And she discovered the small scar on my hip, a freckle on my neck, and each muscle on my abdomen.

“For someone who doesn’t cuddle, you’re doing surprisingly well,” she praised.

“Shh…” I nuzzled my nose in her hair as I ran my hand up the back of her neck so I could grip her hair. “I’d forgotten that’s what we were doing and had convinced myself this was just foreplay for the next round.”

“Next round?” she asked even as she shook her head. “What’re you talking about? There’s no next round. We made a deal. It was just this once, remember?”

“Yeah,” I agreed leadingly with lifted eyebrows. “Just this onenight.”

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