Page 22 of On the Edge of Scandal

“Of course I did.”

“Then give me this.”

I lean over him, bearing my weight with my hands on either side of his head, and kiss him. He hesitates, and if he pushes me away, I’m going to have a serious case of tomato-face. Also rage-face, because I’m not a little girl who doesn’t know my own mind. If this will cost him too much, I’ll back off, but I think he wants this, too.

After an unbearably long time of pressing my lips to his, he gives in and starts to kiss me back, his tongue licking against the seam of my lips, asking for entrance to my mouth which I’m only too happy to grant. It makes my insides warm, makes blood flow to the pertinent parts of my body, makes my breathing come hard.

We kiss for a while, learning each other, exploring, tasting. His hands settle at my waist, tentatively, as if he’s not sure what else he’s allowed to do even though we’re pretty well ravaging each other with our mouths. It’s not relaxing like sitting at his feet or laying by his side, but it’s tensing an entirely different part of my body, spaces I don’t mind so much being wound up. With a break between us, I beg, “Touch me, Ash. I want you to touch me. Under my clothes. Everywhere.”

Again with the hesitation, but I don’t stop, just kiss him again, hoping my genuine enthusiasm will coax him into doing what I’ve asked. I don’t want him to doubt that I want this, I want him. One of his hands finds a firmer grasp on my waist, and the other slips between my shirt and my back, his fingertips skimming along my skin, up to my bra strap.

Unhook it, unhook it.But I don’t say it; I can be patient. Sort of. Sometimes. Fuck that. I sit up, straddle his thigh and pull my shirt over my head. He’s clasping me at my waist again and clenches his jaw when I reach back and do it myself, and when I strip the cotton from my chest and my arms, drop it on the floor, he mutters, “Fuck me.”

“That’s the plan.” My chipper reply earns me another choked noise as I grip the placket of his shirt, and tug. “Can I take this off?”

I love the groan he makes, and love even more how he responds not with words, but with pulling the shirt out of his waistband while I attack his buttons. When it’s joined my shirt on the floor, I lean over him and gasp, because our chests against one another feels as good as I’d ever hoped for.

Scratchy and soft at the same time, I take advantage of the sensation until my nipples are drawn up and taut, aching to be touched, and blood pooling in my breasts and between my legs. Which would explain why I start to rock against his thigh, pleading for contact and friction.

Then he’s gripping the sides of my ribcage, pressing me up far enough to slip his hands between our chests and work at my breasts, kneading and taking my nipples between his knuckles to tweak that makes me grind against him even harder.

“Inside me, I want you inside me now.” It’s possible I shouldn’t be so very horny—it’s not like I’ve had any sort of dry spell—but even when I’m a mess mentally or emotionally, sex has always had a way of being a way to sort myself out some. Physical intimacy and also using something I’m good at to handle things I’m not so great it—all good things.

I roll onto my back, unbutton and unzip my jeans, shove them over my hips and kick the lot to the end of the bed. Then Ash is turning to hover over me, but he’s got that pained look on his face.Stupid, stupid, Bronwyn, when are you going to learn? When are you going to be as considerate of him as he is of you?

I stop him with a hand on his chest. “Is having me like this going to hurt you?”

I can hear the grit of his teeth. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. If it’s going to hurt you more than you already hurt, it’s not fine. We’ll figure out another way.”

“But—”

“No buts, Levenson.” I use my hand to shove him onto his back. “I don’t want to worry about whether I’m hurting you while I’m getting fucked. It would be distracting. So tell me, would this be better? Me on top?”

His glass-green eyes narrow, but he doesn’t argue with me. “Yes, that would be better.”

“Cool. Do you have condoms?”

He gestures with his head to the bedside table and I lunge to slide open the drawer, pull out a strip of them. “Got your quota, I see?”

Ash barks a laugh. “Yeah, sure do. I don’t know why, I wasn’t planning on . . . Just a fit of optimism I guess?”

“You think six is optimistic? I think we’re lucky there’s two of us so it’s double. Think we can do it?”

His eyes roll back in his head and he blows a breath audibly through his mouth. “I don’t know, but that’s the kind of challenge I can get behind.”

I rip one off the strip and toss it on the bed, but as eager as I am for him, there’s something I want to do first.

Ash

“Pants off.”

Holy hell, my head is going to explode. She’s like a block of C4, and her combination of being bossy in a caretaking way, but also needing me so badly is intoxicating, makes a chain reaction set off in my brain. She’ll be lucky if I last at all once I get inside of her.

I expect her to unbutton and lower my fly, tear open the packet, take me in hand and roll the latex over me while I throb and try not to spill in her grip, but she doesn’t. We work together to get my pants all the way off and then she settles herself over one of my thighs again . . . and goddamn, lowers her head to take me in her mouth. If I thought I was in danger of losing it before, I’m skating on the edge of indignity now. Not that anyone could blame me, with her dark hair making a curtain around her face, framing the pretty picture of her pink mouth sliding up and down my cock, her dark lashes fanned over her cheeks until she looks up at me with those gold eyes.

She wraps a firm hand around me before she pops off. “I meant to ask if this is okay, but I . . . got distracted.”

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