Page 104 of Can't Help Falling

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“WHATMAKESSENSE?” Fin, still straddled across Tyler’s lap, poked at his chest. He gritted his teeth because she was extremely wet and extremely warm and even through their two pairs of underwear he could feel her in excruciating detail.

“You,” he told her honestly. “No wonder you had no interest in me pursuing you. No wonder you distrust guys who want you so badly. Because they pursue you relentlessly, usually insulting you if you turn them down, and when you do say yes to one of them, apparently he’s not even patient enough to get you off? Jeez, I’d have kicked my ass to the curb too, if that had been my experience.”

Her brows were down, watching him like he was some alien creature who was trying to communicate in another language.

“You say that now...” she said after a minute. “But forty minutes of fruitless canoodling later, and you might be singing a different tune.”

He sat up so that they were nose to nose. “Absolutely zero canoodling is ever fruitless. If I wanna canoodle you, trust me, I’m doing it for the sake of canoodling. And orgasm should not be viewed as the only destination. That’s a total orgasm killer.”

She cocked her head again to the side as if she were still actively trying to figure out what language he was speaking. “You’re serious.”

“Dead.” He brushed his nose over hers. “Something I learned as I got older and got better at sex is that pressure to perform is not sexy. Ever. Dudes usually figure this out in relation to their boners.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a watched pot never boils.”

She threw her head back and laughed and he silently thanked God that the furrow between her eyes was gone. “You mean that if everyone is just sitting around and waiting for the boner to rear his head—”

“Then six more weeks of winter it is.”

She laughed again before her smile gave way to an inquisitive look. “You think the same theory can be applied to my orgasm?”

He gave her a droll look. “Fin, if you’re counting down the seconds to when I’m going to get frustrated and give up on your elusive orgasm, you are literally never going to have said elusive orgasm. Also, if the only reason I’m touching you or going down on you is to get you off, then I’m probably going to get frustrated if you don’t get off. The point is that we’re supposed to be enjoying each other. Reveling in each other. And if we’re doing that, pressure free, then usually that leads to the happy fireworks times.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And if it doesn’t lead to the happy fireworks times?”

He shrugged. “Then you get yourself off during sex. Or we use a vibrator. Or I give you ten minutes alone in the shower to take care of business. I dunno. I’m just saying that if we’re actually considering having sex with each other regularly, relationship-style, then there’s gonna be times that you don’t come or my boner takes a coffee break or whatever. If we just kind of accept that we can still have good sex even if we’re not checking every box every time, then we’ll actually have good sex. Where I’m not praying for boners and you don’t have one eye on the clock waiting for me to tell you there’s something wrong with your hoo-ha.”

Her face changed from one emotion to the next, but Tyler wasn’t sure he was accurately interpreting any of them. She looked confused. And hopeful. And trepidatious. And excited.

“That actually makes a lot of sense.”

He propped his hands behind his head. “You know, I’m not the worst.”

She rolled her eyes and rubbed herself against him. “So, what happens now?”

He gulped and pressed his eyes closed for a moment against the image of a topless Serafine St. Romain straddling him. He deserved the medal of honor for having that conversation while she was naked.

“Uh,” he grated out. “We have sex?”

She laughed. “Good idea.”

And then the weight of her was gone as she scampered to the bathroom and back, condoms in hand.

She held out a hand to him and he took it. She yanked him up to his feet. “I like your theory about pressure. Beds are a lot of pressure. Let’s go to a less sex-havey place.” She tugged him a few feet to the side, and they both sat down hard on top of the chaise longue that took up one wall of her bedroom. It was romantic and curvy and entirely too small for two people. It was perfect. Her body was jammed up between the wall and his body, her breasts in his face, her legs twisted with his.

Tyler leaned forward and took one of her nipples in his mouth, testing her, suctioning, nibbling. He kept his promise and reveled. He lost himself in the piano keys of her ribs, the plush paradise of her breasts.

She kissed at his ribs, dragged her hands through his chest hair. Just when he was about to ask her if his chest hair bothered her at all, she rubbed one cheek against it and bit his pec. That was a yes to the chest hair, then.

They grappled together, sweaty and cramped on the chaise longue. She dragged her foot up the back of one of his legs, pushing her toes underneath the leg of his boxer briefs. He grunted and tucked his thumbs into his waistband, tugging them down over his hips. She reared back and helped him get them the rest of the way down.

Her eyes landed between his legs, and she surprised him by breaking into a wide, lustful smile.

“You look like you have some very evil, very dirty plans in store for me,” he said, unable to keep from tracing the shape of her hourglass with his hands.

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