Page 118 of Courtside

She drew courage from his blatant attraction. The way his feelings for her were right there, tossed out into the open for anyone to see. No hiding. No hesitation.

“I want you to go down on me.”

CHAPTER31

ECHO OF IRISH SPRING

SAGE

His maple-syrup eyes darkened, pupils blown wide. She watched as his tongue wet his upper lip, like he was thinking about tasting her. “Now?”

“I mean, I was thinking a bed might be better than the shower, but whatever you think is —”

Suddenly the water shut off, leaving nothing but the echo of drips against the tile and lingering steam in the air.

David held the door open, his eyes fixed on the place where her thighs met. “Get on the bed, Sage.”

Sage snatched a towel from the rack as she ran into David’s room, taking only a moment to run the soft towel over her skin before tossing it aside and climbing up onto the bed. Flopping onto her back, she watched David walk slowly through the bathroom door.

She didn’t understand it, but there was something profoundly erotic about watching a man absently rubbing a towel across his chest and stomach. Maybe it was the dark hair that covered his torso, or the way the vee of his hips sloped down to his already hardening cock.

He threw his towel aside and approached the foot of the bed. His eyes trailed up and down her body, lingering on her nipples and mouth. Sage fought the urge to squirm, urgent for some kind of touch against her skin.

“Be patient,” David commanded, his voice dropping into an even lower register.

She watched, transfixed, as he climbed up, crawling until he hovered above her body, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his skin. She wanted it, longed for it, and tilted her hips up toward him. A shiver started at the base of her spine and traveled through the rest of her body, leaving gooseflesh on the surface of her skin.

“David,” she whispered, needing him to do something, anything, to relieve the way that her body yearned for him.

He skipped her mouth entirely, dropping his lips to the base of her throat and trailing soft kisses down the valley between her breasts. The coarse hair around his mouth brushed against her, and she shuddered at the pleasure of his touch.

“I’ve been thinking about doing this since that first night.” He sucked one of her nipples into his hot, wet mouth and her body bowed up, craving more, more, more. “Your fucking thighs, Sage. I’ve imagined you squeezing these perfect thighs around my head while I taste you.”

A keening whine fell from her mouth, intensifying when he grazed his teeth over her sensitive bud. He moved between both breasts, repeating the torturous attention and winding her up and up until she felt her grip on reality begin to fracture.

Gripping his hair with both of her hands, she yanked him away from her. “Your mouth,” she panted, her heartbeat already pounding between her thighs. “I need your mouth now.”

David planted a quick kiss to her lips, and before she had the chance to respond, he was moving down her body with the grace of a predator. The muscles in his shoulders flexed as he dipped down and nipped at the tender skin of her belly.

When he reached the apex of her thighs, he looked up at her. “I’m going to take such good care of you,” he rasped. “And you’re going to tell me what you like. Tell me when it’s good and I’ll do it over and over until you come on my tongue.”

And then his focus returned to her body. He licked and sucked like he was trying to devour her. It was like nothing else, there was no comparing it, and the build of pleasure within her reached a new, precarious height that had her almost afraid of what lay on the other side. She teetered on the edge of something that felt new and – terrifyingly — out of her control.

But David’s firm grip on her thighs reminded her that with him, she was safe. He would be there to pick up the pieces when she inevitably fell apart.

And when she lurched over the edge and reality dimmed all around her, leaving nothing behind but pleasure unlike anything her body had ever experienced, even when her bones dissolved and overwhelmed tremors wracked her body, she knew that David Hughes had her.

That he would take care of her, and she would let him.

* * *

“I think I’m going to look for a house,” David said, leaning back against the wooden headboard. “With my contract extension, I think it’s time.”

Sage rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one elbow to look at him. “What are you looking for?”

“A big yard for Daisy, close to campus, big windows, and wood floors.”

Sage smiled at how relaxed David was, his hair mussed from being grabbed and his lips soft and swollen. He’d insisted on getting her off twice with his mouth before he’d bent her over the edge of the bed and had his way with her. And when he came he’d gasped her name, a chorus ofSage, Sage, Sageagainst the back of her neck.

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