Page 18 of Never Always
I can’t hide the shock, my face must be filled with it, because Grange sits back down next to me. I stutter, swallow, and try to keep my composure. “And kissing is politics? Let me get this straight. You can make love with a woman without kissing her?”
He pulls his lips to one side and shakes his head. “No, making love is reserved for people who are in love. Kissing is involved there. What I’m talking about is fucking. Sex. Body parts colliding and it just feels good. It doesn’t feel like forever.”
I close my gaping mouth. “This is what you meant earlier when you said Grey wouldn’t be able to talk about dark… desires?”
Grange grabs my hand and runs his thumb over the light pink nail on my forefinger. He brings it to his mouth and sucks it, keeping his blue eyes on my face. It’s warm. His tongue flicks my finger and the pulsing knot at my core contracts. I suck in a surprised breath.
He pulls his mouth off my finger, a popping sound punctuating the air. “That. What you felt. Is merely a desire. You had a bad first fuck, Fire. I’m just trying to teach you what it was supposed to feel like. No strings attached. Just lessons.” Sex didn’t feel anything like that. Sure, I got wet eventually, but I didn’t come, and Grange’s mouth on my finger made my pussy rage with desire unlike anything I’ve felt. He’s right.
There’s no sense denying it. “If I let you give me an orgasm, it’s merely a transaction of a different kind?” My panties are soaking wet and he wouldn’t even have to talk me into sex at this point. I’m ready and willing.
“I’m not really feeling it anymore. Maybe another time. Want some water? I’m thirsty.” He stands and saunters into the kitchen like we’re talking about the weather instead of sex. “I’ll bring you some ice water to pour on your pussy. Douse that blaze.” I hear him laughing at his own joke.
I stand, fuming. “You can’t do that. I get that you had a bad upbringing and you have a hot temper but you can’t treat people like this. I’m trying to be your friend and you’re being mean. Plain and simple. I opened my home to you. Don’t talk to me like that. It’s disrespectful.”
“And if I said, let me rub your pussy until your eyes roll back in your head, what then? Still disrespectful?”
“I…I…yeah, I guess that is, too.” My reply is weak. A lie. He watches me over the rim of his glass as he drinks. “I’ll go set up the game.” Retreat when you can’t win, I guess.
He comes back and takes off his shirt. When I eye him, he tells me he’s just getting comfortable and that he sleeps shirtless. Ignoring his muscles is hard because the fire burning between my legs is at a fever pitch. He picks up the black queen and rolls it between his fingers. “If I win we go to sleep. If you win, I give you an orgasm.” What if I also want an orgasm if he wins, too? I don’t have the gumption to say it, though.
So, we play. I ignore his muscles. The warmth from his minty breath as he thinks. The way his deft fingers roll a piece when he captures it. And by some miracle, I mate him. When I glance up, I see his sly grin. “Did you throw it? You did. Oh my gosh, that’s the mark of a horrible person. Throwing a game.”
He picks up the black queen once again. “Or a man on a mission. Your pick. Lay down on the floor, take off your shorts, and open your legs. I won’t even touch you. Keep the panties on.”
I do as he says because when a man who looks like Corrick Granger tells you to do something, you do it. Either because he’s three times your size, or because the tone of his voice tells you you’re in for a good time.That, or death, my subconscious reminds me. He’s a felon. But he said he wouldn’t touch me.I also can’t deny that I want this as much as him. With a strong hand, he moves the coffee table out of his way and crawls over my body.
I draw in a breath. “Remember to breathe, Fire.”
“Okay,” I say meekly.
“Do you trust me?”
“As much as I need to in this moment?”
His chuckle is a salve to my nerves. I slam my eyes closed and vow not to open them until this is over. “Do you trust me,” comes the question again.
As much as I’d trust the serial killer running around? “I’m letting you sleep in my house and I’ve told you secrets. I’d call that an affirmative.”
“Relax.” Grange bends my knees and pushes my legs open. “Tell me when you’re getting close. I don’t know your body yet.” The way he says yet makes my core clench. Opening my eyes, I watch, I have to.
I feel his hand on the inside of my thigh, he trails the queen down the inside of my leg, across my panties and then up my other leg and back down to my center. I jump at the contact.
“It’s warm now,” Grange says, watching the chess piece as he strokes me over my panties, focusing on my clit. I gasp, I lay my head back on the floor, I grab a couch leg—I do anything and everything to counter my center of gravity. He moves the piece up and down quicker now and I’d love to be able to think about anything else, but the orgasm is building.
Bringing my chin to my chest, I watch as Grange leans over, his gaze lingering on mine as he opens his mouth and pushes hot air from his mouth to warm me further, and then the first waves of pleasure hit. Air and a chess piece. The two things responsible for the most mind-boggling gratification I’ve ever felt.
Then it happens, my eyes roll back in my head like he said they would, and my body buzzes with an energy unlike anything else. My hips buck as he keeps twirling the piece over my clit. He sits back. “You didn’t tell me when you were getting close.”
I put both hands over my eyes and start questioning everything in my life. “Figured it would be pretty self-explanatory. I’ve been easy for you to read in basically every other way.”
“I could have prolonged it if you told me. Next time.” Oh, thank God, he said it. Next time. Once won’t be enough. A glutton for punishment, I’ll be a mere pawn in whatever game we’re playing.
“See, Fire, everyone always tries to protect the king. But the queen?” he says, bringing the piece from my clit up to his bottom lip. He rolls it from one corner to the other. “The queen gets shit done.”
I groan, shaking my head in disbelief. “Duly noted.”
He laughs as he jumps up to his knees. “Didn’t even touch you. Imagine that. Better yet, imagine what it would feel like if I did touch you.”
