Page 83 of If Not for My Baby
A low noise catches in his throat. He picks up speed and the pleasure knocks the wind right out of me. My body spins out into something stratospheric. It’s so strong it rocks me into some kind of orbit. I’m gasping for air, wrenching my hands in the bedsheets, shoving Tom’s hand from my clit when I’m sure one more stroke will break me.
Tom comes, too, groaning my name over and over again. Choked on each syllable, cursing as he does.Fuck,Clementine. Fuck.His hips snap, his heart races above my own, and then he slumps over me, heavy and scorching-hot to the touch, limbs slack.
When I can think in actual words again, Tom’s already rolled off me and tossed the condom. He lies back down across from me with his head at the foot of the bed on the one remaining pillow we haven’t launched to the floor.
The view is nothing short of divine: Thomas Patrick Halloran, gorgeously naked, sprawled on his side, resting on an elbow. His legs are longer than the king bed allows, and he tucks his knees in a bit to make space. His entire, massive body of lean muscle and pale skin is glistening with a fine dusting of sweat and dark, curled hair. His mane is as Tarzan-unruly as ever, a mess around his shoulders and down his back.
And those eyes: deep green like damp grass. Fixed on my face like I’m something all too precious to him.
“That was…” I’m trying to cut through the energy coursing between us, but I might’ve been wrong about human words returning to me. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” I finally say. “You’re excellent at everything.”
Tom tips his head back in that exhilarating laugh. “I can’t bowl for shite,” he says. “I don’t exercise. I’ve the social battery of a Nokia from two thousand and ten.” That wrenches another grin from me, which he seems to like. “And as you pointed out at dinner, I’m not winnin’ any medals for romantic stability.”
“You always do that.”
To my surprise he doesn’t ask,Do what?Nor does he balkat my bluntness—he never seems to. Tom only pulls me toward him by the ankle and squeezes the corner of my foot until I purr. “It’s how I was raised. A country-wide affliction, in fact.”
Somewhere in Tom’s discarded jeans, his phone buzzes again. Muffled this time, under layers of clothes and sheets.
“You sure you don’t need to get that?”
Halloran shakes his head. “I’m off the clock.”
“So being Irish means you can’t admit how talented you are.”
“I’m proud of the albums I’ve made, I can say that. I’m immensely fortunate. I’m just not after complimentin’ myself. Neither are you,” he says softly, before pressing his lips to the top of my foot.
“I am, too.”
His lips travel to my calf. As he lifts my leg I remember how thoroughly naked I am and pull the sheets over me, but he’s not staring anywhere but my eyes. “Do it, then.”
“I am talented,” I admit, less shy than I expect to be. “I can sing.”
“That’s good,” he encourages. “Keep going.”
I roll my eyes. “Tom, this is—” Before I can saysillyhis lips have found the back of my knee and I sigh so hard I cough. Sexiness incarnate, I am.
But Tom isn’t fazed. “Come on, love, don’t stop.”
My head lolls back into the pillows as he trails that mouth up my thighs dangerously slow. “I’m…good at—at performing. I—”
Tom’s reached the white sheet over my stomach. He’s caged over my abdomen like a creature on the hunt. I’ve neverwished to be prey so badly. As if in a trance—entirely unwilling to release his mouth from my skin even for the briefest of moments—he uses his teeth to pull the sheet aside and mouths up my ribs and to the side of my breast. He suckles the skin there until I weave my fingers into his thick curls. He smells like after rain and my own lilac perfume, which releases something wickedly animalistic inside of me.
“Does it turn you on,” he murmurs against my bare skin, “knowing how hot I get just breathin’ you in?”
I nod my head feverishly. “Mhm.”
He kisses my neck and sucks beneath my ear until I whine. He doesn’t stop, so I resort to rubbing myself against his thigh like a dog in heat.
“Atta girl,” he praises. “Take whatever you need.”
“You,” I say, pulling him up toward my mouth. “I needyou.”
While we kiss Tom nudges my knees apart and I open for him like a bud. With effort, he pulls himself away from my mouth to slink between my legs. His tongue drags once across my low stomach until I can feel my own slickness drip out of me. “Tom,” I beg.
“My sweet girl,” he murmurs before his mouth finds my clit again.
The noise I make is untethered. My nails pull feathers from the down comforter bunched around us. Pleasure rocks my body and I teeter on the edge of a third orgasm I hadn’t even realized was building.
