Page 51 of Poppy Kisses
He licked through my slit with a quick flash of his tongue, landing on my clit. Electricity snapped over my skin. I bucked into him, and he growled, his strong grip holding me in place. He worked me like he thought this would all stop in a heartbeat. It couldn’t stop. I would implode if I couldn’t explode. The combustion had already started, and I needed to finish.
I tangled the fingers of one hand in his short hair. My abs were clenched, holding my knees up and out to the sides.
“Yes, Jensen. Yes, yes, yes.” In a faraway part of my brain, astonishment swirled and coalesced. At no time in my life did I think I would be in this position with this man. Not only that, I was more comfortable with him than anyone I’d been with. Broad daylight shone through the windows. Thankfully, the kitchen faced the empty field that would be mine a year after I married this man.
Married. My desire swelled and a flush of heat hit my center. “I’m so—” I wasn’t close. I was there. “Jensen!”
My voice echoed through the room as I came, my body shaking. I was no longer yelling, but all I was saying was gibberish. Murmuring my thanks, my amazement, my utter appreciation for the best orgasm of my life.
“Christ, that was beautiful.” He put my underwear back in place and kissed the inside of my thigh. “When can I do it again?”
Reality crashed into me. He was rising, his gaze on my exposed chest. I wrestled my shirt down, and disappointment filled his expression. My shorts were…somewhere. Now what? We weren’t supposed to fuck around during this arrangement.
There were no rules against oral sex. Should I add some?
My body still hummed, and the satisfied thrum between my legs would be happy for all this to happen again.
“Um, we probably shouldn’t?—”
He cupped the side of my face with a big hand. “You’re getting scared away.”
“I’m not scared, and you don’t have to make everything into a competition.”
Confusion darkened his eyes, but I jumped off the counter and searched for my shorts. They’d landed in the sink.
“It was an observation,” he said quietly. “I’d never coerce you to do anything like this with me.”
I exhaled, clutching my shorts in my hands. My back was to him. I didn’t mean to accuse him of that, but that was exactly what I had done. “I know. I just wasn’t expecting this. Between us. It makes getting married so much more complicated.”
His dry chuckle lacked humor, and yeah, I knew how that sounded. That sort of chemistry with marriage vows? I’d want fifty years to go by before we remembered we were supposed to divorce. But I got a year, and I didn’t want to come out of this three hundred and sixty-five days later wishing for forty-nine more years while he was signing the divorce papers.
“It doesn’t have to be hard,” Jensen said.
I turned around, wishing I’d put my shorts on, but it would be distracting now. Except the way his attention kept dropping to my legs was doing the same. His reaction made me want to walk around without pants all the time.
“We’re adults,” he continued. He adjusted the big ridge behind the fly of his jeans. Even after the way I reacted, he was still hard? “We can fool around and be mature about it.”
“Feelings happen.”
He tilted his head. “And you don’t want them to?”
“I don’t want to get hurt.” I was more exposed than I had been minutes ago. “I like you, and you make me feel good, and I’m not even counting what you just did to me. That was…well done.”
Smugness filled his eyes, and to prove how hopeless I was getting, I found it sexy. “You liked it?”
My cheeks burned. “Did you not hear me holler your name?”
“Your thighs were around my ears.”
I was going to ignite. He twisted me up inside and out, and the result was that I wanted more. “Just because I liked it”—a lot—“doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the island, seemingly oblivious to the monster erection he still had. “I’m going to do whatever you’re comfortable with. You tell me never to touch you again, and I won’t. I can’t promise that the next time I jack off I won’t be seeing your sweet pink pussy in my head.”
His words were a hot breath on my smoldering kindling.
“You don’t think you’re helping me, but you are, Poppy. Before you showed up in town, I was coasting through life, knowing my path was veering off the road. I was afraid I’d have to move me and Auggie or that I’d have to get a job that would keep my mom from going to Arizona where she has some beau who’s making her giddy again.” He swallowed, his expression turning solemn. “I was an empty shell, wondering if I’d ever feel again. Then you showed up with that wet shirt and those legs, and I’m very much a man. Your part of our bargain has already paid off. Just having you understand me and what’s going on? I don’t feel like I’m a wannabe who can’t do what the professionals can. Not only that, you’re trusting me with a gem the whole town adores right after I lost a job because I spelled my name wrong. That’s priceless.”
Humbled, I tightened my hold on my shorts. I didn’t do all that for him. He did it all for himself. His work should’ve spoken for itself. It wasn’t his fault people didn’t bother to look below the surface.
