Page 71 of A Lesson In Beginning

“This position isn’t quite comfortable or easy.”

“No one said it would be easy. But, I’ll go easy on you tonight. Why don’t you straddle me?”

“What?” I nearly shrieked. The thought of straddling him, here, in the living room, on the sofa, of all places! It felt risky, and exciting, and somehow taboo. How strange that out of all the things I had seen and heard in my time at The Temple, straddling a man on his couch was the thing that scandalized me.

“You heard me. Up and over, love. Straddle me with those luscious thighs. I’ve been dying to get back between them again.” Offering me a hand, he helped to hold me steady as I lifted my skirt, shifting until I had straddled his thighs.

Holding myself up so that I did not simply crush him with the sheer weight of me, I found my balance as awkwardly as one possibly could.

“Sit down, love.”

“I’ll crush you.”

“Then let me die happy.” His hands pulled me down hard until I collapsed in his lap, his erection brushing against my core. I gasped. “See? No death, only pleasure. Now kiss me again. This time, like you fucking mean it.”

His eyes gazed into mine, and my passion flared to life as I leaned in, closed my eyes, and let myself go, losing myself within his kiss. My hands cupped his face, tentatively brushing my lips against his, just feeling him, feeling this, feeling us.

I found the elastic holding his hair up above his head and tugged, ignoring his grunt of discomfort as I pulled his tresses loose, letting them fall down around his face and over the back of the sofa, our kiss never breaking for a moment.

His lips parted, his hands sliding up my thighs and around my hips, grasping and tugging me down, rocking my hips against his erection. My breath fluttered against his lips as I gasped.

“Just like this.” His whispered breath mingled with mine, our hips grinding as our lips stayed just barely parted; not kissing, not seeking more, just feeling one another.

“Joel.” I panted his name like a prayer, reverently worshiping the way our bodies felt against one another and nothing more.

“Kiss me and steal my breath again, beautiful woman.” Before another breath rasped between us, I found his lips again. No longer the slow, sensual discovery of one another, I took his lips with the same vigor and passion he had taken mine so many times before. My teeth grazed against his lower lip, his groan of pure need shooting through my body like a bullet, settling straight into the place where his arousal met my own.

“Take my shirt off.” His words barely registered in my mind. All I could think of was the feel of his lips beneath mine, of his arousal pressing and rocking into my core, faster, and faster and — “Take my shirt off, love.” His repeated command somehow filtered through.

My hands slipped down his shoulders to his chest, fisting in the soft material near his stomach and tugging upwards. Lips finding lips, we stole one another’s breath as the shirt inched upwards, hips never ceasing their endless pursuit of pleasure. Our kiss only paused briefly as his shirt slipped over his head. I tossed it behind me, careless of where it landed.

He pushed my hips backwards, breaking our kiss for only a moment, his eyes taking in the utter mess I was. And I did not care.

“Touch me.” His hands found my own, bringing them to his chest, urging me to explore his body the way he had done with mine.

“I’ve never…” I trailed off, the words trembling on my tongue, uncertainty and insecurity flooding my delirious mind.

“That doesn’t matter. Explore me, Adah. Take your time. Just touch me.” His large hands covered my own, holding them to his chest as my eyes closed. His heart pounded beneath my touch, hammering in an echoed chorus not unlike the one my own heart thundered out.

Leaning forward, I kissed him again, slower, more intentionally. My hands traced over the smooth skin of his chest. Small, fine hairs textured the flesh beneath my touch, but he was smooth and solid with muscle. I had known he was strong, but these muscles were far more pronounced than I had realized. Understated, like that of a runner, yet strong beyond any man I’d ever seen this close, much less touched.

The flat circles of his nipples hardened beneath my touch. My fingers slipped lower, over the ridges of his abdomen, and lower, his hair becoming thicker as I neared his navel and began my trek upwards again. His arms wrapped around me as mine found their way to his shoulders again.

In one gasping breath, he had me in the air, legs wrapped around his waist, and he walked us away from the sofa. To where, I did not know. I did not even open my eyes to find out. All I knew was the man carried me like I weighed nothing at all, and kissed me like I was the very oxygen he needed to survive.

“Hold on to me, love.” Our lips parted as he ascended the staircase to the second story. As I glanced around for the briefest of moments, a tiny part of my brain registered that this space, too, was an open concept like the lower floor, airy and expansive. Beautiful. My lips, however, were not satisfied with the lack of kissing, and instead found purchase against his neck, peppering kisses along the line of his throat and up to his ear.

“I want you.” I whispered the words desperately, throwing caution and self-preservation into the wind.

“And you’ll have me, love. That I can promise you.” As soon as we had crested the top of the stairs, his lips found mine again, lips and tongue slipping and sliding as he carried me into the bedroom.

CHAPTER 21

I had expected him to set me down on the bed, to lay me back and touch me as he had before. Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room, letting my feet find the floor before him, and only then breaking our kiss.

“I never want to stop kissing you.”

“You’ll get more soon, I promise you, love. Take my pants off.”

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