Long Time Coming Read online

  When my breathing became shallower still and my hips moved in time with his teasing fingers, he dipped his head, flicking the tip of his tongue in butterfly kisses on the insides of my thighs, lapping at the moisture around my pussy and stubbornly not touching my clit.

  "Don’t..." A single breathy word and I didn’t understand it myself. Don’t what? Don’t stop?

  But he did. He looked at me. Exposed again. Strange how I didn’t want him looking at my face while he stroked me like that.

  "Don’t what?" he asked. "Am I not doing it right?"

  "You know you are."

  "I thought I was hurting you. Or doing something you didn’t like."

  "I don’t know what I meant. But you’ve stopped. Don’t stop."

  "I’m still touching you."

  "But your..." Again my nerves failed me. Damn them. "It’s not enough."

  "I know what you want," he said.

  "Then why don’t you—?"

  "Because I like it when you can’t think straight. I like it that you’re frustrated. I like it that your pussy’s soaking wet around my fingers and I know you want my mouth on you because when I finally do give you what you want, I bet you’ll explode." The tips of his fingers dragged slowly along the most sensitive spot inside me and I jerked up to meet them, sighing with a desire for more. His closely trimmed goatee and the stubble along his jaw and upper lip tickled as he dipped his head again, not making full contact, just letting me know he was there, knew the effect he had on me.

  And then the briefest of touches. His tongue made contact with my clit, just one flicker and then nothing. The low sound of laughter as my hips strained to meet him and then thank God, he did it again, and again, each time more forceful than the last, all the time his fingertips circling inside me in the exact same rhythm as his tongue on my clit.

  There was something just out of sight, just out of reach and I ached for it, arching my back, forcing myself up, scared it would always be just beyond me but every time his tongue ran from my pussy up to my clit and circled, I got nearer and nearer and my gasps became moans became cries.

  "You are fucking delicious," he said against me, lifting his head just enough to make his words clearer, then tasting me again. "Jesus. I could taste your pussy all night; it’s fucking perfect."

  All I knew was that I wanted him; I wanted him to make me come, and I grabbed his head, pulled him by the hair. He didn’t push his fingers deeper inside until I moved in a certain way and he followed me, let me lead the rhythm as his tongue circled on my clit, faster and faster the closer I got to release.

  "Jesus..." I gasped out one single word as the pulsing began deep inside me and his strokes became more insistent, the flicks of his tongue more rapid. "Oh God... oh God... fuck!"

  I rarely screamed words like that, so helplessly as I came, but I did then as something exploded inside me, so rapidly and forcefully I threw my head back, blind from the intensity of one of the most powerful orgasms I’d ever experienced.

  He lifted his head but kept his fingers teasing me inside, moving with each pulse, one wave coming quickly after another. I grabbed his arm and gripped it so tightly I could have left a bruise on his skin but didn’t care. I wanted him, some part of him still on or in me, until the last wave of pleasure faded, so he could ride it too.

  "I knew you’d come hard," he whispered, restrained and gentle. And just as the last ripple of climax uncoiled and faded to nothing inside me and he slipped his fingers out. "The next time will be even better."

  Nine

  From the angle at which I lay, I had the perfect view of the V of his shirt and the teaser of chest it revealed. Leo stroked my hair, stopping every so often to draw me closer for a kiss. No tongues. There was something strangely erotic about simple kisses on the lips from a man who’d just made me come with that mouth. From intensity to delicacy. So forceful and yet so gentle.

  "I loved it when you grabbed my hair; I knew I was doing something right."

  "You haven’t—"

  "Ssh, just listen. Don’t try to be the ball-breaker with me. You won’t win. I’m just saying, there’s nothing sexier for a man than a woman who comes so hard her whole body shakes and he was the one who made it happen."

  He was confident enough to use filthy language in a way that emphasized his confidence, rather than making him seem like he was trying to be dirty, playing at grownups. His first words were probably four-letter ones.

  His fingers combed my hair before his hand rested on the back of my head, holding me close, and this time his tongue parted my lips, teasing the corner of my mouth before forcing itself in. Just as he drew back I caught his tongue between my lips and sucked it, letting him pull away at his own speed, but still sucking gently.

  "Jesus. If I’d known you kissed like that I would have done it a hell of a lot sooner." Again his tongue ran over my lips, tickled the corner of my mouth and a ripple of pleasure ran through me. I loved the way he kissed as much as he loved the way I did.

  My fingers ran over the stubble of his jaw and my heart skipped a beat; men with five o’clock shadows, stubble, close-clipped goatees or any form of light facial hair turned my knees to jelly, especially when they oozed testosterone from every pore as Leo did.

  I traced a line along his cheekbone as we kissed, followed the dip in his facial contours, the hollowing of his cheek, as his kisses became more insistent, his tongue searched deeper.

  I went for a button on his shirt, the first which was still done up as he’d left one or two open. I was surprised I managed to get any undone at all, my fingers shook so badly, but got there in the end. He lay on his side and allowed it. Stared. Unsettled me with such intensity.

  "You don’t like me staring, do you? Why don’t you like it?"

  "Because you’re looking at me like the big bad wolf."

  He grinned, showing two rows of gleaming white teeth.

  "Like you want to eat me."

  "Oh baby, you have no idea."

  I tugged one sleeve of his shirt off; he let me, with no struggle or resistance. "You have a tattoo?" A tattoo, well-defined biceps and a bad attitude. Leo had it all.

  "I have tattoos."

  "Where?"

  "You’ll have to find ‘em."

  I traced my finger across the barbed wire band encircling his upper right arm. "Did it hurt?"

  "People always ask that."

  "The difference is I hope it did."

  He laughed. "You really are something else. Usually folks ask if it hurt ‘cause they’re interested in getting inked themselves."

  "Maybe one day. I just like tattooed men is all. Shows they can take the pain."

  "I can take pain all right. But that one wasn’t too bad. It’s only a small thing and I was used to it by then. This one fucking hurt though." He moved onto his back, shuffled out of the rest of his shirt and dropped it on the floor, leaving himself bare-chested. "It was the first one I had done."

  "Jesus, you don’t do things by halves, do you?" An upper sleeve tattoo covered his left arm from shoulder nearly to elbow; intricately woven crosses, daggers, hearts and drops of blood against a shield background.

  "Took fuckin’ hours."

  "And must have hurt."

  "Yeah, it did, but you get high on the pain. So I went back and got more."

  "Show me."

  "You expect me to turn my back on you?"

  "I won’t do anything." As we still lay down, I on my side, I was only able to comfortably raise one arm, show one innocent palm. "Promise. I’m just trying to examine you for signs of body art."

  "If I said I had a tattoo on my cock, how closely would you examine that?"

  "Inch by inch. And very slowly."

  "How about with your mouth?"

  I slapped his torso, playfully.

  "I’d better turn over now before the sight of you half-naked makes it far too hard for me to lie on my front."

  "I assume you mean difficult?" I asked as he rolled onto his st
omach. His shoulder blades moved as he laid his head on his hands, rippling the string of barbed wire etched between his shoulder blades. I stroked my hand over it, the heat from his skin burning mine.

  "No. Definitely hard." He wriggled his hips to make a point. "And don’t try anything while you’re back there. I’d really have to hurt you and you’re too pretty for that."

  I inhaled. Silently.

  "There’s one thing you could do though, if you wanted to make me happy."

  I kissed him on the neck and whispered, "What’s that?"

  "The one thing you could do to make me a very happy man indeed is when I turn over..."

  "Yes?"

  "You could be naked."

  "Really?" I said the word for the sake of having something to say. A placeholder, something to insert into the conversation.

  "Yeah. Get that fucking top off."

  "I had to wear something. It wouldn’t have done for me to leave the house naked."

  "I prefer my women naked. And if you’re wearing a bra, you can get that off too."

  "I would have thought you were the type of man to do that yourself. Tear the wrapper off."

  "Me? Nah. I’m all fingers and thumbs tonight. You saw what I was like with your skirt. Thirty-one years old and spazfingered all to hell. Christ, I need a smoke."

  "You want an ashtray?" I shifted my weight but he lifted his head.

  "You stay where you are. Given the choice between a smoke and you getting naked..." Leo chuckled. "Let’s just say I’m glad you’re not one of those women who gets pissy about someone smoking in their house but I’m not that addicted to nicotine. Only when I’m—" He paused, lay his head back down on interlocked fingers.

  "Only when you’re what?"

  His jaw tightened before he spoke up. "I don’t smoke that much. Just socially, or when I’m nervous."

  I ran my hand over his shoulder blade tattoo again while I considered what he’d said and tried not to shift my weight too much as I pulled my top over my head, dropped it over the side of the bed, unclasped my bra and did the same.

  "You’re very quiet back there." As his weight shifted I lifted my hips, knelt up to give him room to maneuver. He rolled onto his side, his eyes widening with barely-concealed approval and fell onto his back once more. "Jesus." He pulled my hips down so I was sitting on him properly again. As properly as I could while he was still partially dressed. "I’m beginning to think all my birthdays have come at once."

  "All thirty-one of them?"

  "Jesus." Leo reached up and with his fingertips touched the spot between my breasts, then jerked his hand away as if my skin burned him. And I wondered which of us was the more vulnerable. He jerked his hips, unbalanced me and pulled me down onto him. "So let’s even things up," he said, his mouth less than an inch from mine and so, so tempting. "Tell me how old you are."

  "Twenty-four."

  "Oh," he said as I kissed him and I didn’t know if this was in response to my age or my sudden assault and his hands slid up my back, gripping me.

  My hands on either side of his face and I finally, finally, allowed our bodies to make proper contact as we kissed.

  "So you’re seven years younger than me, Piper Holt?" He’d evidently paid attention to the nameplate on my front door.

  "Yep. Seven years, old man...?"

  "Carson."

  "Leo Carson." Rolling the words over my tongue, I smirked. "Leo Carson." Pause. "Wait a minute. I thought you said in Kelleher’s that night that my name was almost as unusual as yours. I think Piper beats Leo Carson any day of the week."

  "I was referring to my full name."

  "Which is? I assume you have an embarrassing middle name?"

  "No. Thomas."

  "Leo Thomas Carson?"

  "It sounds so sexy when you say it like that." He wriggled under me, and laughed.

  "But not unusual."

  Leo took a breath so deep his chest heaved. "I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this, but my first name..."

  "What about it? God, have you been lying to me all this time, you fiend? It’s not Leo at all?"

  "Oh it is, it is, it’s just...that’s a shortened form of my first name."

  "Leo? Short for...what? Oh, Leonard? Well that’s not so bad. Bit old-fashioned, but...no, nothing wrong with it." I stopped in case he’d been named after his father and I’d unknowingly insulted his family tree going back seventeen generations.

  "Ish."

  "Ish? Ish? Define ‘ish’. How close am I?"

  I swear he gulped. "One letter away."

  "One...? I don’t get it."

  "You owe me one for this."

  "I’ll give you one any time you like, Leo."

  "Leonardo."

  "Leo—?"

  He squeezed my thigh. "Shit, I knew I shouldn’t have told you that. You’re not to laugh. You’re not laughing, are you?"

  "No, no, I’m just...uh, well...yeah, I am."

  "Bitch." Another thigh squeeze, and another light kiss.

  "No, seriously, I just think it’s a bit, hmm, what’s the word?"

  "Sexy? Manly? Laden with testosterone?"

  "Obviously, as it’s your name. But an Irishman with an Italian name? It’s a bit incongruous."

  "I know, I know. My parents are twisted people. I should go by Thomas."

  "No, no. You look more of a Leo than a Tom. It’s more leonine."

  "King of the jungle?"

  "If you say so."

  A huff of laughter against the side of my face and his breathing changed, slowed, went as deep into his lungs as I wanted him in me. His hands went to my sides, pushed up, and his palms moved across my nipples, barely touching but still drawing the air out of my lungs, as if stealing my breath for his own body.

  "You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?"

  With one simple statement he stopped time.

  And with one simple movement, the undoing of his zipper, he started it again.

  Silk boxers – this man had class – glided past his hips. Sure, he’d been inside me; I’d felt him, but seeing his cock like that, so hard and big amazed me I’d been able to take it.

  Made my mouth water.

  He stopped and for a moment I wondered why, until I realized one of us had to move. I’d have to get off him and help him off with the rest of his clothes, or he could swing his legs over the side of the bed to get his jeans off.

  Or...

  Pushing back against his shoulder, I leaned over him again, bent down for a kiss. Or so I let him think. I wanted to see the look on his face, hear the sharp intake of breath as I let my hips drag over his hand, the hand he used to stroke his cock.

  His rhythm sped up as my breasts touched his skin and as his hand moved, it brushed against my inner thighs.

  "Take your hand away."

  "What?" Leo gasped out the word, eyes glassy with confusion.

  "I said, take your hand away. Now." The vehemence with which I spoke surprised even me, as did the fact he obeyed. Clasping my hands over his above his head, I kissed him deeply but slowly and rocked my hips back and forward, only allowing the tip of his cock to slide along the V at the top of my legs. Nowhere near my pussy and definitely not inside me, the perfect way to give him a taste of what was to come.

  "You..."

  I stopped. "What?"

  "You’re...Jesus." His hips jerked upwards but so did mine, away from him. "This...you...it’s making me crazy."

  "Good."

  "How can you...aren’t you...too horny to play me like...Let me touch you."

  Such desperate longing in his voice. All I could do was punctuate his words with a kiss.

  "Let...me..." Struggling against my hands. I kissed. "Let me...touch you..."

  "What’s the magic word?"

  "Now." Using his brute strength to break one hand free, in a flash Leo forced two fingers inside me, but didn’t force; they slid in easily because I was ready for him. "I thought so," he groaned. "I thought you were as t
urned on as I am."

  "I...I..." The rapid circling of his fingers confused me, made me stutter, pause, forget what I intended to say.

  "Now I’m really pissed off that I let you take over when I coulda been doing this with my cock all—"

  I laid my hand on his arm, forced his fingers out of me, frowning as I did so and he complied, probably wary of hurting me. I hated the feeling of being empty, not having part of him inside part of me, but I loved the look on his face. The startled confusion, the frustration, the irritation, the knowledge he couldn’t have what he wanted, at least not yet.

  Clothing still tangled around his legs so he couldn’t move or fight or topple me without the risk of falling off the side of the bed, he simply took it when I wriggled down his body, touched his cock, wrapped my fingers around and stroked once, upwards, then again, down. As I gripped him, his entire strength rose up through my clasped hand.

  Leo groaned and grabbed the slats of my headboard with both hands to lever himself up further, so he could thrust himself more forcefully into my grasp. "You...fucking hell, you stopped. What the—?"

  The tension in his abs lessened only slightly as he let go of my headboard, the cords which had previously stood out on his arms no longer pronounced. Shallow breaths made him sound like an animal in pain. "I am going to get inside you and you’re going to stop messing with my head." He made an attempt to move his legs but I laid a hand on his thigh. Stopped him. Left him still tangled in his own clothing, not naked just yet.

  Listening for the low moan in the back of his throat as I took the head of his cock in my mouth, easing my lips over it, I held on to his hips and didn’t know whether his resistance turned me on more, or the breathy moans he released.

  His skin tasted faintly salty, of perspiration, of me. With one hand I stroked him while I tongued the tip of his cock, slowly at first until he pushed himself further into my mouth, his rhythm accelerating.

  His hands were in my hair then, guiding me, and he whispered, "Harder. Suck it harder."

  So I deliberately slowed, resisted his guidance and the hands in my hair tightened, tried to force me down onto him but I wanted to savor the taste and the fact his hips quivered with my every movement.

  His breathing more shallow, more rapid, he whimpered with desire and when I tasted the tang of the droplet of pre-cum at the end of his cock, I considered stopping. But I couldn’t resist. I sucked harder and-