The Sizzle Paradox, page 17
I laugh a little and move closer to her again. She doesn’t back up this time. Cradling her jaw in both hands, I murmur, “So tell me. Have you ever wanted to be naked in public?”
She nods, staring into my eyes. “I think I have a little bit of an exhibitionist side. But I’ve never given in to it.”
I smile a half smile. “Now’s your chance.”
There’s a long pause. We’re both breathing faster, shallower. I’m afraid she’s going to say no. I’m afraid she’s going to say yes.
“Okay. But only if we strip together,” she murmurs finally, leaning forward and slipping the first button on my shirt from its buttonhole.
“Deal.”
Her small hands slip from the first button to the second and the third. She slides my shirt apart and runs her hands over my chest; my breath catches at her touch. She smiles, recognizing the power she has over me. She’s breathtaking.
Leaning over, I reach behind her—my face inches from hers—and unzip her dress halfway. My fingers graze the curve of her spine, skin lighting on fire. She isn’t wearing a bra.
Lyric licks her lips, her eyes on my chest. She unbuttons my shirt, moving lower, toward my waistband, toward my lap. As she pulls away, her hands graze the hardness there and I groan. Her eyes glitter with heat, twin blue flames.
Without saying a word, I reach behind her again and unzip her all the way. The straps of her dress slip down her shoulders, and her neckline falls lower, exposing the tops of her breasts—full, pale, silken. She watches me watching her.
“God, you’re beautiful.” I’m aware my voice is husky, my breathing harsh. Aware that I can’t stop staring at her.
In answer, she stands and lets her dress slip down her body and puddle at her feet. She steps gracefully out of it and her underwear, donning nothing but a slim silver necklace at her throat. It winks in the lantern light. “Your turn,” she says, and her voice, too, is deeper than usual.
I stand and shrug off my shirt as she watches every move. It’s like I’m her private strip show. The thought thrills me, ignites a fire deep in my chest. There’s a caveman inside me who wants to lunge at her, to pull her to me and ravish every part of her body. To feel her wetness, to plunge into her, to watch her cry out in pure hedonistic pleasure. I manage to contain that part, but barely. The leash I’m holding the caveman back with is fraying, though, and quickly. I unbuckle my pants, slide them down, and slip out of them. My boxer briefs follow.
We stand before each other, fully naked. My eyes are hungry, roving, touching her with my gaze while my fingers cry out for her body. Lyric Bishop is exquisite. She has small, perky breasts, a flat but still soft stomach, and legs that go on for miles. What I saw when she was clad in her bikini? That was just the preview. This … I could never have prepared myself for this.
“Kian,” she murmurs, and I notice for the first time that her eyes, too, have been roving my body. “My God, Kian.”
She doesn’t have to say any more. I know exactly how she feels.
LYRIC
I am a walking paradox: Every part of me is trembling, but every part of me is flourishing, confident, glowing. I’m drunk, but I’ve never been clearer about what I want. I want to run and hide, I want to ask myself exactly what the hell I think I’m doing, but I also want to throw myself at Kian. I want to wrap my legs around his waist, I want the hard length of him inside me, again and again and again.
“What next?” he asks, his voice barely a rumble. There’s a fire in his eyes and I know what he wants because I want it, too. But he’s letting me take the lead a little; he’s making sure I want it. The thought makes me wetter than I already am.
“Outside,” I say, a tad breathlessly. “I want to go outside.”
A small smile licks across his face. He looks positively feral and oh God, that expression makes my knees go completely weak.
“Okay.” He turns and begins to stride out the door, looking every bit like a Roman emperor who commands his kingdom easily and confidently. Helpless to do anything else, I follow.
We walk out onto the grass in the clearing. It is almost completely pitch-black now, save for small pools of golden light thrown by the single lanterns that hang from each tree house. I move to the center, the soft grass bending under my bare feet, tickling. There’s a cool breeze in the air, but I’m hot from the wine and sheer lust, my blood ambrosia.
Kian follows silently behind me, but I can feel the heat of him wrapping around me, teasing me, curling around every curve. I ache for his hands to touch me the same way; I’ve never been this weak with want.
I turn to him and he walks up to me, that expression of feral determination and lust on his face reducing me to a puddle of desire and nothing else. The moon shines down on us, casting silver shadows and dusting his hair and shoulders with light.
“Are we really doing this?” I whisper, wondering if I’m going to wake from a dream again like I did eons ago. I remember what Kian was doing to me in that dream and feel the blush seeping onto my cheeks.
“If you want to,” Kian replies, and I can tell he means it. In spite of him being clearly aroused and ready, he would back down if I expressed a shred of uncertainty. But there isn’t a shred, not a speck of doubt inside me. I want this. I want him.
I step closer to him, tip my head back and gaze into his eyes. “I want to.”
At that, he wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me to him, his hardness pressing into my stomach. Bending lower, he presses his mouth to mine, claiming me with his tongue, his teeth, his lips. His hands rove up my back, cup my ass, move up my arms and over my shoulders and neck as if he can’t get enough, as if this is all he’s thought about, as if he’s a starving man who’s finally given a scrap of bread.
I let him devour me.
KIAN
If the kiss in London was the match, this one is the explosion.
I cannot believe Lyric Bishop is once again in my arms, and that this time, her bare velvet skin is hot and flushed against mine. The curve of her breasts pressed against my chest, the flat of her stomach against mine, the lean muscles of her thighs—everything is driving me wild. She smells of moonlight and wildflowers and sex. I kiss her shoulders, trail my tongue against the bowl of her collarbone, dip my head and take a nipple into my mouth.
She gasps, her hands tangling in my hair too hard, and I relish the pain. For too long, we’ve been far apart, a distance between us that shouldn’t have been there and felt wrong on a molecular level. Wanting more, wanting to touch her in places I’ve never touched before, I slip a hand from her waist down between her legs, feeling the wet heat of her core, letting my fingers slide in deeper, inch by inch. She moans and presses herself against me, closer and harder.
“Fuck, Lyric,” I gasp, my desire a tsunami threatening to engulf us both. I slip my fingers out of her and circle her swollen clit. She gasps and shudders, her knees going so weak I have to hold her up. “Does that feel good?” I murmur, needing to hear it from her mouth. To see this hidden, shadowed side of my best friend, to see her raw and wild and wanting.
“Yes,” she whispers, then louder, “oh God, Kian.” I can feel that she’s close, she’s about to come already. I pull back a little.
“Not yet,” I say, smiling against her mouth. “Not so fast.”
She’s smiling, too. “Montgomery. You absolute tease.”
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask, laughing a little, my fingers tracing lightly against her inner thighs now, spreading that delicious wetness everywhere. I’m outwardly cocky, even blasé, but my mind is going HOLY SHIT, MONTGOMERY. LYRIC BISHOP IS IN YOUR ARMS, YOU LUCKY FUCKING BASTARD.
She gives me a look, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “Two can play at that game.”
I’m about to ask her what she means when she drops to her knees. Then, in one smooth movement, she takes me in her mouth, her hands cupping my ass.
It’s like I’ve swallowed the sun. My blood is fire; my veins glow. Everything in the entire universe shrinks to this one precise point of pleasure—the feel of Lyric’s soft, wet mouth on me. The knowledge that we’ve crossed the line, that there’s no going back. No matter what happens now, this is a link that’ll tie us forever. We’ll always know what the other tastes like.
Her tongue licks me slowly, deliciously, until I’m nearly doubled over and begging for mercy, for relief, my hands in her hair, pulling her braid out so her strands blow wildly in the night. The moonlight turns her golden hair silver.
She hums against my skin and I groan out loud, pushing her against me, shuddering and so, so fucking close to the edge.
Then she pulls away and smiles up at me, nearly knocking me over with the mischief, the wanton playfulness, of that smile. “Not yet.”
“Touché,” I gasp, and then I kneel, too, pushing her gently down so she’s lying on her back.
I spread her knees open with my hand, positioning myself between her legs. “My turn.” I can feel the devilish smile on my face and I’m powerless to stop it. This is what I want. Her. Now. Like this. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to do this?” I growl as I settle between her legs, feeling the wet heat from her core wrap around me. I kiss her clit softly, my tongue circling it, and she gasps and trembles under me. “Every time I’ve seen you in a dress since London. Every fucking time.”
“Really?” she asks, her voice breathy, gasping.
“Really. And maybe even a few times before then.” I look into her eyes, finding myself being honest. “I’ve had dreams about you, Lyric. Vivid, graphic dreams. Even before we started fake dating. I think there was a part of me that always wanted you.” They were more than sex dreams, but I don’t tell her that. In my dreams, we were a couple, hand in hand at the farmers’ market, me licking strawberry juice off her fingers later, in bed.
She laughs a little, shaking her head in what looks like wonder. “And I thought I was the only pervert,” she muses. But before I can ask her what she means, she looks at me again, her eyes glittering. “What did you want to do to me? In your dreams? When you saw me in a dress?”
Half smiling at her, I bend my head down. I trail my tongue lightly against her core, not quite reaching her clit. “This.” Then I nip at her clit, gently but with enough teeth so she gasps again. “And this.” I press the tip of my tongue into her, feeling her tighten against me. “Fuck, you taste so good.”
She arches against me as my tongue works against her, licking and tasting and moving slowly up and down and up again. My hands move up to her breasts, and I pinch her nipples, making her cry out, making her writhe. I watch her for a second, a Goddess in the moonlight. Then I bend my head down again and make her come.
She crashes into me, over and over and over again, gasping, shouting my name, trembling and shaking. I plunge my cock into her, rocking into her, my thumb rubbing her and she goes up to the crest with me again. My heart’s pounding, I can’t stop staring at her, head thrown back in ecstasy, legs spread for me and only me. I drive into her again and again and soon we’re both going over the edge, and I’m holding her as we come together, wave after wave after wave of pleasure with this Goddess who’s rendered me speechless in my devotion.
Chapter Twenty
LYRIC
When Kian and I are both done, thoroughly spent, he kisses my eyelids and lies beside me in the grass, panting. Waves of heat roll off him and cover me, which is good, because I’m suddenly cold. I roll closer to him and he wraps his arms around me, cradling me against his broad chest. He smells like me and I smell like him and we smell like sex, a curious mixture of the two of us that never before existed in this world. I’ve never been happier. In fact, I can’t stop grinning because I’m feeling exquisitely self-satisfied.
That’s how you have sex that’s just sex, people. No-strings-attached sex. Get-it-out-of-your-head-and-move-on sex. Masterfully executed by both Montgomery and Bishop. I imagine a crowd of spectators cheering us on and I laugh quietly. Talk about exhibitionistic.
Kian looks down at me. “What’s so funny, hoss?”
I snort. “Hoss. Who says that?”
“Me?”
I nod and kiss his chest. “You. Only you.”
“So, did that scratch the exhibitionism itch for you?” Kian plays with an unruly strand of my hair, coiling and uncoiling it around his finger that, just moments before, was in a number of interesting places.
I feel a shiver go through me that has nothing to do with the temperature and snuggle in closer to him, naked skin pressed against naked skin. “Oh, yeah. Better than I could’ve expected.”
I can hear the smile in his voice when he answers, “Yeah, for me, too. Hey. How’d I rate on the SPS?”
Raising my chin so I can see him, I ask, “You really want me to rate you?”
“Sure. I can take it.” He thumps his chest in a very Tarzan move and I laugh.
“Okay, let’s see … the invitation to kiss—really to fuck, in this case—was incredibly well done. Stroking my jaw, running your thumb over my mouth?” I squirm a little; I’m getting wet again just thinking about it. “Mm, it was good. Very good. I give you a solid 5 out of 5.”
“Wow.” I can hear the glee in Kian’s voice. “That’s pretty great.”
“And then we have the pre-sex sexual chemistry. Asking me about exhibitionism. Telling me we should get it out of our systems. That was all delicious, Montgomery. You definitely got me hot.”
“Did I?” His voice is a bit husky and he pinches my ass.
I find myself hoping his hand will continue doing other things, but no. Playtime is over. I refocus on the question at hand. “A 5 there as well, no question. Ah, let’s see. Hooking up and actual sex were all part of the same package here, so I give those a 5 as well.”
Kian mock gasps. “Are you telling me I just got a solid 5 on the SPS?”
I laugh. “Don’t get so cocky.” After a pause, I add, “It’s great, because now when I have other sexperiences, I have a solid 5 to judge them against. So thank you.”
I’m expecting Kian to enthusiastically agree or even get cocky again about his perfect sex score, but he … doesn’t. Instead, he makes a noncommittal sound in his throat that could be anything. It could be a hiccup.
I feel a small spike of alarm—my brain telling me this is something to look deeper into—but I ignore it. Kian’s probably just tired, lost in the postcoital glow and all. That’s it. Nothing more.
We’re silent then, me still propped up on his chest looking at the ring of tree houses, him flat on his back, gazing up at the stars.
“I wish I could see this every night,” he says, a weight around the edges of his words that belies his casual tone.
I study the stars, the blackened silhouette of the trees, trying to see them through his nature-loving eyes. “Which part?”
“All of it.” He looks at me then, and there’s something about his gaze that sets my pulse thumping. “Every single bit of this.”
Pushing myself off his chest, I lie on my back, my heart thudding, and gaze up at the sky without really seeing it. “Well, you can’t. There’s too much light pollution in the city.” Purposely misunderstanding what he’s saying. Or, at least, what I think he’s saying. There’s silence for a moment. Then I add, in a careless tone, “Do you think we got it out of our systems?”
There’s a tiny hesitation before he says, equally carelessly, “Oh, yeah. For sure. We can go back to normal now.”
I try to smile. “Good.”
But the intense high I felt only moments ago is seeping away fast. Serious doubts clot out the stars in the sky that, just a moment before, felt so clear.
KIAN
We’re back home now, back in our apartment and lives, post sexual experiment. I’m hiding the biggest secret I’ve ever hidden, holding it close to me like a deck of cards I’d never let Lyric see: Sex changed everything. At least, it did for me.
That night, something happened. Something shifted. When I look at Lyric now, I don’t see my best friend. Or at least, I don’t see just my best friend. I see Lyric Bishop as a whole universe—a woman I want to take to bed and spend all my time talking and joking with. Instead of leaving the sexy, romantic-partner-potential Lyric behind, I seem to have brought her with me. She’s in everything I do now. She’s everywhere.
I held Lyric under the moonlight; I caressed every curve; I became one with her, as ridiculously cliché as that sounds. In some primitive part of my brain, she’s mine now. I know, okay? I know that makes me sound like a total asshole. But it’s how I feel, in a part of me that evolved millennia ago. When she talked about using the information she gathered from the sex we had and extrapolating it to other men … I wanted to pummel the fucking tree houses to the ground. Because I don’t want anyone pleasuring Lyric the way I did. That’s my job. That’s my privilege.
At least, that’s what my inner caveman says. And hence the reason I’m totally fucked.
I’m keeping up my usual routine. It’s marginally easier to avoid her now that my defense is only a week away. I’m sequestering myself in the library a lot, even though it’s not my favorite place to work. (Home is. But home has Lyric.)
But there are moments throughout the day when I’m sure, I’m certain, I’m wearing my feelings on my sleeve. It actually takes my breath away when she walks by me and I smell her sweet floral shampoo. Once, I was getting myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen and she came to make herself some tea. Her hair was loose and when it brushed my arm, I got actual goose bumps. When I see her lying on the couch reading, I want to slide my hands up her shirt, distract her from her book, have her smile at me like she did under the moonlight, all sinful and mischievous and pulsing with desire.
This is my best friend we’re talking about. Sex with her was supposed to be just sex. She’s kept up her end of the bargain but for the life of me, I can’t seem to keep mine.
