Better Hate than Never (The Wilmot Sisters, #2)(72)

My head lands against the door with a thunk as his fingers change their rhythm, rubbing faster. I’m so close, trying so hard not to scream with pleasure on each thrust of his hand, as it brings me right to the edge.

“You gotta come for me, Kate,” he grits out. “Come on, honey. Give it up.”

“So close,” I whisper, working myself on his fingers, making a fist with the fabric of his shirt as I crush my mouth to his.

That’s when we hear voices coming closer again.

We freeze, our breathing so ragged and loud, I don’t know how they don’t hear us.

But then the front door eases open again, then shuts; the lock engages with a click.

And then we crash down on each other. The door thumps as Christopher thrusts into my hand, as my hips roll with him, banging into it.

“God, Kate.” He throws his head back when I bite his neck and chase it with my tongue. He starts to work his thumb over my clit in fast, expert circles, his fingers still pumping inside me.

I gasp as heat pools, a white-hot flash flood that tears through my limbs, washes between my thighs, through my breasts, making my toes curl. “Gonna come,” I beg. “I’m gonna—”

“Yeah,” he grunts. “That’s it, honey. Ride my hand. Come all over it.”

I slam my head against the door as pleasure pounds through me in seismic waves. A low, pained groan tears out of Christopher as he punches his hips into mine, as warmth and wetness seep between us and he comes against my waist.

Panting, messy, we kiss. Slowly, he lets my legs go and steadies me as I find my footing. I stare up at him, touching him, cresting my hands over his shoulders, down his arms, while he holds me tight to him, his hands savoring my ass, kneading it as he kisses me, reverent and deep.

And then the real world begins to seep into my awareness. The soft plink-plink of water dripping from the faucet. The muffled sounds of traffic outside, a siren wailing.

Christopher stares at me, his expression unreadable, chest heaving. He cups my face and presses one last soft kiss against my lips, breathing in. Exhaustion sweeps through me. Between paintball and the most intense orgasm of my life, my eyes feel heavy, my limbs heavier.

I want to drag him down the hall and make him fall on me like we did on the couch, for his big, heavy body to weigh me down. I want to sleep for a week. My legs wobble.

“Easy,” he says quietly. He paws around for the light switch and turns it down, until it’s low and dim.

Then he sweeps me up in his arms, making me squawk. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Putting you to bed.”

Then leaving, is the unspoken remainder of that sentence.

I can tell by the way his expression turns serious and focused, its playful, passionate fire dimmed; the way that he walks me to my bed and lays me on it, then drags the blankets up.

“Stay,” I whisper, brave in the darkness, in the raw need that I feel. No one’s ever touched me like this, made me feel free and weightless and known, a fire billowing in the air that feeds it, hot, wild, alive. I don’t want to be left alone in that. “Please.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, his hand on my hip, his thumb sweeping tenderly against the skin beneath my shirt.

Then slowly, he stands.

My heart plummets. He’s leaving.

Except, he isn’t. He stops at my bedroom door and pushes it shut, bathing the room in darkness.

I hear drawers open and close. Fabric slide off his body. I hate the darkness for what it hides, knowing he’s changing out of the clothes he came all over.

A shirt hits my face. “Put that on,” he says quietly.

“You’re so bossy,” I grumble. But I still drag off my shirt that’s wet at the hip and throw it somewhere in a corner of the room before I pull on the new shirt. It’s as soft as I love my shirts to be, but surprisingly loose. I get a whiff of his scent and smile to myself. He gave me one of his shirts.

Christopher crawls onto the bed, pointedly on top of all the sheets, like he’s going to “try to be a gentleman” again, as if he didn’t just dry hump and finger me into orgasmic oblivion against a bathroom door. Then again, even with my wardrobe change, I’m still a mess of grass stains and paint and sweat, so maybe he’s just protecting himself from that.

Then again, he’s covered in all that stuff, too.

So why the distance?

Gently, he tugs the sheet up to my chin, then drifts his fingers across my forehead, down my temple, across the bridge of my nose. “Time to settle that busy brain of yours, Katydid. Go to sleep.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I mutter, feeling my eyelids give in to the temptation to slip shut. “Besides. I’m not”—a yawn rudely interrupts me—“tired.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re not exhausted,” he says, his fingers slipping through my hair along my scalp until they bump into my messy bun. “Your eyes aren’t sleepy. Your limbs aren’t heavy.”

Another yawn. “Nuh-uh.”

I hear the smile in his voice as his knuckles tenderly graze my cheek. “And you definitely won’t have sweet dreams.”

I wish I could say his reverse psychology doesn’t work. But my eyes drift shut. My limbs are heavy.

And I dream the sweetest, filthiest dreams.