Problematic Summer Romance (Not in Love, #2)(65)

“You don’t even know how grateful you should be, Conor.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s not revealing at all—”

“It’s not about revealing, Maya.” His fingers dip down past the waist of my bottoms, and my breath catches. “It’s the way you take over the space around you. You remind me constantly, loudly, indecently, of all the little things that make you you. It’s impossible to escape, and it makes me very angry.”

His hand inches down, and I bite my lower lip. “I’m sorry for being myself.”

“You should be,” he says, but the last syllable becomes something groaned and choked and dragged out, and he’s touching me right between my legs. I’m wet, because…because of him. It’s not new. But maybe he didn’t know, and when the tips of his fingers first brush against me, his eyes flutter closed. “Fuck me, Maya.” He seems to sink back into himself for a heartbeat. All his muscles clench, as though knowing that I’m this ready triggered an earthquake inside him.

“That’s what happens every time I see you,” I say. My hand finds his thigh. “I hope you think about it from now on. Every single time we are together.” He’s hard. I can feel the heat of his erection between us. My palms travel upward to cup him, and—

I wish I could say that it surprises me, the way he grips my wrist and traps it against the wall. But just like everything else, this has to be on his terms. He doesn’t want to be in control of me, I don’t think, just of himself. For that, however, he has to minimize environmental interference. Keep the variables constant.

I grin, feeling troublesome. “Like I said, boring.”

“Can you be good? Just for once?”

“I’ll think about it.” My free arm reaches up. Locks around his neck as I pull him down to me. “What’s it like?” I ask against his ear, inhaling sharply when his fingers slide between the slick lips of my cunt. Conor smells like a night out, faint traces of cigarette smoke and brine and sweat, but underneath it all it’s just him. I want to lick the skin of his collarbone, so I do. “To be this boring?”

“You may think I’m boring,” he murmurs against my ear. “But I’ve been fucking superhuman for so long, when it comes to you. Since Edinburgh.”

The tip of his middle finger sinks inside me, just one digit, and my nails dig into his nape, feeling the thrum of his blood underneath. There’s his thumb, too, lazy circles around my clit, glorious, perfect pressure, delicious friction. He listens to every sound I make, pays attention to the way I move against him, and…What turns me on the most, even now, is the moan that feels dragged out of him. The fast, shallow rhythm of his breath that tells me he’s as into this as I am.

“And after that?” I ask him.

He closes his eyes. Slides deeper. I consider myself lucky: I’m easy, responsive. I’ve always been quick at finding my pleasure, alone and with partners. This, though, is different. It’s not just my body—Conor is in my brain, pushing into my soul.

“What about in Austin, Conor?” The pad of his finger strokes the right spot. My body contracts against him in surprise.

“Fuck, you—unbelievable.” His teeth open at the base of my throat. He lets go of my wrist and his hand finds my hip, twitching, tightening around it.

“Do you remember that night, a little over a year ago?” Heat rises within me. Between us. My words are breathy, choppy, damp against the fabric of his shirt. “You needed to talk to my brother. But he was gone, and I opened the door, and—”

His silent yes vibrates through me. “You had been asleep,” he says through clenched teeth. I wrap both arms around his neck, press my breasts against his chest, and he swears under his breath.

“Remember what I was wearing?”

A low groan. He does remember. It was very little, after all.

“You turned around and left. Like you were in pain.” I press a lingering kiss against his Adam’s apple. Run a finger through his hair to pull him toward me, arching to meet his lips.

He draws back, a warning growl deep in his throat.

This man, who’s been fingering moans out of me for the past five minutes, refuses to kiss me. Conor and his fucking control. “R-really?” I stutter. “Are you really going to do this to yourself?”

His thumb slides on my clit, rougher. My hips jerk toward him.

“Come on, Conor.” I try to laugh, but there’s not enough air in my lungs. “You want to kiss me so bad—oh.”

I come suddenly, painfully, straining against him, shuddering like I cannot contain the pleasure within my body, and it feels so much better than the best orgasm of my life, the one I had on his thigh in Edinburgh. It’s a tide, sweeping over me, a glow of heat from within that has no right or reason to be this damn good except for one.

Conor, watching me. Conor, touching me. Conor, talking me through it.

“It’s okay,” he says when I slump in his arms, mouth silk-soft against my temple. “It’s okay, Maya.” He’s hard against my flank. I may be wobblier than jelly and out of breath, but there’s nothing that I would love more than to make him come, too.

“You’re gonna do that again, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he says, pressing a kiss against my cheekbone. Like the fucking liar he is.