His question was lost on me, because his hand released my hair, trailing down my ribs and hips until his fingertips hooked in the cotton of my boy shorts. One swift pull had them over my ass, and another freed them from around my thighs until they dropped to my ankles to join my sweatpants.
“I’ve been reading your books,” he continued, tongue lashing out to taste my earlobe before he nibbled it. The sound of his breath in my ear combined with that little bite sent chills racing down my legs, and I arched into him, my ass meeting his firm erection that slid between my warm cheeks.
He groaned at the contact, but kept on with his slow torture, hands crawling up my abdomen until he was softly plucking at each nipple.
“I know what you want,” he rasped. “What you don’t want.”
He twisted my nipple between his finger and thumb, a small snap of pain quickly covered by a roll of pleasure as he massaged my full breast in the next breath.
“You don’t want soft, sweet, tender,” he told me, punctuating each word with a kiss against the back of my neck. He trailed those kisses down until his teeth were sinking into the flesh at my shoulder, and I hissed before a guttural moan I’d never heard myself release before filled the space around us.
Clay grinned, kissing the spot he’d just bitten.
“You want possession,” he continued, one hand sliding down, down, down as the other traveled up over my breasts. “You want someone to take control, to ravage you.”
He cupped me between the legs at the same time his other hand wrapped around my throat, and the double sensation made me shudder violently, collapsing into him in the most sincere surrender.
“Shawn is an artist, a musician,” he whispered against my ear, his grip on my neck tightening a bit. It made my next breath a little harder to grasp.
And I fucking loved it.
“But you’re in control of so much in your life — the team, your job, school…” His middle finger slid between my labia, gliding into the wetness pooled there for him before he dragged it back out and circled my clit. I trembled at the feel of it, but he held me steady as he continued. “So in the bedroom, you want that duty to be on someone else.”
I couldn’t verbalize my agreement — mostly because I hadn’t realized it until that moment that he pointed it out, though every sentiment he spoke rang so true, I wanted to throw my hands up and scream amen. But also, because every ounce of my awakening was tapped into his hands, the one around my throat and the one between my legs, each claiming me in equal measure.
“You don’t want to be someone’s muse,” Clay rasped. “You want to be someone’s undoing. And let me tell you, Kitten…” His voice rumbled against my ear before he sucked the lobe between his teeth. “You’re mine.”
I whimpered at the admission, at the knowledge that I could be the undoing of such a powerful, explosive man. Then, all at once, all his warmth left me, hands and mouth disappearing, all but the pressure to spin me around to face him again. I nearly fell with how my ankles were still tied up by my pants, but Clay steadied me.
We were heaving chest to heaving chest, Clay’s emerald eyes sparking a fire low in my belly as he dragged the tip of his nose along the bridge of mine.
“You read my books,” I breathed, a question and a disbelief all at once.
“Fuck yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
Clay swallowed, brushing his knuckles along the side of my cheek. “I told myself it was to help you get Shawn,” he said. “But in truth, it was to help me please you.”
I shivered as those words rolled over me, my nipples hardening at the cold air and the delicious warmth of that sentiment.
He wants to please me.
He read my fucking books.
“Now,” he said, running one hand roughly up the front of me. His fingers dove up between my breasts, thumb sliding over my nipple on the way up to my neck. He gripped it for only a second before his hand was framing my jaw, tilting my chin, his thumb sliding to cover my mouth. He circled my lips with the pad of it, dragging the bottom one down slowly until it popped free. “Get on your knees for me, Kitten.”
I dropped so fast Clay smirked, and then he wrapped his hand around his length, guiding it to my lips. I lapped up the precum rolling off his tip like a drop of dew, moaning at the taste of him before I took his full crown along my tongue.
He bit out a curse, eyes rolling back before he let his head drop, too. His hand cradled my head, fingertips curling in my hair as he helped me suck him. I knew just what to do after our lesson, how to roll my tongue along his shaft and hold him deep in my throat before releasing him with a little gag. And Clay took every stroke I gave him with pure adoration and appreciation, his eyes crawling over me or casting up toward the ceiling when it became too much.