Burn Me Once. Clare Connelly

do you feel about being fucked fast?’

      His laugh is borderline apologetic, and there’s a vulnerability that makes me ache for more than just this. But only for a moment.

      ‘I feel really, really good about that.’

      I rip the top off the condom with my teeth and then slide it over him as he steps out of his jeans. For a moment I wonder at his size—I haven’t slept with anyone in a really long time. Is it possible I’ve forgotten that dicks do this when they’re hard? But it’s big. Really big. And beautiful.

      A shiver swirls through me. He pushes his shirt off impatiently and then he’s lifting me up once more, carrying me against his chest, cradling me, into the bedroom. He throws me on the bed and reaches for the remains of my skirt, tearing it off me and then pulling my thong down my legs.

      It’s not slow, like he was with the bra. His hands graze my legs, my calves, my thighs, but that’s accidental. He needs me now as much as I need him. There’s no sense denying it. No sense in pretending.

      As he brings himself over me I push my palm against his chest, knocking him so that he is on his side, next to me, and we’re face to face. I kiss him as I hitch my leg over his hip, and then push up on my knee so that I’m straddling him.

      I don’t know why having control is important to me, but I suppose if I had to analyse it I would probably say that I feel so utterly out of my depth in what I’m feeling that I need something to make me have a sense of agency.

      Choice is my agency, though, and I choose this. I choose to move on. I choose to forget. I choose not to let Jeremy make me cower any more. I choose all of what we’re doing.

      And my choice has nothing to do with anything other than desire and need and everything to do with Ethan Ash and me—Alicia Douglas.

      We are two chemicals, mixing together, swirling, swarming and about to explode.

      ‘Fuck me,’ I whisper as I lift up and lower myself over him, taking his length deep inside me slowly, letting my muscles adjust to this strange newness. To his size and his needs.

      I almost can’t bear the perfection of that moment. The haunting rightness.

      He lets out a long, slow grunt and his fingers dig into my hips. He holds me down, low on his length, and he throbs, pulses. I feel every jerk of his desire deep inside me. I hold my breath, chewing on my lip as my nerve-endings quiver in response. His cock is whispering secrets within me and my body is listening intently.

      It’s but a moment. A magical moment. And then he’s moving, holding my hips low as he thrusts, his abs rippling with each movement. I drop lower, my mouth chasing each ridge of his chest, my tongue flicking his hair-roughened nipples, my body pressed against his.

      His fingers roam my flesh again, like an object, like he owns me, and I love the feeling of being owned by him. I roll my hips and he swears, moving his hands to hold my face, dragging me up to his mouth, to kiss me. And he pushes up, flipping me onto my back while barely breaking the kiss.

      Oh, God. It’s bone-meltingly perfect. Like this, he is deep, so deep, and he thrusts harder and faster and his tongue echoes the movements. I lift my legs and his hands grab my ankles, pushing them higher, moving them over his shoulders so that he has complete access to me. It breaks the kiss but I don’t care, because now his lips are moving over my leg, and every thrust is waving me on, nearer to explosive release.

      I dig my fingers into his shoulders and there it is!

      I cry out as the orgasm shreds me, my hand lifting to his chest to still him, to implore him to wait, so that I am able to feel every tremor of the earthquake he’s created. He knows. He waits. He is patient. The only sound in the room is that of his breathing, loud and hoarse, his control almost at breaking point. But he watches me, watches the effect of pleasure on my face, my skin, and then, when he knows—because he knows me—that I can take it again, he moves once more, slowly at first, letting new sensations build up, before he drops my legs back to the bed and brings his mouth to my mouth, kissing me, making me groan under the weight of the rightness of that moment.

      The next time I come it’s with him. We are both on the edge of the cliff, stepping off it together. My fingers seek his and I lace them together again, and that act of intimacy means everything and nothing as our bodies sing in unison.

      We are entwined. Him, me, and the luxury of the Park View Suite. I fear that I am lost. Or is that I’m found?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      IN AND OUT. In and out. I breathe slowly, trying to calm my racing pulse, my raging nervous system, but still my body is part electrical current, part hurricane.

      ‘Okay,’ I murmur softly, more to myself than anything else. I’m processing it. Or trying to.

       What just happened?

      He pushes up onto one elbow so that he can look down into my eyes and I spy the galaxy in his.

      ‘Okay.’ He grins. ‘That was...’

      ‘Perfect,’ I supply, lazily tracing a drop of sweat as it runs down his chest. He leans forward to kiss my fingertip and his dick, still strong inside me, makes me groan anew.

      So far as exorcisms go, I think we might have nailed it.

      ‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘It was.’

      He kisses me again, but this time it’s slow. Gentle. A kiss of curiosity that I welcome. Damn it. I’m back at those paths, looking at each of them, wondering, wondering, and uncertainty is making my knees weak.

      Do I want his curiosity? Do I welcome it? Or does it speak too strongly of wanting other things than this bed, this man, this night?

      ‘Are you hungry?’

      ‘Hungry?’ I blink, the question not at all what I expected.

      He nods against my lips, then braces his forehead against mine. ‘Yeah. You know, that thing people get? It generally involves needing food. Eating. Maybe conversation.’

      ‘I’m familiar with the concept.’

      My own little divot forges between my brows and his eyes lift to it. His grins, and that makes me smile, erasing the similarity.

      He rolls his hips luxuriantly, slowly throbbing warmth through me, and desire surges like a wave at high tide, rolling inwards towards the shore. I lift my hips to meet it, to welcome it.

      ‘Room Service,’ he murmurs. ‘Definitely Room Service.’

      Still inside me, he stretches, reaching for the phone on the bedside table, and my whole body stretches with his, reluctant to relinquish even a hint of connection.

      He brings his mouth back to mine, the phone hooked casually under one ear.

      ‘Ethan Ash,’ he says, and my eyes lift to his, surprised until I realise he’s speaking to someone else.

      That surprise, though, is nothing compared to what shoots through me when he pulls out of me, leaving me instantly bereft, before inserting a finger deep into my core. I can’t help the moan that escapes my mouth. It falls out like a waterfall, slumberous and urgent at the same time.

      His finger swirls around already-over-sensitised nerve-endings and I arch my back as he brings his mouth to my breast at the same time.

      ‘Two crab linguine. Some fruit.’

      ‘A peach,’ I whisper.

      ‘A peach,’ he repeats, then drags his mouth across my chest, his stubbled jaw making the raw, aching, sensitive flesh tremble beneath him.

      His mouth is an instant relief. And as he rolls my nipple with his tongue he speaks into the phone. The words are husky against me. I feel his voice a baritone on my skin.