Chapter 3: From Fantasy to Flesh
His hand slid under the cardigan, his palm searing a brand against the small of her back. The soft cotton of her t-shirt was no barrier at all. She could feel every ridge of his calluses, the sheer, shocking heat of him.
“You described how you wanted my mouth on you,” he growled, the words vibrating against her skin. His other hand came up to frame her face, his thumb brushing her bottom lip. It was a possessive, rough caress that made her knees weaken. “In that text. Remember? You wrote it down. All those pretty, filthy words.”
She remembered. Heat flooded her cheeks, a mortified, thrilling burn. She’d been in her bed, alone in the dark, the glow of her phone the only light. She’d typed out a secret, a fantasy spun from the raw material of the man she watched from her window.
“Cole, I…”
“Shhh.” His thumb pressed down on her lip. “Let’s see if reality lives up to your dirty little fantasy.”
In one fluid, shocking movement, he dropped to his knees.
The world tilted. One moment he was a tower of muscle and intensity, the next he was on the floor before her, his face level with her hips. His eyes, dark and hungry, locked with hers. The hum of the streetlamp outside seemed to grow louder, filling the silence.
His hands went to the button of her jeans. The metallic rasp of it undoing was obscenely loud. He didn’t rush. He tugged the denim down her hips, his knuckles grazing the sensitive skin of her stomach, her thighs. She stepped out of them, a clumsy, automatic movement, her mind reeling. The cool air hit her legs, a stark contrast to the fire building low in her belly.
He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her plain cotton panties. He didn’t slide them down. He looked at her, a question and a challenge in his gaze, and then he lowered his head.
She felt the heat of his breath first, a damp promise through the thin fabric. Then his teeth. A sharp, gentle tug. The sound of the cotton tearing was a small, definitive rip in the fabric of her old life. He used his teeth and one hand to rend the fabric, pulling it aside, exposing her completely to the warm, lamplit air.
“Fuck, Lila,” he breathed, the curse a reverent prayer.
He didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t need it. The permission was in the text she’d sent, in the way her body was trembling for him, in the wet heat he could already see glistening on her curls.
He buried his face between her legs.
The first touch of his tongue was a lightning strike. A flat, wet, devastating stroke from her entrance all the way up to her clit. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, her hands flying to his head. Her fingers tangled in his short, coarse hair, holding on for dear life.
“Oh, God…”
“Taste like heaven,” he muttered against her, his voice thick and muffled. “Better than I fucking imagined.”
He was relentless. He didn’t tease or explore gently. He devoured her. His tongue was a ruthless, knowing instrument, licking and probing and circling with a precision that shattered her. He held her hips firm, anchoring her against the wall as her legs shook. One of his thumbs pressed against her entrance, not entering, just feeling the slick evidence of her arousal, smearing it, before moving up to circle her clit in tandem with his tongue.
It was too much. It was not enough. The coarse texture of his five-o’clock shadow scratched the tender skin of her inner thighs, a delicious, rough counterpoint to the wet softness of his mouth. The sounds were filthy, wet, and obscene, and she was mortified by them, by the sheer animal reality of it.
“Cole… I can’t… I’m going to…”
“Come,” he commanded, his voice a raw vibration against her most sensitive flesh. “Come in my mouth. Now.”
The order, the sheer dominance in that one word, broke her. A wave of pleasure, so intense it was almost painful, crashed over her. She arched off the wall, a silent scream on her lips, her body convulsing around nothing, her thighs clamping against his head as she came apart under the brutal, worshipful attention of his mouth.
He didn’t stop. He drank down her release, his tongue gentling, lapping at her through the shudders, prolonging the sensation until she was whimpering, oversensitive and raw.
Slowly, he pulled back. His lips and chin were glistening. Her scent was on him. He looked up at her, his blue eyes blazing with a feral satisfaction. He rose to his feet, his movements fluid and powerful, and caged her against the wall again, his body pressing the entire length of hers.
He was hard. The rigid bulge of his erection strained against his jeans, a palpable threat and a promise where it pressed against her naked hip.
“The fantasy,” he said, his voice gravelly and spent, “was you thinking about it alone in your bed.” He leaned in, his mouth hovering over hers. She could smell herself on his breath. “The reality is me making you come so hard you forget your own name.”
He captured her mouth in a searing, possessive kiss. It tasted of salt and her own unique flavor, a dark, intimate communion. She kissed him back, her shyness burned away in the aftermath of her climax, replaced by a desperate, clawing need for more.
Her hands slid from his hair down to his shoulders, feeling the hard muscle and the shift of bone beneath his shirt. She was learning the geography of him, this man who was no longer just a fantasy from next door.
He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “Bedroom. Now.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. The night was far from over.