“Not tonight, beautiful,” I said. She was a virgin. She deserved more than a lust filled night. “I want to do better by you when the time’s right.”
“Have you always been this chivalrous?” she joked.
“No,” I deadpanned.
“So, it’s me,” she said, almost like a question.
“It’s you,” I said as I sucked her other nipple into my mouth and then circled my tongue over the hardened bud. She bucked off the bed.
“Asher,” she cried out.
“I know what you need, baby.” I licked two fingers and slid them inside her.
“Oh.” She moaned. I lowered my head to her thighs and used two fingers to spread her lips before I pressed my mouth to her center, sucking and licking. Her hips moved against my tongue. Her fingers tangled in my hair.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” I rasped.
“That sounds cryptic,” she laughed.
I slid my fingers in and out of her as my tongue worked her over. I felt her pussy clenching around them, and dreamed of having my cock inside her. But that was something I would have to earn another night. She came apart like a firecracker, crying out, and when she came down from her high, I gathered her in my arms, but the moment she saw my cock, rock hard, bobbing against my abdomen, her head dipped and she took me in her mouth.
“You don’t need to do this,” I urged as my fingers tangled in her blond hair.
“I want to,” she said, and then she shifted lower on the bed and licked my cock like she couldn’t get enough, moving up the side, sucking me down, swirling her tongue on my tip. I was already lost and her mouth pushed me over the edge.
“I’m going to come, Claire. You don’t have to keep your mouth on me,” I said. She moaned like she was turned on.
“I want to. I want you to come down my throat,” she said, and damn, those were the sexiest words I’d ever heard, and coming from her it made it even more intense.
She went back to it. Taking me down. My hips thrust into her mouth, and I gathered her hair together and held it in a ponytailso I could watch the way she was taking me. I lost it, falling over the edge grunting as I spilled into her mouth. I was completely winded by the time I came down from my high. I had a lazy smile on my face, and Claire curled into me. We got under the covers since the room suddenly went from hot to cold.
Claire lay curled against my side, her head resting on my chest, her breathing slowing as the rush between us faded into something softer. My arm was wrapped around her automatically, fingers tracing lazy circles along her back. The kind of closeness that made me feel grounded instead of trapped. She shifted slightly, her fingertips brushing over my chest.
“What’s this one?” she asked quietly of my tattoo.
I followed her gaze. The ink stretched across the left side of my chest, black lines worn slightly softer with time.
“That one’s old,” I said. “Got it when I was nineteen.”
Her fingers traced the edges carefully. Respectfully. It was a compass. Simple. Clean lines. The needle pointed north.
“A compass?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Back when I thought I’d spend my life wandering.” I exhaled quietly. “I didn’t really have a direction. Figured maybe I’d need one.”
She smiled faintly against my skin. “You don’t seem like someone who gets lost.”
I let out a soft laugh. “You’d be surprised.”
Her hand moved down my arm, following the ink there.
“And these?” she asked.
The first was a small set of mountains etched into my upper arm. “Those are for Maple Valley,” I said. “For home. I got them when Eric asked me to take over the orchard. Felt like… committing to staying instead of running.”
She was quiet for a moment, absorbing that. “You really love it here,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Took me a while to realize that.”