Page 73 of Wild Card 13

She stepped out of her shoes, then hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her trousers. They slid down her thighs, her hips, and she stepped free, standing before me in nothing but her underwear and those tortoiseshell glasses, her auburn hair wild around her shoulders. The lamp light made the copper strands glow, and her skin was flushed—a pink that spread from her chest up her neck, the only tell that she wasn't as composed as she pretended.

"You were saying?" Her voice was steady. She lifted her chin, and the challenge in her eyes was a dare I couldn't refuse.

I stepped forward. One step. Two. My body moved before my mind caught up, and I stopped inches from her, close enough to feel the heat rising off her skin. My hand lifted, hovered over her waist, not quite touching, and she held her breath.

"I remember," I said, and my voice came out a rasp I barely recognized. "I remember every curve. Every sound you made. The way you said my name when you—" I stopped, because my throat was too tight. "I remember, Lucy."

Her jaw tightened. Her chin trembled once, then stilled. And she didn't pull away.

I dropped to my knees.

The carpet caught me hard, a shock through my knees that I barely registered. My hands found her hips—bare skin, warm, the dip of her waist under my thumbs—and I looked up at her. She wasstill standing there, arms at her sides, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her glasses caught the amber light, and I could see the pulse beating in her throat.

My mouth found the lace edge of her underwear. A strip of white against her skin, the fabric damp already—I could smell her, could taste the heat of her through the cotton. I pressed my lips there, just above the waistband, and she inhaled sharply, a sound that cut through the quiet like glass.

I slid my hands around to the small of her back, fingers curling into the lace, and I pulled her closer—not hard, not rough, enough to feel her against my mouth.

I breathed her in, let my lips part, let the tip of my tongue trace the edge of the fabric. She tasted like salt and skin and something else, something that made my cock ache against the seam of my jeans.

Her hands found my hair. Her fingers curled into the messy blond strands, not pulling, not pushing—just holding on, like she needed something to anchor herself. Her knuckles brushed my scalp, and I felt her tremble, felt the tiny quiver that ran through her thighs.

"Buzz." Her voice broke on the nickname, cracked in a way she didn't mean it to. She swallowed, and I felt the movement in the way her stomach tightened under my hands. "This doesn't?—"

I looked up at her, my mouth still pressed against the lace, and the question in my eyes was the only answer I gave. Her jaw tightened again, but her fingers tightened in my hair, and she didn't finish the sentence.

I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down. Slowly. Deliberately. The fabric peeled away from her skin, damp and warm, and I watched as she stepped out of them, one foot, then the other. They pooled at her ankles, and I didn't look away from her face—not until she was bare, standing in front of me with nothing but her glasses and her flushed skin.

I lowered my mouth to her. Her taste consumed me—her, the salt of her, the slick heat that made my tongue ache—and I heard her breath catch, heard the tiny sound she made in the back of her throat. I parted her with my tongue, finding her clit, and she gasped—a sharp, broken sound that she tried to swallow but couldn't.

My hands found her hips again, gripping hard enough to leave marks, and I lost myself in the taste of her, in the way she trembled above me, in the wet heat of her against my mouth. She was still holding my hair, and her grip tightened, and I knew she was fighting every instinct to let go. But she didn't pull away. She didn't tell me to stop. And that was all I needed.

I rose to my knees, and the movement broke the seal of her against me, leaving me cold and aching for the taste I'd only just begun to remember. But the hunger in my chest had shifted—turned sharp and primal, a thing that had been caged behind charm and deflection and the easy grin for years, and it was clawing its way out now.

Her eyes were dark behind the tortoiseshell, watching me, and I saw the flicker of uncertainty cross her face before she steadied it, before she lifted her chin in that familiar challenge.

I reached for the button of my jeans. The metal gave with a soft click, and the sound of the zipper was loud in the quiet room, loud enough that I saw her throat move as she swallowed.

My cock sprang free, hard and aching against my stomach, the tip already slick with a bead of pre-cum that caught the amber light. I wrapped my hand around the base, a slow, deliberate drag of my palm up the shaft, and I watched her watch me—the way her eyes dropped, the way her lips parted around a breath she didn't mean to let out. The taste of her was still on my tongue, salt and musk and the raw truth of her arousal.

My other hand found her hair. I grabbed a fistful of those auburn waves, thick and tangled, and I pulled just enough to make her gasp, to tilt her head back and expose the long line of her throat. Her hands came up, not to push me away, but to grip my thighs, nails digging into the denim, and I felt the tremor in her fingers.

I guided her forward, and she didn't resist. Her mouth opened as her face neared my cock, and I watched her breathe me in with a shuddering inhale that made her chest press against my knees. Then her lips parted around the head, warm and wet and so fucking perfect that my hips bucked involuntarily, a sound tearing out of my throat I'd never heard myself make.

She took me deeper, and the world narrowed to the wet seal ofher mouth, the drag of her tongue finding the underside, tracing that vein like she was memorizing it.

I felt her adjust, felt her throat relax and yield as she worked me into her heat, and the sound she made—a low, greedy hum—vibrated through my cock, through my thighs, through the marrow of my bones. Her grip on my legs tightened, nails biting into the denim, and I looked down at her—at the flush crawling up her neck and flooding her cheeks, at the way her glasses had slipped down her nose, at the way her eyes were squeezed shut now, like she was savoring the taste of me, like she was starving for it.

The sound of her, wet and slick and rhythmic, broken by those tiny, desperate breaths through her nose, filled the room. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but feel the scorching heat of her mouth and the curl of her tongue and the way she was giving me exactly what I'd been aching for without knowing the shape of the ache.

My hips twitched, a shallow thrust I couldn't stop, and she took it, took more, her throat working around me as she swallowed me deeper. A sound tore out of my chest, half groan, half her name, mangled and raw. I felt her respond, a hum that rippled through her lips, through my cock, through every nerve ending I had, until I was nothing but sensation, nothing but the wet heat of her mouth and the tremble in her fingers and the way she was unraveling me, one slow, perfect pull of her tongue at a time.

"Fuck, Lucy." The name came out strangled, rough. My grip in her hair tightened, and I held her there, let her feel the weight of my need, the pulse I knew she could feel against her tongue.

She opened her eyes, looked up at me, and there was something in them I hadn't seen in years—something raw and unguarded and terrifyingly familiar.

I pulled her off gently, a slow drag that left her lips swollen and slick, a thin thread of saliva and pre-cum connecting her mouth to the head of my cock. Her chin was wet, her glasses smudged, her auburn hair wild from my fingers, and I had never seen anything so beautiful in my entire goddamn life. I drew her up by her arms, hauled her to her feet, and the momentum pressed her bare body against my half-dressed one, her breasts flattening against my chest, the heat of her cunt against the rough denim of my open jeans.

My hand slid down her stomach, fingers trailing through the soft hair between her legs, and I found her wet—so fucking wet, slick and hot and ready—and the sound she made when I pressed two fingers inside her was the one I'd been dreaming about for years.