The Sun and the Moon (Giving You ... #1) Read online

  "Bastard," I grumbled, and then I decided to take him up on his challenge. I stepped closer to him, so that we were facing each other, six inches apart.

  He took a baby step forward, closing the distance between us in half.

  I stepped forward an inch, and my knees and hands started to shake. My fingers twitched, itching to touch him. I licked my lips and he licked his. My toes stopped two inches away from his toes; my knees, two inches away from his knees; and my fingers, two inches away from his fingers. He looked down and I looked up, moving our faces two inches away from each other. He held his torso two inches away from mine, the whole way down his body.

  Then he moved so that we were one inch apart. Everywhere. And then we breathed in and out, for two and a half minutes. The longest two and a half minutes of my life. His pupils dilated, and his cheek twitched. His attractive, clean mansmell washed over me. I felt his warm, sweet breath on my skin and I panted on him. He moved his finger and then stilled it.

  And then the digital clock on the microwave changed to 12:00 p.m.

  Midnight.

  He abruptly lunged at me, palming my face with both of his hands, his long fingers probing my cheekbones, and pressed his full lips to mine, kissing me.

  Then, just as abruptly, he pulled back, and looked at me closely.

  "I wanna be gentle this time," he said softly, as if to himself.

  "I don't," I retorted.

  A low rumbling, deep in his throat, vibrated against my body, and he kissed me hard, again. Then, in a rush, he picked me up, one hand under my knees, the other under my neck, like he was a groom carrying me over the threshold, kissing me the entire way down the hall from the kitchen.

  "Tough. This time will be gentle. Or at least as slow and gentle as I can go."

  He carried me, at a clip, down to my bedroom, and eased me onto the bed, lingering, bending over me, and nibbling at my neck. He pressed back to stand up, and to turn on the light in the darkened room, and I said quickly, "Wait. No lights."

  This was Rule #1. I didn't have sex in full light. Ever.

  I could see the look on his face from the light in the hallway, and I knew that he knew that I didn't want the light on because I didn't want him to see my naked body.

  Desperately, I tried to save the situation. "Ryan, let me light some candles."

  He sighed. "Amelia, you are literally my wet dream fantasy from high school. I dreamt about you then, and I dream about you now. I want to see you. You don't need to hide. I already know your body is gorgeous," he cajoled.

  "Please." I tried hard not to beg, but was spectacularly unsuccessful. Quickly, my mind racing, I came up with an excuse. "It's more romantic with candles."

  I could tell that he saw through me, but he acquiesced with grace. "Where are the matches?"

  He lit the candles, and I was pleased that I had managed to land on the truth: it was romantic. After he blew out the last match, he turned to me and looked at me, eyebrows furrowed.

  "Do you want to go out with me next Friday night?"

  That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say.

  He continued, "I don't want a one night stand with you. Will you agree to see me again after tonight?"

  I nodded. "Yes." It was flattering that he wanted to see me again, but also exciting and soothing at the same time. Feelings! I was having feelings!

  He seemed to relax, his shoulders lowering, letting out a breath. "Then I can take my time tonight, and we don't have to make our way through the encyclopedia from A to Z. More to look forward to."

  I didn't know what he meant by an encyclopedia since I seemed to be stuck on "M" for missionary, by choice, but I felt relief that I wasn't going to be pushed entirely out of my limits tonight. "Oh-okay," I stuttered.

  He came over to the side of the bed and stood there, looking down at me as I was sprawled, fully dressed, on my bed. He leaned down and pulled off one of my socks, and then the other, holding my feet firmly with his warm hands. This was strangely comforting. Then he reached down to the hem of my sweater and, as I helped him, he yanked it up over my head.

  As he went to climb on the bed over me, I stopped him. "Nuh-uh. Yours too buddy. We stay the same amount of dressed."

  He immediately unbuttoned his button-down removed it, and then tugged his white t-shirt over his head.

  Holy Mary Mother of God.

  The whole Irish-Catholic upbringing came in handy sometimes.

  When I saw his chest before, at the beach, it looked hard and chiseled and covered with salt water from the ocean. When I felt his chest before, at the coffee shop, I could feel soft, warm skin, but I couldn't see him under his shirt. Now I finally had the best of both worlds: vision and touch. Yes. I reached out to feel him as I gazed at all of the gorgeous planes of his torso. He climbed on the bed and straddled me, grinning down at me.

  He stared at me for a moment, his knees by my hips, and then uttered, "Fuck," emphatically, shaking his head a little. "I can't believe that I’ve got you here, under me, in bed. After all this time." He trailed his finger down my neck, down my shoulders, down my arms, and then over to my belly and up the other side. He softly brushed my breasts and then leaned down to kiss my neck, talking with his lips pressed against my skin. "It's a dream come true. What do you like? What drives you wild?"

  I had no idea what he was talking about. "What do you mean?"

  "Do you have any requests? I feel like I'm at a restaurant and everything on the menu is something I really want to eat. It's hard to choose."

  I shook my head.

  "Don't be embarrassed. No requests?" I shook my head again. "Fine. I'll order for the two of us." And he started to kiss his way down my torso, over my bra, down the middle of my belly, until he got to my jeans. With a quick flick of his fingers, he unbuttoned and unzipped them, and slid my pants over my hips and onto the ground.

  I looked at him, and he grinned, knowing that I was going to demand that he take off his jeans. He got off the bed, unbuttoned, unzipped, and shucked off his pants too, showing me a raging erection barely encased by black Calvin Klein boxer briefs. The fabric contrasted against his tanned skin, lean waist, and narrow hips, and I could see his inguinal ligament, I’d learned the name of that one for sure, in sharp relief in the candlelight. Damn. Yum.

  He reached behind me and unsnapped my bra so that all I was wearing was a tiny, pale pink, lacy thong.

  "Now we're the same amount of dressed," he reported with a smirk.

  "Not hardly," I started to say, but was caught off guard when he pounced. This time, he pressed his entire warm, hard, and soft body to mine, kissed me soundly, then kissed his way down my body, leading to my underwear. I rubbed my hands all over his hard ass, his strong back, his defined biceps, his veiny forearms, and his curly hair, as he made his way down.

  His hands went under my ass on each side, and lifted me up. Then, down there, between my legs, he kissed me over my underwear, a hot, open mouthed kiss.

  I convulsed.

  My fucking brain decided to interrupt the pleasurable sensations of my body, and remind me that I didn't do oral sex. Ever.

  But I really liked his hot breath on my skin and over my panties, and I wanted to see what it would be like. My need to follow the Rules clashed with the physical feelings of my body, each fighting for supremacy.

  And then I realized that I trusted him. I had let him into my house and into my bedroom. I was letting him into my life. He was into me, no question—he told me so in more ways than one, and asked me out again. Besides being handsome, he was kind, and he looked out for me. And he cooked. I decided to open myself up and see if I liked it. With him.

  The worst thing that would happen was that I didn't like it, right? I'd just tell him, then. So, okay, easy decision.

  I pushed my fingers through his hair, and he looked up at me from between my legs, and said in a husky voice, as if reading my mind, "If you don't want me to do something, that's fine. No question, I'll stop. I felt you tense. A
re you okay with this? Because don't be scared. I'll make you feel good."

  The truth seemed appropriate at this point. "I've never had a guy go, you know, down there."

  He looked totally shocked, and opened his mouth to talk, but I beat him to it. "Madonna said that guys don't really like doing, um, what you're doing, or what you're thinking about maybe doing, as much as the romance novels say they do. She says it's just romance novel bullshit."

  "Madonna has never been with me," he retorted. "I love it. Remember, I'm all about feeling. I'm the sensualist. Giving pleasure is one of the best ways to feel pleasure. I'm going to take my time and enjoy it. Give it a shot?"

  Overwhelming words from a hottie. He really wanted to do this. Okay, then. I lost the power of speech but I could still nod, so I did.

  Suddenly, I was dragged to the edge of the bed, my tiny panties hauled off, and his mouth nudged between my legs in my newly bare sex. I saw his golden, curly hair, and tanned upper back and shoulders between my thighs and knees. I really must look up the names of those muscles on his back because they deserved to be known by name. Just seeing him, kneeling off the bed between my legs, was so fucking sexy, I almost left my body and landed on the roof.

  Before I could gather my wits, he was licking my already wet sex like it was his mission in life.

  Oh my.

  His tongue dipped and playfully touched. He alternated between sucking, rolling, and gently tracing me with the tip of his tongue. There must have been a million nerve endings down there and he was making friends with all of them. His head moved back for a minute, and one long finger slipped inside. Then two.

  "You are so sweet, you smell so good, you are so wet, it's hard not to take you right now," he said, and sighed between my thighs, licking me again.

  I lost the plot.

  Basically, the entire evening had been five hours of barely-touching foreplay. I had enough and my body and brain were ready. He built me up with his fingers and his tongue, which took no time at all to my surprise, and then, oh my, I came crashing down.

  I came. Hard. I saw stars. My mind was blank. Score another one for Ryan. But then it appeared that another one was on its heels.

  No way.

  But it was, and he rode it out with me, tasting, tonguing, and teasing me with his fingers. A prayer.

  Dazed, when I came to, I looked down at him, as he looked up at me from between my legs, shit-eating grin on his face.

  Correction.

  Pussy-eating grin. He enjoyed that. Hmm.

  Ohmigod. I just thought the word "pussy." Had I ever thought it before? It could be against a Rule I hadn't even come up with yet. I must have recovered, if my brain could argue with me like that. My fucking brain.

  Before I fully came down from my orgasm, I noticed that he was now gloriously naked, and had magicked a condom out of somewhere and rolled it on to himself. He paused at my entrance, looking at me, looking right into my eyes, in the dim candlelight. His eyes seemed to warm and get bigger. Then he slowly slipped his huge, delicious cock into me, holding himself over me, his golden biceps bulging, his tan shoulder muscles popping, looking at me with his Sun God eyes.

  He stayed there, seated in me, I thought, so that I could get used to him. He was, after all, a huge invasion. A welcome invasion, but still, an invasion.

  And then he started to move, slowly at first. He bent his head down and kissed my neck as he started to move his hips faster. He slipped his finger between us and rubbed my clit insistently, but not roughly. My feet started to get hot from all of the blood flow to my extremities.

  Then I could feel it building again.

  Pleasure.

  Intensity.

  Traveling to the moon and the sun.

  And with a soft shudder, I came again, feeling the spurt of pleasure in my brain and in my body. A few thrusts later, he shuddered as well and then relaxed into me.

  Rules

  "DO YOU WANT ME to go home?" he asked. "I'd rather stay." He lay next to me, naked still, our warm bodies under the covers, the lights all out in the house. He spooned at my back, his chin on my shoulder, his hands toying with my hair, while I looked out at the room.

  I stiffened. No overnights. That's a Rule.

  But I wanted him to stay.

  "What's wrong?" he asked in a voice rough from sex.

  "Nothing."

  "Bullshit."

  Of course he was right. I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I turned to him, searching for his gorgeous eyes in the darkness, then I ducked my head into him, tangling my legs with his, snuggling into his warm, broad chest, and nuzzling his pectoral muscles. I knew the name of those, for sure. I started kissing his torso, his nipples, and his soft skin covering strong muscles. I rested my chin on his chest and looked up, as he settled himself on his back.

  "The truth? It scares me to be with you. It breaks all of my Rules," I admitted.

  "What rules?" he asked, curious.

  "I have Rules. About what I will or will not do in bed."

  I could almost feel his eyebrows raising and his lips twitching. Bastard. He was going to laugh at me.

  "Is this set of rules written down?" he asked in a mock-serious tone.

  "No."

  "Can you tell me what they are?"

  Yeah, I could do that. Not.

  "No."

  "Can you text them to me?"

  Okay, now he was just messing with me.

  "Why don't I just text you the ones you've already broken."

  "Nope. I want to know all of them, Amelia."

  Fine. I'd tell him.

  "I just don't do anything other than missionary."

  He looked at me, bewildered, shaking his head once, quickly, back and forth.

  "Um, what?"

  "That's my Rule. I don't ever spend the night or have others spend the night. I don't go down on men and they don't go down on me. I don't do anything kinky."

  This distracted him.

  "What's kinky? I'm interested. Very."

  "Everything but missionary."

  He laughed, a low, surfer chuckle. "Okay. Nothing but missionary. I already broke that at Southwinds. Can I test your resolve on these rules? Am I allowed to encourage you to break them?"

  Yes, I thought. You already are. I was already trusting you like my therapist said to do. I was starting to feel things, and not just orgasms. I was starting to really recover from depression.

  I didn't tell him that. Instead, I said, "Fair enough," and smiled.

  He wasn't letting go of the topic, though.

  "Why do you have these rules?"

  "Because." Because everything else opens you up to trusting someone. Everything else makes you vulnerable. Everything else makes it so that you can’t hide from someone. There was too much intimacy, and that scared me.

  "I'd never do anything that you didn't want me to do. And I'd never do anything to hurt you."

  Not on purpose, I thought. I didn't say anything in response.

  "Is that really how you want to be? Just missionary sex where you gamble whether you come, unless the guy really knows what he's doing?" How did he know that? For the first time, I wondered about his experience. He seemed to know what he was doing, for sure.

  But he was being sincere, and I returned the favor. "Truthfully, I don't know what I want anymore. I just know that I like how you make me feel. I like how you make me feel things that I haven't felt in a long time. Like an orgasm," I said in a little voice. He squeezed me with his arms. "It was hard to have an orgasm while I took so many antidepressants. I'm still recovering. And I know that I am all confused."

  "Let me straighten you out. If we come across a rule you don't want to break, you tell me and we won't break it. I'll listen to anything you want to tell me. Otherwise, let's just see where this goes. I'm never going to force you to do anything, but you have a shell, and I want to get in there and crack it wide open and show you how magnificent you already are, and how magnificent you’ll be."
>
  That statement would require some serious analysis when I was alone. So I moved on. "Not spending the night is one of my Rules. I don't do the walk of shame." Then I continued in a lower voice. "It's been awhile since anyone has wanted to spend the night here. I haven't been much company over the past year dealing with stuff."

  "Would it bother you if I stayed?"

  "No. I want you to stay here. It feels really good to have you here."

  "Are you tired?" he asked.

  "Not really," I said.

  "Good, because I really want to fuck you again," he whispered in my ear. "I waited more than a decade to do it the first time." He traced my arm with his fingertips, making me have goose pimples up and down my body. I could feel behind me that he was getting aroused again. So was I. Still. I stiffened. I don't fuck.

  "I don't fuck," I said.

  He looked at me in amazement and curiosity, his eyes widening, and then narrowing in the dark. "Yes, you do."

  "No, I don't." I was churlish and I didn't care.

  He hauled me over him, having me straddle him, then pulled me down, gathered me in his arms, and asked, patiently and slowly, like he asked my order in the coffee shop, "Then what do you do?"

  I immediately responded. "Have sex. Sometimes 'make love.' It's against my Rules to 'fuck.'"

  "Newsflash, Movie Star, but I fucked you twice."

  This might be true, if I admitted it. A part of me thought that I might be crossing another something off of my Rules. Still, I dug in and needed to fight for it. Lawyer instincts.

  "I don't like that word," I groused.

  "Okay," he said gently, "you don't like that word. But you sure seemed to like experiencing it. What other words don't you like?"

  "What are you after now, a list?"

  "Yeah, pretty much."

  I could see that his eyes were dancing with amusement, and I decided to bury my face in his neck. Finally, I muttered, "The c-word."

  He laughed out loud. "Cunt?"

  I cringed. Then I took a deep breath and started listing. "Pussy. Cock. Dick. Vagina. Penis. Anus. Bitch. Semen." He was grinning. "Lubricant. I could keep going, if you like."