Page 65 of The Ripple Effect
“If you’re worried about…” He makes a vague gesture, having apparently hit the limit of his comfort. “I won’t, uh, jackhammer or anything.”
“Lyle,” I say sternly. “I’ve seen you naked before. And donotmake me explain the powers of the human vagina, given a considerate partner and a decent amount of foreplay. Iama doctor, you know.”
He gives a full-throated shout of laughter with that special low tone caressing the last notes. I don’t have an exhibitionist kink, but would I like everyone to hear how I made him laugh? Yes. Yes, I would.
He comes back to bed, stretches out, and pulls me on top. Heat shimmers in my blood, tingling against the cool air as I strip off my shirt. He blinks like a teenager who just undid his first bra, reaching up to palm my small breasts and smiling when I gasp.
“I’m very thankful this happened while we still have light,” he murmurs, his gaze loving me up and down. His fingers stroke the barely-there curve of my waist, his thumb circling the dip of my navel as he hefts my legs across the splayed length of his own heavily muscled thighs.
In his blown pupils and half-mast eyelids, I see exactly how thankful he is. I feel it too, sinking into the safety of him, the beauty of him, the care that wraps around me, sweet and hot like spun sugar, daring me to burn my tongue. He’s in no rush to move on, making sure he hits every sweet spot again and again until I’m aching for him. Everywhere he’s not touching me, my skin tightens with need.
“By ‘decent amount,’ I didn’t mean ‘until I die,’” I pant, leaning down to kiss him.
“Whatdidyou mean, then?”
I intend to answer, but all that comes out is a sound of surprise, because he’s fixed his fingers across my leg and has slid his thumb inside my underwear, his ring dark against the pale crease of my thigh. His touch makes me forget everything Iknow about anatomy, replacing it with the instinct to push back against the gorgeous pressure.
“What was… what isthat?”
He laughs and does some kind of sliding, beckoning finger movement that jolts me like lightning. “Oh,” I say, shocked, the word so nakedly hungry I’m almost embarrassed.
I roll off him and onto my side, pulling him to face me so I can take him in hand while he takes me in his. Not because I want things to be even, but because I want to hear him make that low, strangled sound and see his eyes go dark and fucked-up when I change the pressure, then change it back. He doesn’t tell me I don’t have to, doesn’t try to stop himself from having this. The moment takes us both in a stomach-dropping sweep, like a tongue of blue-green water whose smoothness disguises its elemental power.
It’s never been easy for me to get out of my head at this particular moment of sex, when it’s too soon to know if a climax will happen for me. One-night stands made that easier sometimes. I knew I wouldn’t have to have any uncomfortable conversations beyondYou go ahead, I’m fine. I wouldn’t worry I’d be caught and released by someone I wanted to keep. A single night could still be fun even if I didn’t hit the biggest waves.
But this isn’t like the sex that came with expiration dates. Before tonight, I’ve never been afraid of endings. If this means something, but I can’t be the person he’s expecting, then what?
“Hey,” he whispers, pulling me back into the moment. “Where’d you go?”
The urge to say “nowhere” pushes in my throat. It would be safer than honesty. But to say “nowhere” here, now, to this man, would dishonor what’s happening.
“Sometimes I don’t… get there. I don’t want you to think it’s because of you.”
His eyebrows draw together, one perfect, one marked. “Last time, you didn’t?”
“No, no, I did.” My cheeks and chest heat with the memory. The moment I thought I wouldn’t, he hitched my thighs higher over his arms and gave me patience, creativity, the willingness totry. More than enough to make me scream for real.
“Well then,” he says, with a smug smile I’ve never seen on his gentle face, and I can’t help but laugh. “Does this feel good, what we’re doing? You want to keep going, stop, try something else?” The crease between his brows is curious, not judgmental. It’s shockingly hot. I lo—I really like him.
I like him so much, and I want this to besomething. I want to hold on to this, and him, and myself, and not let the fear of losing it stop me from reaching for it anyway.
“Keep going. I could do this for a long time, even if nothing else happens for me.”
“I would literally love to do this with you all fucking night, Stellar.”
I can tell when someone’s rushing, trying to get me off so they can tick a box. But Lyle’s face, his eyes, his sounds—he really means it. The way he touches me feels like it’s for both of us. Like he gets off on the drift of his hand across my belly, thrills at the way my abs jump at his touch, loves the evidence of my pleasure soaking his fingers.
This is enough. More than enough. This sparkling current I’m riding is steadier and better than a lot of orgasms I’ve had with people who said they loved me, and I want to feel the hell out of it for as long as I can.
I can tell by the rasp in his breathing and the glitter in hiseyes that he’s here with me. “You good, Stellar J?” His eyes flutter closed as I give him a double tug that makes him arch and thrust into my hand, but he has the trick of me now, and he doesn’t waver.
I don’t realize how far gone I am until I try to answer and what comes out is, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“I won’t. But you can’t dothat”—he gives me an eye-crossing double tap, calling back to what I gave him—“anymore. For the moment. If you want. Not to stop,” he gasps, breath breaking in time with my hand. “In fact. Let go, maybe? Just for a minute.” He nudges my arm.
I take my hand away, letting him touch me without touching him in return, and it feels terrifying and amazing. What if I wasn’t in control? What if I really let go? I could let him steer us through this current, keep me safe, care for me. Take me over the edge and back again.
For a moment, I’m dizzy with desire and fear.
