He made a crooning noise, his other hand still on her breast. “I’ve got you. There we go. Let me all the way in.” He kissed her neck, teeth gently scraping. “That’s my beautiful girl.”
Her eyes fluttered shut, as he relentlessly stroked his finger in and out of her. It felt strange and hot andperfect.
Bill must have been thinking along similar lines. “This has got to be the most perfect body in creation. Everything about you is so soft. And sotight. I’ve never felt anything so tight.” His tone was almost confused.
Clementine could have clarified things, but she had much bigger matters on her mind. He squeezed a second finger into her channel, and it was all she could do to hold on. Bright sensation was coiling within her. Her lips parted in wonder. “Oh.” She writhed against his hold.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Bill warned raggedly, as if maybe she was trying to escape. “You just take everything I’m giving you, as deep as you can.” Another finger entered her, claiming more territory, and he let out a carnal hiss. “See? Yourbody is getting used to me already. It’ll take some work for all of me to fit inside you. We gotta work up to it a bit.” He didn’t seem at all disappointed by the challenge.
“Please. I need…” She broke off with a gasp, as he lifted one of her legs and braced it against the kitchen cabinet, so he could achieve even greater penetration. “Bill!”
“Oh fuck.” His breathing was jagged. “That’s what I’ve been dying to hear. You sayin’ my name just like that.”
The tighter the pressure built within her, the more she wanted to fight it. Toreachit. She moved her hips against his palm, her head thrown back on his shoulder, but it wasn’t quite enough. “Please.” She begged again.
“Punishments like this are hard on us both.” He commiserated, but his eyes were electric blue, as they watched the tops of her breasts jiggling over the edge of the bra. “And next time’s gonna be worse.”
“Worse!?”
“Yep. If you don’t learn to behave after my fingers have been inside of you, I’m gonna have to put something much bigger between those pretty…”
Clementine came. Hard. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, her body spasming. Bill made a contented sound, stroking her through the explosion and aftershocks. When her knees gave way, he lifted her into his arms. Which she absolutely would have balked at, had she been in her right mind.
But she wasn’t.
She was in such a relaxed syrupy haze that she barely noticed when he settled them both on the couch, Clementinecradled in his lap. She just burrowed against him and dreamily sighed.
Bill petted her hair. “If you don’t want my hands all over you, you’d better say something quick. Because there’ll always be some part of me touching you, from now on. Especially when we’re alone and I can get your clothes off.”
She gave a jerky nod, believing that promise and liking it.
“I just can’t get close enough to you. You’re so responsive and warm and soft.” Bill leaned in to breathe her scent. “It’s like you were made just for me. Don’t tell me if we ever accidentally meet one of your former beaus. I’d have to kill the bastard, right in front of you.”
“Now you’re being silly.”
“Trust me, you’re not gonna want to test my sense of humor about you and other men. I hate every other fella who’s ever gotten close.”
“No one else has, Bill.”
“I knew from the minute you smiled at me, that my whole future was…” He trailed off, as if he suddenly understood her words. His gaze flew to hers, silent questions burning.
She wrinkled her nose in embarrassment.
His expression went incredulous.
She gave a rueful shrug.
“Fuck.”He muttered.“Nobody?Notever?”
“People think muses are easy. When I was younger, I was scared to prove them right, I guess. I thought Johnny and I would…” She shrugged uncomfortably. “But we didn’t. Kissing is as far as it went.”
Bill’s jaw flexed, as if even that much annoyed him.
“And when I was twenty-two, there was this guy named Tyler Tompkins, who I thought would be an okay boyfriend. We went to the Birdcage. You know that aviary restaurant? He loved birds. Looking at them and then eating them was strange to me, but Tyler wanted to chase them with a net and grill them himself.” She cringed at the memory of all the feathers. “Then it turned out he wasn’t actually interested in me. He’d just made a bet about how fast he could get a muse into bed.”
Bill was ominously quiet.
“Tyler Tompkins lost his bet.” Clem said disdainfully. “I just kept waiting. Soon, I’d waited so long that I got kind of stuck. Because it felt like maybe I was waitingforsomething. And the longer I waited for it, the more extraordinary it had to be to justify menotwaiting anymore.”