“It’s nice,” he said. “I like the cactus.”
She glanced at her spiky little plant on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. “Yeah, well, it suits me — prickly, low-maintenance, and it rarely flowers. You want some tea? I don’t have any coffee.”
As she turned toward the electric kettle on the counter, he stepped up behind her and traced one finger down her spine. “We can have tea later.” His strong hands began to massage her shoulders.
It was ridiculous how much she wanted to lean into his hands. His thumbs digging into her trapezius and rhomboid muscles felt like heaven, soothing her, releasing tension. But she couldn’t relax. “I’m… uh, got to go freshen up,” she managed to say, and shot through her bedroom into the bathroom before he could respond.
When she came out, he was sitting on her bed, propped up against the headboard with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles like it was all no big thing. “Nella-bella, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said, his voice both raspy and gentle. “Just come and cuddle a bit. Let me hold you.”
She crawled onto the bed but sat cross-legged, like a student in class with her hands on her knees.
So he leaned forward and snagged one of her ankles, giving it a gentle tug to get her foot into his lap. She tensed for a moment, then relaxed. Chill, she told herself. He’s not a threat.
His strong, clever hands massaged her foot, kneading and stroking into the arch, and the pure pleasure of it made her sigh with contentment. “Other foot?” he asked after a while, and she shifted position to unfold her other leg, then flopped onto her back to better enjoy the massage. He was only touching her feet, but there was something sensual about it, his touch running from the nerve endings in her soles right up her legs and into her core. And it went on and on, like he had all the time in the world and was happy just to rub her feet.
It didn’t seem fair, and she reluctantly raised a hand to let him know he could stop. “You don’t have to—”
“But I like touching you. Anywhere and in any way I can. And your face when you feel good is so fucking beautiful it blows my mind…”
“Whatever,” she said, but the sincerity and desire on his face were so vivid she had to close her eyes. “You want sex, already?”
“I want to taste you, if you’ll let me.” The husky, thick sound to his voice couldn’t be faked.
Heat washed over her. And she wanted it. But… “It just takes a lot of… trust, is all. Sex doesn’t have to be intimate, but this…”
“Nella-bella, you’re the most practical goddess I’ve ever met. But what we’re doing? It’s kind of supposed to be intimate. Let me inside your guard, lovely.”
“Ugh.” I’m so uncomfortable. Why would this man want any kind of real intimacy with her, when it was so much easier to bounce around on the bed and keep everything light and fun?
Holding her gaze, he licked his lip — not overtly, just a tiny subtle lizard-flick of the tip of his tongue — and it broke her.
Because a martial artist does need to have trust. Trust for instructors, trust for training partners, and maybe trust for lovers too. Something I’ve always struggled with. Is it time to push past that? “Fine,” she said, and skinned out of her pants and underwear all in one tangled lot, leaving her lower half bare.
He grinned. “Arms up,” he said, and whisked her t-shirt over her head and off, adding, “I’ll let you get the sports bra off yourself. Extra hands don’t make some jobs any easier.”
That made her laugh as she wriggled out of it, remembering various instances of dudes attempting to help. But he was still fully dressed. “What about you?”
“I’m good for now. Lie back and open your legs for me.” He spoke with such command and assurance, and somehow also such admiration, that she found herself gasping and complying — spreading herself open for him, with both her body and her mind. Trust. And the erotic contrast between her bareness and his clothes intensified it.
He laid a firm hand on her abdomen, and it scorched her.
“Flipping hell,” Nell muttered, part of her wanting to curl away from the devastating intimacy as he settled himself between her thighs, but the part of her that had any control over actual movement and choices was transfixed by electric excitement at the warmth of his breath and the subtle stroking of his other hand at the top of her thigh.
“All right?” he asked.
“Awkward, but yeah,” she choked out. I can trust this man.
His eyes were full of laughter and arousal as he looked up at her. “The idea is for you to enjoy it.” He stuck his tongue out at her, waggled it until she laughed. And then — it was then, when she was undone by unexpected mirth, that he began a delicate exploration with his lips and tongue.
At first, she was tense, but the sheer pleasure of it and his evident enjoyment overcame her, and gradually everything around her coalesced into the slippery, talented stroking of his tongue. Slowly her universe turned inside out and she fractured into pure bliss.
She woke sated — and alone. Suppressed a twinge of disappointment. He’s gone, then? But when she sat up, she saw the note that must have slid off the pillow and into the sheets. Getting coffee. Back soon, it said, signed with an untidy, scrawled E and a scribble that looked suspiciously like a heart. No way. Just a scribble.
Well. A movie heroine would stay in bed, naked under the sheets, lounging sensually as she waited for her lover to return. But after about three minutes, Nell grew twitchy and couldn’t lie still — lazy inactivity had never
