Tanner withdrew most of his first two fingers, introduced a third, and within a few hard strokes, I came, riding wave after wave until it hurt to have him inside me.
Blood flow returned to my hands and arms, once I let go of the bedframe. I pressed my fingertips to the top of Tanner’s head and nudged him aside so I could see better. He swiped his mouth across my inner thigh, wiped his face with the clean sheet, and pounced, straddling me as he had earlier.
“You taste like everything I’ve ever wanted,” he whispered.
Flecks of gold, the ones I’d seen the day we’d met, returned to light amber irises and tips of mussed hair. Tanner stood on his knees, grabbed mine, and folded my legs in toward my chest. He hugged my bent legs, lowered his head to kiss wherever he could reach from my knees to my ankles, and took a playful swat at my ass.
He looked so pleased and happy, and I could almost ignore the external reminders of what happened between him and the Apple Witch.
Let it go, Calli. Let it go. He’s here, with you, because this is what he wants.
I listened to myself. Sometimes, I was pretty smart.
“Do you think you taste like everything I’ve ever wanted?” I asked, letting the tip of my tongue fan against my upper lip. I even batted my eyelashes, something I had never consciously done in front of a man. In front of a mirror, yes, but never a man.
“Only one way to find out.” Tanner made no move to shift positions until he reached over to my desk and lit up my phone. “We have about ninety minutes to see if I meet with your taste buds’ approval.”
“Does that give us time to clean up and air out the room? Because you smell like sex, Tanner.”
“I smell like your sex, Calliope.” He grinned, and whatever blemishes Jessamyne might have left on his warm skin faded. All I saw was an aroused, eager, playful man.
I pushed against his hands and rolled onto my belly, intending to get up and make room for him, but he lowered himself onto my back. Reaching between us, he adjusted his cock. My ass still stung from his gentle smack.
“It’s a little hard for me to taste you from here.” My voice was muffled by a pillow, which helped absorb my squeals when Tanner began to nip at the skin around my ribs and growl.
I play-fought by lifting my hips and trying to wiggle away, but that got him harder. I turned my head, my hair covering my face and getting in my mouth.
“Tanner. I like the feel of having you behind me,” I added, “but I’m not on any kind of birth control and you’re not wearing a condom and I’m afraid of going farther with you than I’m ready for.”
He pushed away and rested his forehead between my shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry.” He sat on his heels, giving me room to roll onto my back and face him. The glow in his eyes was cooling. My druid was slipping away when all I wanted was to keep playing until both of us were as sated as we could be, given the multitude of constraints. I curled up and rested my palm over his heart.
“Is this okay?” I asked.
He stared at me, nodded.
I wiggled out from between his legs and placed both hands on his chest. I spread my fingers. My thumbs rested on the narrow line of black hairs that began below his navel, meandered up the center line of his torso, and ended between his pecs.
“Is this okay?” I found his flat, dark brown nipples and brushed my thumbs across them back and forth, until the soft erectile tissue pebbled.
Tanner’s lips parted and his eyes flickered, a tiny ember of arousal waiting in whatever dark place he’d retreated to. He leaned into my thumbs. “Yes.”
I moved my hands down the front of his chest until I could cup the underside of his cock. I slowly tightened my grip.
“That’s okay too.”
Chapter 17
I wanted to explore Tanner with my mouth. His breath caught as I lowered my head, licked his length, and sucked the tip gently into my mouth. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged.
“What?” I asked, once the head, rounded and aroused to a deep reddish brown, popped from my lips. I gave the underside another lick and sighed. I was blissed and, at some level, all too aware our time together was ticking away.
Tanner grabbed me under the arms, flipped our bodies like I weighed next to nothing, and hovered me above him.
I went limp as the dishrag I’d left on the kitchen faucet. I pushed my hair out of my face, and giggled. “I can’t move.”
I finally opened my eyes to see Tanner staring up at me, his arms straight, my knees brushing his hips.
“You’re a mess,” he said. “A fucking beautiful witchy mess.”
“Can I be your witchy mess?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, breaking into a smile and lowering me onto the front of his body. “I thought you’d never ask.”
There was a musky, sexed-up male underneath me. His quiet matched the quiet inside the house, and out. I wasn’t sure what was next.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he said, holding me closer. “This is what I need right now.”
Chest-to-chest, our breathing synched. We both might have dozed off.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes and checked the time. Much as I wanted to lie there, everyone was due back soon. I nudged Tanner. “Shower?”
“Probably a good idea,” he said, “because you smell like you’ve been rolling around in bed with a naked druid.”
Water sluiced over my shoulders. I handed a washcloth to
