I nodded, hoping I could do this.

‘Liv, we seriously don’t have to do th – ahh,’ he hissed as I cut him off by wrapping my mouth around him.

At first I was frozen by the foreignness of having him in my mouth, tasting him, feeling him as if he were all around me, as if there was nothing else in the world but him. It felt odd. It felt alien. And I was afraid I just wasn’t cut out for this part of sexual intimacy.

Until I looked up at his face from under my lashes.

This was Nate.

I gathered my courage.

I began to do everything that he asked, and as I did I watched him – watched the color rise in his cheeks; watched the way his chest rose and fell in rapid breaths; watched his fists curl in the sheets around him; watched his mouth open on pants; watched the sheen of sweat build across his skin; watched his abs ripple. And I got off on it. I didn’t expect to like going down on a guy, but I loved the sensual power that rushed through me at knowing I could make Nate feel so turned on that he huffed out my name in pleasured tones.

‘I’m coming,’ he panted, sliding his hand into my hair, and I jerked back just in time to watch him shudder through a climax.

As his body relaxed, he dragged his hands over his face and into his hair, his eyes closed to me and thus his reaction closed to me.

I waited, unsure.

Slowly Nate opened his eyes and stared up at me.

Well?

‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked roughly.

‘Yes,’ I whispered back.

‘Good, because I’d certainly like a repeat performance sometime.’ He blew air out between his lips and shook his head, grinning, before his bright eyes came back to me. ‘Fuck, girl.’

Laughing softly in relief, I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘I take it I got a high score on my first lesson in seduction.’

‘Like I said before … you’re an overachiever.’

The bed moved and I turned my head to watch Nate sit up and slide his legs off it.

‘Where are you going?’

He gazed back at me over his shoulder. ‘I think we’ve done enough for tonight. I don’t want to overwhelm you.’

I frowned, unhappy with this turn of events. ‘Isn’t that up to me?’

Nate was reaching for his underwear, but I could see his shoulders shaking with amusement. Instead of answering, he strode out of the room, his muscled ass so biteworthy it took everything in me not to chase after it.

I heard the water running in my bathroom and a few minutes later Nate came back, cleaned up and wearing his boxers. He reached for his jeans and began pulling them on. Once fully dressed, he gazed at me, drinking me in, in all my flushed nakedness.

Strangely, I didn’t feel like squirming.

I waited, wondering what he was thinking. Dying to know, in fact. Before, I would have asked him, but somehow the intimacy we’d shared had changed that. Now if I asked him what was on his mind, I might come across as some clingy, wannabe girlfriend. In that moment, I resented my decision to ask for his help.

As if he sensed my dark thoughts, he crossed the room and bent down to press a sweet kiss to my mouth. I felt his fingers in my hair as he pulled back and murmured his carnal promise: ‘Tomorrow, we fuck.’

12

Monday might as well have been devoured by fog. I was walking, talking, doing my job, and yet it was covered in this euphoric mist that didn’t allow any of it to really sink in. Instead I was consumed by thoughts of the night before, of what Nate had done to me and what I had done to him.

I was consumed with anticipation for the evening to come.

When Nate called around my apartment that night I didn’t bother with clothes. I put on another set of nice lingerie – emerald green this time – and wore a robe over it.

I opened the door after buzzing him up, and his eyes sharpened as they drifted over my ensemble. He shut the door behind him and immediately shrugged out of his jacket.

‘I like undressing you,’ he said without even a hello, dumping his jacket over my kitchen stool. ‘Your Benjamin boy might not care, but since it’s me you’re about to fuck for the foreseeable future … I like to undress you.’

Not knowing quite what to make of that except that I liked it, I replied, ‘Okay, I won’t undress next time.’

Nate bit his lower lip, studying me. ‘Tonight’s lesson is all about discovering what turns you on. Do you like being in the driving seat, do you like him in the driving seat, do you like absolute control, absolute submission, or give-and-take?’

I hoped I understood what he meant and he wasn’t about to reveal to me that he had a thing for St. Andrew’s crosses and floggers. Better we found out now so I could run a million miles in the opposite direction. ‘Uh … what do you prefer?’

‘Both.’ He shrugged. ‘Depends where the mood takes us.’ He began to prowl toward me, and with my mind still on kink I backed up until I hit the wall. Nate pressed in on me, his hands reaching for the ties on my robe.

‘When you say control … we’re not talking whips and chains, are we?’

He burst out laughing, shaking his head. ‘No, babe. Just good old-fashioned fucking.’ The belt came loose and my robe fell open, revealing my lingerie. ‘Did I tell you you have shit-hot taste in underwear?’

‘It is nice to finally have it appreciated.’

Pushing the robe off my shoulders, Nate’s fingers lingered across the tops of them as the fabric pooled at my feet. Watching his hands the whole time, he caressed the skin along my collarbone while I stood shivering with eagerness.

His fingers trailed down my breastbone and over the swells of my breasts. Goose bumps prickled in the wake of his touch and my nipples tightened in expectation. Instead of giving in to their clear cry for attention, Nate let his fingertips drift back up over my chest and gently along my neck, touching a spot just under my ear that made me shudder with need.

The reaction made him smile and he immediately bent his head to graze his lips across the spot. I felt the wet touch of his tongue and the shiver rippled through me again.

‘Sweet spot,’ he whispered in my ear, brushing his lips over it and scattering barely-there kisses along my jaw. When he stopped, hovering above my mouth, he looked deep into my eyes. ‘Tell me what you want tonight.’

I blinked, wondering exactly what he meant.

‘Don’t think about it,’ he urged. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

My eyes dropped to his mouth, so close and yet not quite close enough. Hoarse with arousal, I said the first thing that came into my head: ‘You inside me.’

My words affected him. I knew because he braced his hands on the wall at either side of my head and pressed his erection against my stomach. ‘You want my cock, baby?’ he murmured, letting his top lip catch my bottom lip before moving infinitesimally away as I nodded. His lashes lowered over his eyes. ‘I want to hear you say it.’

All evidence was pointing to the fact that Nate liked dirty talk. He’d mentioned it in our earlier lessons, but I hadn’t really processed it. Clearly, however, talking about what we wanted to do to each other got him off.

I was learning. And not just about him, but about me.

Because talking about what we wanted to do to each other turned me on too.

I tilted my mouth closer to his, kissing him lightly as I answered thickly, ‘I want your cock inside me.’

‘This is the point’ – he kissed me softly, his tongue just touching the tip of mine – ‘where I’d ask’ – he kissed me again – ‘if you want it slow or fast, gentle or hard’ – another kiss – ‘but tonight we’ll take it slow.’

‘It has been a while,’ I agreed, sighing happily as he began to dust kisses down my neck again.

His lips moved over my breasts, down my stomach, and his hands followed, squeezing my breasts gently before skimming down to my waist. He rested on his knees and I gazed down at him, breathless with anticipation as he sweetly kissed my belly before kissing his way to the edge of my panties. His lips pressed against the silk fabric and I whimpered, flattening my palms to the wall as my body took over, my legs parting. Nate continued to kiss me over the fabric of my lingerie, his hands curled around my thighs. It was a torment, a tease, my body vibrating with need.

My breath stuttered as I felt his tongue push the fabric against my clit. ‘Nate,’ I whimpered, my right hand moving to curl in his soft hair. ‘Please …’

He relented, leaning back to remove the panties. I tried to help, but my legs were shaking. After he peeled them off, Nate slid his hands around both my calves and glided his fingers upward. ‘You’ve got fantastic legs,’ he told me quietly. ‘I remember one night while we were watching a movie and you were wearing leggings. It was the first time I’d seen you in anything that showed the shape of them.’ He kissed the inside of my knee and looked back up at me with a fierceness that made me throb. ‘You stretched them out, feet up on the coffee table, and I couldn’t stop staring. I couldn’t believe you’d been hiding those long, gorgeous legs. I dreamt of your legs that night, Liv. I dreamt they were wrapped around my back while I fucked your brains out.’

Need flipped in my belly at his admission. ‘God … Nate …’

‘That’s right, babe,’ he murmured as he lifted my right leg over his shoulder and parted me. ‘I’m taking you straight to heaven.’

‘Heaven. Hell,’ I panted, my fingers raking the wall. ‘Who cares as long as I ride there on an orgasm.’

It was a strange but not unpleasant sensation to feel the huff of his laughter on my sex.