Page 77 of A Pirate's Pleasure
His brows knitted together. “Is it?”
I shrugged, my nonchalance feigned but hopefully convincing. “If it makes them leave you alone, then yes. Closing the space between us, I pressed my palms against his chest. Even with Zephyr wearing a shirt, an electric thrill ran through me from the contact. No one had ever affected me like he did, and I was way past the point of trying to hide it or deny it. I held his gaze, hoping he could see the sincerity pouring out of me. “You’re a good man, Zephyr Chase, and anyone worth their salt knows that. Who cares if the rest of the people fear you? Let them tell their stories, whether or not they’re true. Let them give you a wide berth. It’s just more time I get to be alone with you. They’re not worth worrying about. Me. Whitby. West. The rest of your crew. Dax. We’re the ones who matter, the ones who know that unless someone you love is threatened, and yes, you do love, you’re capable of it no matter how much you pretend you’re not… We’re the ones that know you don’t have a murderous bone in your body unless it’s to save the life of someone you care about.”
“Have you finished?” Despite the curtness of his words, Zephyr was smiling.
My lips twitched, desperate to mimic the curve of his. “For now.”
“Good.” An unmanly squeal escaped my lips as Zephyr plucked me off the floor and threw me over his shoulder, the attack leaving no time for a protest in the unlikely event I might have had one. He strode out of the dining room, pausing outside the door. “Remind me which way the stairs are. I need a bedroom and I need it now.”
Even dangling in an unnatural position and laughing, I managed instructions. Zephyr’s fast pace was such that only a minute or two passed before he dropped me on the bed we’d been sharing. I stared up at the delicious picture he made, arousal already lending those sharp cheekbones of his more color as he unbuttoned his shirt, his gaze never leaving mine. “Oil,” he said. Gaze still locked to his, I sat up and groped for the top of the nightstand, relief flooding through me when my fingers immediately closed around the small bottle.
Zephyr shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and I devoured all the bronzed skin on display, every muscle a study in absolute perfection. “Clothes,” he said as his fingers dropped to the fastening of his trousers.
“There’s no need to get all bossy,” I said. I was already following his directive, though.
Zephyr eased his trousers down over his thighs, his cock already hard and plastered to his belly. “I’m surprised you’re doing what you’re told. That must be a first.”
I grinned as I wriggled out of my trousers. “That’s probably because your goal and my goal happen to be exactly the same.”
Naked and beautiful, Zephyr climbed on the bed and crawled slowly toward me, my breath dying in my throat at finding myself the focus of all that animalistic intent. Strong fingers curled around my thighs, pushing them apart to make a space between them. A space that didn’t remain one for long before Zephyr filled it, rough fingernails sending a shiver through me as they raked over my thighs. His gaze devoured every inch of me, a small smile appearing on his lips as it skimmed over my tattoo. He sank to his elbows, and I lifted my shoulders off the bed to meet him halfway, our lips joining in a kiss that was immediately heated.
“You, Lief Cooper,” he said when we broke apart for air, “are quite the delectable morsel.”
“Right back at you,” I said, my voice breathy as desire licked at my nerve endings, threatening to send me up in flames. And I’d let it because it was Zephyr. I shoved the oil his way. “Fuck me.”
He rubbed a stubbled chin over my shoulder, soothing the slight burn it caused with a flurry of butterfly-soft kisses before I could even think about complaining. “What about foreplay?”
I shoved at his chest, Zephyr barely moving. Although it did make him smile. “Fuck foreplay,” I said. “Foreplay can take a running jump. Foreplay can…”
He silenced me with another kiss, his fingers trailing down over my chest until he could wrap them around my cock. “You don’t want this?” He punctuated his question with a quick stroke that had me gasping into his mouth as he stole another kiss. “Yes, but I want you in me at the same time.”
There was a smug look on Zephyr’s face as he sat back on his heels. “So needy. So desperate.” He arched an eyebrow. “So un-lord-like.”
“Fuck you.”
He smoothed enough oil on his cock that it glistened. With my knees hooked over his biceps, I had no choice but to open myself for him fully as he leaned forward, his eyes drinking in the sight. “No, fuck you,” he said. And then he was breaching me, pushing inexorably in even as I struggled to take him. “You asked for this,” he pointed out.
I had. It was what I’d been craving for days, Zeph and I having slipped into some romantic ideal that was a long way from how we usually operated, where down and dirty sex had become gentle caresses and endless patience. Something had been missing, and I’d been struggling to place it, but this was it. We might be in love, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pound me into the mattress, or I him, depending on our mood. After all, we’d combined the two things well enough as teenagers. And we were older and wiser. We were meant to be better at dealing with life and all of its foibles.
“Okay?” Zephyr asked as he slid the last couple of inches home, his balls resting against my arse.
“Yeah.” I was, my body yearning for the orgasm I knew wasn’t far off. I shifted slightly, Zephyr letting out a gasp at the sensation. He buried his face in my neck, just above the place where the bruises from Lucretius hadn’t quite faded, and I smiled at his struggle to keep his composure. “I want it quick,” I said. “Quick and hard. No holding back. Can you give me that?”
There was a pause, just long enough for me to contemplate him saying no, that I was the only one who wanted it that way. But then Zephyr gave a nod, his hips already moving. I lay back and gave myself up to it: the delicious full feeling, the sweet slide of his cock over that special spot inside me that seemed directly wired to my balls, the cacophony of gasps and moans, each of us doing our part to add to the symphony.
I moved my ankles to his shoulders, Zephyr’s cock sliding even deeper. Words came out of my mouth as he pounded me, but I couldn’t have said what they were. His name, maybe. Begging and pleading for him not to stop. Compliments about how good it felt. It was probably all those things and more.
By the time he sat back once more, his hips still moving, I was already on the brink of orgasm. One of Zephyr’s hands moved to my cock, stroking me just the way I liked—and Zeph should know given the hours of research we’d carried out as teenagers—while the other skimmed along my body, touching, caressing, revering. “Come for me, Lief.”
I didn’t come right at that moment, but it wasn’t long after, my cock pulsing stream after stream of cum onto his hand and my abdomen. He stroked me through it as I rode the aftershocks of pleasure. Only when he was sure he’d wrung every drop out of me he could, did he bend me in two again and pound into me until he reached the point where his own orgasm was inevitable. I clung to him as he came, the experience almost as enjoyable as coming myself.
We crashed together on the bed in a tangle of sweaty limbs, satiated and boneless. I could barely tell where I ended and Zeph began, but I couldn’t say I cared all that much. I pressed a kiss to the closest bit of skin that wasn’t mine, laughing when it turned out to be his elbow. A bit of wriggling, a bit of readjustment, and we lay facing each other instead, our legs still entwined and our hands still stroking over the other’s skin.
“I love you,” I said, the words clamoring to be said, even though it had only been a few hours at most since I’d last said them.
Zephyr kissed my palm, my wrist, my forearm, and then my shoulder. “I love you too.”
We lay for a few moments, replete in a post-orgasmic bliss, where looks replaced words. There were, however, things about the future that needed discussing. With the threat of imminent arrest hanging over Zeph’s head, it had been easy to pretend that the time hadn’t been right. Today’s pardon, though, had brought with it an end to that excuse. I leaned up on one elbow and studied Zephyr’s face, those sharp cheekbones and the hooded eyelids, the full lips I never grew tired of kissing, and the gray eyes so easy to get lost in. I searched for doubts about what I needed to say, but to my relief, found they just weren’t there.