Ava Gray - Skin Game

She saw something in his face, something that alarmed her. He couldn’t even guess at what. And she hastened to add, “We had a secret knock for when he came home. A password. I was never in any real danger.”

Unless there was a fire. Or someone came in through the window. He didn’t say that aloud. Every little girl wanted to believe her daddy loved her, no matter how untrue, or how much of a son of a bitch the man might’ve been. He found himself glad that that old bastard Beckwith lay six feet down.

Instead of replying to that, he threaded his fingers through hers. Her flesh felt hot, and she had soft skin. It was a silly little intimacy that shouldn’t have moved him, and yet it meant everything that she’d sit with him, hand in hand, beneath the sky of his boyhood.

“That’s Lyra,” he said, changing the subject. Reyes lifted their joined hands and traced the outline of the harp. “Do you see it?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I think so.”

“And there’s Sagittarius, the Archer.” He continued to sky paint, finding each star in the constellation for her.

“Did you learn this in school?” she asked, eventually.

“Some. Most of it I got from books on my own.”

Kyra kept her eyes fixed on the heavens. “I never went.”

That startled the hell out of him. “To school?”

“Nope. I watched a lot of Sesame Street early on. And my dad taught me some. I can read.” At his look, she became defensive. “I learned a lot traveling. More than most kids do just sitting around some Podunk town for eighteen years.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She glared. “You were thinking it. This is why I don’t tell people shit. They always think they know something about me from how I was raised.”

Reyes reached for her then, not calculating the probable outcome of his actions. He pulled her into his lap and sifted his hand into her tangled curls. She surprised him by yielding, not fighting him like a wildcat, and her body felt like seven kinds of heaven in his arms.

“I think you turned out fine,” he said quietly, knowing she needed to hear it as much as it was true. “You’re smart and funny, skilled and resourceful. And if you were any more appealing, I’d lose my mind.”

“You mean that.” Her voice came out soft and wondering, as she turned her face against his throat.

“I do.” At this point, she’d cast some kind of wicked spell on him, and he couldn’t do anything but tell the truth. Reyes genuinely feared what might come next.

Jesus, he thought, shaken. Then he realized—whatever had happened the first time he’d touched her, it didn’t seem to be happening now. That new development had to mean something, but what?

And her mouth took his in a kiss that threatened to burn the leather off his shoes.

“ So do you do this a lot?” Kyra asked.

Beside her, Rey stirred. “Depends on what you mean by ‘this’?”

“Lure women into their own backseats and then don’t take advantage of them.”

“No condoms,” he reminded her in a long-suffering tone.

Man, she couldn’t believe she had to do this, after the sex they’d had. But it seemed he needed a nudge. The man had taken her joking comment about working for it far too literally.

“There are other things we could do.”

“Oh, really?” His lazy tone belied the sudden tension in his body.

“Mmm-hmm.” She rather liked the switch, the pretense she was seducing him.

Rain drummed on the roof, shrinking their universe to two. Body heat had already started to steam the windows. Imagine what they could do if they put their minds to it.

“Did you have anything particular in mind?”

“You talk too much.”

Kyra pulled his mouth to hers and wrapped her arms around his neck. His response sent tiny bursts of pleasure careening through her bloodstream, as his lips toyed with hers, every bit as darkly sensual as she remembered. But there was an added edge to his kiss; they both knew he couldn’t go beyond a certain point, and it added a layer of thrilling risk. She shivered as he ran his mouth down her throat, teeth sinking lightly into the delicate skin. The light pain heightened her senses, making her more aware of his body heat, the hardness of him.

“Better,” she breathed, tipping her head back.

In the sultry dark, she couldn’t see him, but she felt his smile on her skin. “I know a fun game for us to play.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Teenagers,” he whispered. “Neither one of us have ever been in a backseat, have we? You’ve never worried about letting a boy touch your breast under your shirt, but over your bra.”

He wasn’t touching her there, but at his words, she felt the heat of phantom fingertips. Her nipples furled, and her breath came a little faster. She could envision it so clearly: a desperately horny kid wanting to touch her, so primed he could come in his pants just from the idea.

His gravelly voice dropped even lower, rasping, “And you’ve certainly never felt the temptation to let him inside your jeans and stroke you over your panties, where in his clumsy eagerness he brushes your clit for the first time.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath and had to clench her thighs against the resultant image, but she got into the spirit of things. “I don’t think we should do more than kiss,” she told him primly. “It’s too easy to get carried away.”

Rey brushed his fingers against her bare belly, revealed by the gap between shirt and jeans. “Okay,” he whispered. “Just kissing.”

“Good. That’s good.”

When he lowered his head, she expected a gentle mouth kiss in keeping with their game, but instead he touched his lips to the base of her throat, measuring her pulse. He could surely feel it skipping like mad against his mouth. His hands skated up to her sides as he nuzzled her collarbone. Her breath went in a dizzying rush.

She pressed her thighs together tighter, not in self-preservation, but to try to ease the need building there. Each point where he touched her, fingers along her ribcage, thumbs circling on her upper belly, felt impossibly warm. Those thumbs would feel so good on her nipples, big and rough. Kyra made a sound in her throat, as he nibbled his way up to her jaw and on to her ear. When he took the lobe between his teeth and bit down with exquisite gentleness, she arched her back, trembling.

“Are you sure I can’t go under your shirt, Kyra? I’ll stop the minute you say.”

More than anything, she wanted to say to hell with it and take him inside her, but the no-condom problem was still in effect. She managed to keep the game alive by whispering, “Only on top of my bra. Don’t take my clothes off.”

God, how could she feel this tremulous excitement over role-play? But as heat trailed up her belly to the side of her breast, she felt as if she’d never been touched before. Rey caressed her in slow sweeps, like a kid getting bolder. His fingertips fanned while he circled his thumbs closer, centering her yearning on one tiny point. A little whimper escaped her when he finally brushed her tight nipple.

“You’re so pretty,” he murmured against her throat. “Am I turning you on? Are your panties damp, Kyra?”

Yes. God, yes.

Thinking a good girl wouldn’t be able to say it aloud, she nodded, eyes downcast. He played with her for what felt like hours, smoothing through the thin silk of her bra. She didn’t need much support so she went with decorative scraps, and she felt every touch, every stroke, every caress. Rey kept his touch heartbreakingly gentle and delicate when he knew she liked it rough. Kyra hadn’t known she’d enjoy this, too.