Page 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

“They didn’t arrive together. But they sure did leave together. #RenegadesGolfTournamentandMatchmaking” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Novy

He kissed me in the elevator. Again.

I braced for the chime to signal we’d arrived at our floor. For the door to slide wide and for him to push me away and stride angrily into the apartment.

He didn’t do any of those things.

With a gritty animal growl of defeat, he backed me up until I hit the wall, lowered his head and kissed me. His tongue licked over my lips like mine was a flavor he had no chance of resisting. Like he’d been waiting for just this moment to devour me one bite at a time. Like I was a decadent dessert made for him, and him alone.

I’d think he had an elevator fetish, but an alternative idea had me clenching my thighs together.

What if he simply couldn’t wait to kiss me? He couldn’t wait to touch me. He couldn’t wait .

I couldn’t wrap my head around such an idea.

Boh hid his emotions behind a mask of anger and sarcasm. Flipping between grumpy and belligerent on a dime. Mostly quiet. Taking the world in and leaving people to wonder what he was thinking, how he was feeling. I had years of distantly observing him, visions of him flirting during Renegades events, of him angrily confronting a player on the ice. And now, with this up close and personal exposure to everything that made up Bohdan Zacha, my lexicon of knowledge on the taciturn Czech grew by the day.

Living in his apartment, picking up on his quirks and routines, I read the man like a pro.

His hands gave him away. The way they tightened into a fist or lay slack against a table top spoke volumes. Right now, one hand dug into the fleshy part of my hip, locking me between his hard body and the elevator wall. He braced his free arm behind me and leaned back to speak.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, bending his head lower again, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. His accent roughened, turning his words guttural. “Or we’re doing this.”

His big body blocked out the world, but the elevator would move soon. Whether he had a fetish for public shenanigans or not would be moot in a matter of moments. If I accepted him, we’d move into the apartment, to his bed or mine, or the couch, or the wall… but the dynamics of our relationship would shatter and what emerged would be anyone’s guess.

His breath fanned over my cheek. I rolled my lips and turned my face up, up, up, until my gaze met his. Heavy-lidded, his dilated pupils darkened the brown with a hunger that had me swallowing hard.

“What, exactly, is ‘this’?” I whispered, my mouth brushing his as I spoke.

“Sex.”

My belly clenched, hot and low. I braced my hands on his chest. Not because I thought I’d fall, though the way his voice hit me, my legs felt boneless. But because I needed to touch him. Needed proof that this man stood before me, hauling my body up against his. Proof that I wasn’t in the midst of another fantasy-filled dream.

I flicked my tongue along his lower lip, savored his sharp inhale of breath. “Sex,” I murmured close, “sounds perfect.”

He grunted and my cheeks pulled with an almost smile. But then his lips were on mine, rough and greedy, stealing my smile, but feeding me desire so strong, my fingers trembled with the power of it. He dipped to wedge his hands on my rear and lifted me close. His arms crushed me closer, my breasts flattened against the strength of his chest, his cock a rigid presence between us.

I fisted my hands in his shirt as pleasure washed over me. His heat, his kiss, his unrelenting hold, triggered an answering need inside me, as hungry and greedy as his kiss. I pushed onto my toes, but it wasn’t enough. I needed closer.

Digging my fingers into his shoulders, I pulled myself up, wrapped my legs around his hips and rubbed the aching place between my thighs against the ridge in his jeans. Liquid heat cascaded through me, my pulse a heavy throb in my ears, my breath a choppy cadence between the deep thrusts of his tongue.

His hands roamed over my body, one sliding under my shirt, the other squeezing my rear like it was a peach he needed a bite of.

“Inside,” I gasped when he lifted his head to suck in a breath. “We need to go inside.”

His pupils were blown, red crested the high cut of his cheekbones, and his lips were a deep pink from our kisses. With a nod, he adjusted his hold on me, slapped the button for the elevator door to open and strode to the apartment. Without losing his hold on me, he pounded in the passcode and shoved inside. He made it as far as the foyer, slamming me against the wall before the apartment door had even closed.

He yanked my shirt over my head, his fingers tangling with the clasp of my bra. I arched my back and he grunted his approval as the strip of fabric fell to the floor. Then he descended on my aching breasts. I cried out, tangling my fingers in his dark hair. He pressed me against the wall, his body merciless and strong, holding me in place as he dragged his open mouth along the skin of my neck.

My legs quivered. The sculpted muscle of his shoulders rippled as he moved under my touch, his skin hot and silky beneath my fingertips. He shifted me further up the wall, my feet leaving the floor, canting my hips so the thick length of his erection pressed into the needy juncture between my thighs.

I shuddered, squeezing my legs around him, scraping my fingers into his hair to hold him close to my breast. My skin burned, my nipples so tight that when he closed his lips around one, I wanted to scream. I arched back, closed my eyes and gave myself up to the pleasure he delivered.

Each sucking pull on my breast echoed with a heavy throb of my sex.

He shifted, moving my body as if I weighed nothing, unlocking my legs from where I wrapped around his waist and sliding my pants down without ever lifting his mouth from my nipple. The instant I kicked free of the material, he splayed his hands over the skin of my ass and dragged me tight against his body again.

The rough texture of his denim scratched my inner thighs as his hands rocked me against him. When he moved his lips back to mine, he swallowed down my gasp with his tongue. I felt empty, every inch of me on fire and needy. He still wore all his clothes while I writhed between him and the wall in a tiny pair of blue panties.

With trembling fingers, I pulled at the neck of his t-shirt. He needed to take his shirt off, he needed to give me skin and touch, but the ability to form complete sentences escaped me. Instead, simple words pulsing with sensation filled me. Want. Need. Give. Now. Now. Now .

His hand bumped against my belly. He freed his cock and my hand snaked down between us to touch him. Touching him, touching him there , suddenly more important than my next breath.

I wrapped my fingers around his length, let the head of his cock fill my palm, finding the hot, wet liquid leaking from the tip like honey. I pulled my mouth from his to suck in a breath, my heart pounding. “Now, Boh. Now.”

“Not yet, meruňka .”

He latched his mouth onto mine again, his tongue heavy over my lips, teasing mine to play. Licking, tasting, sucking. Thunder roared in my ears. If he didn’t let me come, I was going to die. I was going to burn away like the last ashes of a forest fire.

He lodged his hands under my rear and pulled me from the wall. I held on, one hand around his dick between us and one laced into his hair. My nose bumped against his as he carried me to his bedroom. In the movies, the movements were smooth and sexy. In real life, the walk was bumpy and we knocked against each other along the way, and I didn’t care.

He settled me back on the bed, then stood. His dark eyes took me in as he stripped. His athlete's body rippled with muscle, his chest heavy and thick, his stomach flat and defined. His cock jutting out, the plump tip more temptation than I’d ever known. He reached for a condom from the bedside drawer, rolled it on and then, finally, finally , he sank over me.

I parted my legs, my thighs cradling him as though I’d been made for just this man’s shape. My breasts cushioned his chest, my soft to his hard—natural, perfect.

He kissed a path from just below my ear, down my neck to my shoulder. My hands feathered through his dark hair, over the bunched muscles of his back, my movements skittering and hesitant. I needed to touch him everywhere. I didn’t know where to touch him. I wanted everything, all at once.

He rocked against me and I tilted my hips up, and then he was sliding inside me. I was wet, welcoming, ready for him. But still, he stopped, pushed up on his elbows and stared down at me.

He rocked again, gentle, insistent. “Good?”

I nodded, a smile parting my lips. “Definitely.”

He half grunted, half laughed, levered one hand beneath me and pushed again as he lowered his lips to mine. “You feel good around my dick. Wet and hot and—”

He thrust harder then, imbedding himself deep and I arched my back with a gasp. Exquisite pleasure flowed through me, an electrifying current that left me gasping and greedy for more. He groaned, then closed his mouth over the curve of my shoulder to muffle the sound.

Then he was moving, a rough, steady glide in and out of my body. Heavy and thick, he sank deep into me. He pushed up, bracing his hands on either side of me, his gaze a hot lick of flame along my skin. The lines of his face lost any semblance of gentleness, carved planes, as though he fought for control. As though the ecstasy stretching me taut held him in a powerful vice, too.

His fierce control didn’t carry to his eyes. Dark and flashing, his eyes stole my breath, brimming with emotions I couldn’t identify. But I was beyond thought, my body electrified, consumed by Boh and the way he made me feel.

His gaze dragged over me, to stare at the place where his body joined mine. The ecstasy exploded then, rippling over me, through me, and the last thing I remembered was the feel of his slick body landing atop mine as he groaned my name.