Page 3

Chapter 3

Nelly

I t was stupid.

Horribly, dangerously, recklessly stupid.

Simply thinking about letting him use my vibrator on me had been the lowest I’d imagined I’d go tonight, but somehow, I’d reached new depths among the pebbles of rock bottom.

Part of me was thankful that I’d only moved into my apartment complex about two months ago. I hadn’t spent enough time there to become friendly with any of my neighbors, so I at least didn’t need to worry that one of them would spot us walking through the lobby on the way to the elevator.

But that also meant that no one would think it was out of place for me if this unnamed man did, in fact, decide to murder me.

How the hell had I let Morris’ upcoming wedding affect me to the extent of bringing a full-on stranger whose name I didn’t even know yet to my apartment ? Sure, he’d given me three times the amount we needed for the Uber, but that didn’t make him trustworthy. I’d kick myself for it tomorrow if I survived this.

Shoving the key in the top lock of my door, I turned it, releasing the latch with a click . But I didn’t open the door.

“Surely, I’ve earned your name by now,” I said, shooting him a glare. I kept my hand perfectly still against the wood panel of the door.

His lips quirked upward. “You haven’t let me inside yet.”

“Counterpoint — I’m not letting a stranger into my house even if I’m tipsy.”

He chuckled as he leaned against the door frame. “Oh, come on, Nell. I told you about Otto and Ms. Miss. I’m hardly a stranger.”

A warm, wandering hand gently fell on the side of my waist, and it was as if little electric currents radiated from it, making my hair stand on end and goosebumps break out across my skin. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not opening the door,” I said, but his touch undermined the confidence I was trying to exude, and a choked squeak broke through in the middle. This is insane. You are insane, Nelly.

“I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an S .” His hand felt heavier on my waist as his fingers played with the hem of my shirt, lifting it and slipping just barely beneath the fabric. Skin ghosted across skin, and my breath hitched, betraying me further.

His smirk widened, and he leaned down, bringing that impossibly attractive face far too close to mine before changing course and diverting, his lips hovering against the shell of my ear. His scent enveloped me instantly, invading my nostrils with a scent that could only be described as a forest of cedarwood right by the ocean.

And when he spoke again, the words were raspy, weighted, and so quiet it made his breath fan across my cheek.

“You’d better guess it before I undress you right here in the fucking hallway, Nell. The clock’s ticking.”

Oh my God. The breath I drew in was shaky at best, and while his fingers slipped further beneath my top and skirted the edge of my bra, I hastily threw out a guess. “Sam,” I breathed.

A single finger hooked the elastic just beside the cup. “Incorrect.”

Another, from his other hand, slid under my belt loop. I nearly choked on my saliva as he pulled me impossibly closer. “Spencer?”

“Do I look like a Spencer , Penelope?” he laughed, but it was far too heavy to sound casual. His thumb thrummed against the button of my jeans, playing with the little tabs of fabric and threatening to pop them open.

My heartbeat pounded in the back of my throat. “Simon?”

More digits slipped under the elastic of my bra, hovering just at the edge of my cup, dragging across my skin and sending my blood pooling down below. “You’re so bad at this.”

I swallowed. “Please just tell me.”

“No, I like this game.”

His teeth came down on my earlobe, just gently, and I nearly lost my mind and turned the handle. “Asshole,” I squeaked.

“That doesn’t even start with an S. ”

“Steven?”

His fingers worked in tandem. All at once, they moved, grasping the hooks on the back of my bra and popping them open, closing in on the button of my jeans and dislodging it. “You’re running out of common S names.”

The unmistakable sound of the hallway doors opening made my pulse skyrocket. “Please don’t tell me it’s one I’ll never think of.”

“It’s common,” he said.

His lips met my neck. I struggled to keep my breathing under control.

“Your skin is on fire .” Tooth by fucking tooth, he inched my zipper down. “Maybe we should get you out of these clothes to cool you down.”

“Shaun? Seth? Shane? Scott?”

My shirt rose high enough that I was dangerously close to being struck with a public indecency charge, and the moment his palm cupped the underneath of my breast, my hands shot out, gripping the fabric of his shirt — and oh my God , the muscles beneath. Rock hard.

Somewhere behind me, someone’s apartment door opened and closed, and all I could hope was that it didn’t mean another person was entering the hallway and instead meant the coast was clear. “Sawyer? Saul? Sebastion…”

Fingers grasped the flap of my zipper and pulled my hips right up against him as he pushed his pelvis forward and the… fuck , the rigidness beneath his jeans.

“Atta girl,” he rasped, his teeth scraping against the soft spot beneath my ear. I couldn’t breathe. “Now open the fucking door.”

Sebastion.

It fit.

I pushed the handle, and the door swung open, and without a second of hesitation, he walked me backward over the threshold while he lifted my shirt clean off my body. My bra, hanging open and hiding absolutely nothing, dropped to the floor as he kicked the door shut.

There was no time for a formal tour, no time to show him my array of painted plates with the royal family’s faces on them that someone had gifted me four years ago and I’d displayed on my walls as a joke, no time to catch my breath and freshen up, no time to second guess.

Sebastion’s hands were on me. And he was ravenous.

He walked me back against the countertop of my kitchen island just beside the door frame, with one hand hooked on the top of my open jeans and the other snaking around the back of my neck. I hadn’t even had the chance to turn on the lights yet, but I could feel his heavy breathing against my skin as he moved his head lower, hovering around my collarbones.

“Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights,” I croaked.

She did a little hum, and the lights flicked on. The way he looked up at me as his fingers dug in at the base of my skull was fucking sinful.

Half-lidded blue eyes blinked up at me, a hint of mischief dancing in them, and he kept them locked on mine unnervingly while he palmed the waistband of my jeans, pushing them lower.

And lower.

And lower.

How the hell had I gone from fully dressed to wearing nothing but my underwear when he was still wearing all of his clothes?

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he said. My breath stuttered when his hand trailed back up my now bare thigh, hooking on the bottom hemline of my boyshorts. An inkling of disappointment blossomed in my gut — I may not have the most confidence in the bedroom after everything with Morris, but God dammit, I’d been through a dry spell and was hopeful this would end it. “But my offer still stands.”

“Your offer?” I swallowed.

A single finger dug in harder on the back of my neck, urging my head to turn toward the counter beside me — right where I’d left my purse.

Oh, God.

That offer.

“Get it out,” he ordered.

His lashes fluttered shut, and just as I hesitantly moved my hand toward the bag, his mouth closed around the most sensitive part of my breast. Heat blazed in me instantly, spreading like wildfire from that one point of his lips outward, across my chest, down my abdomen, settling between my thighs. His tongue lashed against my nipple over and over, sending that rippling blaze over me again and again.

Goddammit, I wanted him to touch me. Really touch me.

Hands shaking, I fumbled with the flap of my bag until I could flip it open. My fingers wrapped around cool silicone, but I wished they were wrapped around something else instead, something warm and rigid and velvety…

His grasp on me changed in an instant. Suddenly, I was no longer held around the back of my neck, and instead, his fingers were digging into my rear, lifting me up while pulling my boyshorts down with a precision that left me unable to breathe.

My bare ass met the cold linoleum of my countertop, and my jeans that had sat pooled around my ankles fell to the ground along with my slip-on shoes and boyshorts.

This man, Sebastion, had me completely fucking naked.

Almost reluctantly, he detached his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, taking a small step back. His eyes raked over my body, starting at my heated face and dropping lower, down to my chest, which rose and fell erratically, down to my breasts, my stomach, and the little crease just beneath my rib cage, down to my hips and what lay between them, down to my thighs, my calves, my dangling feet.

“Fuck,” he breathed, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Does he not like what he sees? “What?”

“Nothing. I’m just burning this image of you into my brain.” He closed the distance again, his hand wrapping easily around the smallest part of my wrist and lifting it from my bag. “So fucking pretty. But I can guarantee you’ll look even better with this against your clit.”

Sebastian plucked the vibrator from my hand, one finger coming down on the little power button, and it roared to life.

“Tell me, Nelly, are you a long buzz or a pattern kind of girl?”

A loose wave of brown hair fell forward into his eyes as he smirked down at me, his hips slotting themselves between my parted thighs resting on the countertop. “People actually use the pattern settings?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t met one, but someone must if they include it on these things.” His free hand hooked under my chin, tipping my face up toward him and pulling my gaze from the buzzing and gurgling toy in his hand. “Get your thighs on my hips.”

I bit my lip and did as I was told.

“Tell me if I do anything you don’t like. Understand?”

“O-Okay.”

Fingers splayed across one side of my neck as he released my chin, and within a fraction of a second, everything was overwhelming. His hand snuck between our bodies and placed the mouth of the toy exactly where it needed to be, forcing my muscles to contract and pleasure to radiate from the setting he’d picked. More than anything, however, it was the way his head lowered, the way his stupid, perfectly proportioned lips ghosted mine, the way they pressed in as a shaky breath rattled his chest.

He kissed me. God, did he kiss me.

He delved between my lips just in time to catch a gasping moan from my mouth, devouring it and dulling the sound. He tasted like the whiskey we’d been drinking, and through the haze of the pleasure and the alcohol and the chaos of what I was doing by even allowing any of this to happen, all I could do was try to keep up.

Vibrations roared to life against my clit, accompanying the onslaught of air pulse technology , and I had to grip his chest to keep from slumping back against the countertop.

“I was right,” he mumbled against my lips. “You do look better like this.”

“I want to see you .” My words were breathy and lilting, interrupted and languid. “Please.”

He shook his head, his mouth ghosting against mine. “If my clothes come off, I would be doing some truly unspeakable things to you. Taking you. Ruining you. Better to leave them on.”

Every passing second with the vibrator on me made it harder and harder to think straight. “That… sounds perfect.”

“Mmm, but I came here for your pleasure, not mine, Nelly,” he teased, pressing a kiss against my chin. “I do need to be inside of you, though.”

“Yes.” It came out gasped, desperate. “Yes, please, yes. ”

His lips tightened and pushed together. “Hold the toy.” I shifted my weight and let go of his chest with one hand, dropping it between us instead. I went to take it from him, and he released it before gripping it again. “Don’t fucking take it off, just use it yourself.”

I blinked. Right. Yeah. That made more sense.

His hand disappeared, leaving my pleasure in my care, and for once, it didn’t feel like enough to send me over the edge. I wanted him to do it. I wanted him to do everything.

But then a sensation rippled through me from my entrance, and before I could put two and two together, his hand fisted the hair at the nape of my neck and tugged down, forcing my chin to raise as he looked down at me.

“What do you like, baby?”

The unmistakable feeling of a finger sliding into me told me he definitely wasn’t talking about drinks this time. My mouth popped open with a gasp, but he kissed it shut, giving me a moment to mull over his words.

“Anything,” I finally managed once he gave me the air to breathe again.

He chuckled deeply and darkly, his eyes twinkling in the low light like they had back at Smokey’s Bar. “You’ll have to be more specific. One finger? Two? Three?”

“As many as you can fit,” I mewled.

His nostrils flared, but he gave me what I wanted — albeit slowly. A second finger slipped in, and slowly, mind-numbingly, he started to thrust them. “Rough? Or gentle?”

My mouth went dry as I tried to pluck up the courage to answer that one. Morris had always looked down on me for what my answer to that question would have been, and the temptation to lie overwhelmed me, begging me to let the wrong word past my teeth to hold on to a shred of dignity. “Gentle,” I lied .

A single brow quirked upward. “You’re lying.”

My head was swimming from the endorphins and pleasure raking over me, but that cut right through. “Excuse me?”

“You tightened around me when I said rough .”

Oh, my God. “Are you using my vagina as a polygraph test?”

His laughter broke the calm, determined mask he had on, but he kissed me again, a genuine grin spreading across his cheeks despite his attempts to hide it. “Yes. So answer me honestly.”

“Rough, then.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

Another finger slid in, and the burn of the stretch that his large hands were causing morphed from pain to pleasure. “Shit,” I gasped, nearly losing my grip on the vibrator as I struggled to stay focused, stay with it. I could already feel myself building, but I didn’t want this to end, I didn’t want him to go. “More.”

The last one slipped inside, and he lost his resolve.

His thrusts turned harder, became more demanding, more intense. They curled up at the tips, and as he pushed me further back with his body crowding over me, the angle changed, hitting exactly where it felt the most electrifying. I couldn’t stop the sounds breaking free from my mouth, couldn’t stop the building pressure in my lower stomach, couldn’t stop the end.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he said to me. His fingers knotted tighter in my hair, pulling hard enough that little pinpricks of pain sprouted across the base of my skull. “You sound so pretty for me. Keep going.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so full from something I wasn’t doing to myself, and it was just his fingers that were filling me. My mind spiraled, drunk on the pleasure and tipsy from the drinks, imagining what he hid beneath his jeans and what that would feel like instead. I imagined him fully bare, imagined him on top of me, inside of me, all over me. “Fuck me,” I whimpered. “Please. Please.”

He didn’t answer my plea. Instead, he kissed me again, absorbing my words and sounds and keeping his pace with his fingers.

But I was so close. So, so dangerously close, and I didn’t care that I barely knew him or that Morris said I was fucking shit in bed. My inhibitions were at rock bottom, and I wanted Sebastian to join me there.

“ Please… ”

“You keep talking, and I’ll put your mouth to good use. Do you understand?” he growled. His teeth sunk into my lower lip, tugging at it as his eyelids fluttered open, his gaze piercing and unwavering. It took every bit of concentration I had to nod. “Good. Now come around my fingers like a good fucking girl or so help me, Nelly, I will paint your ass bright red with my palm.”

The mental image of him bending me over his knees was enough to send me into orbit.

Every part of me broke at once, every muscle seizing and releasing, every breath a gasp — and I fell apart beneath him, twitching and convulsing and barely able to hold the vibrator against me as he thrust his fingers into me over, and over, and over, dragging me through every punishing wave of my orgasm. He drank in the sight of me, watching like a hawk as my chest rose and fell sporadically and my expressions contorted, probably memorizing it all.

But then it ended.

His slick fingers retreated and covered mine, pressing the button on the top that shut the toy off just like he had when he’d picked it up for me. He gave me more space as I slowly returned to Earth, his body retreating just enough that it seemed final, but not too far that I felt alone. But it was the way he looked as though he was reconsidering everything, with his averted gaze and his parted lips and the way he mumbled, “I should probably go.”

“You…you just got here,” I heaved, pushing myself upright and invading his space this time.

“Mmm. You shouldn’t have strangers in your apartment, though, Penelope,” he chuckled half-heartedly, his gaze flicking back to mine. “Didn’t your parents teach you better than that?”

“You’re not a stranger. You’re Sebastian.”

His head tilted to the side. “And you’re Nelly.”

I swallowed through the disappointment as he took a step back, fully removing himself from my vicinity. Is he seriously just going to leave after that? Maybe Morris was right. “At least let me give you my number. I mean, come on. I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

His brows knitted in confusion as he pulled his phone from his pocket with his clean hand. “I don’t know how any girl could have been bad at that in particular, but no, of course you weren’t. I just need to get home,” he said, the words calm and normal but spoken like they were avoiding stepping on eggshells. “What’s your number?”

I rattled off my phone number as he typed it into his phone, but that feeling of inadequacy was back, whether he was covering up his disappointment or not. It stung, but the full ache of it didn’t hit quite as hard in the comedown from what was arguably one of the best orgasms I’d had in my life. Regardless, though, I still found myself trying to cover my breasts and stomach, the sudden shift leaving me self-conscious.

“I’m Nelly Moreno,” I said. “For your, uh, contact information.”

He gave me a soft smile as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Sebastian Anthony. Thank you for this. Genuinely. But I have to go.”