His skepticism comes through in his next question. “Is he your boyfriend or something?”
“Or something,” Maddox growls.
“Aylee…”
“I promise, I’m okay. Maddox is just kidding around. I really wish I could go out with you this weekend, but I’m going to be painting Maddox for my art portfolio. That’s actually why he’s here. I need to talk to him about it.”
“Oh,” he says, reluctantly. “All right. I get it. Just…maybe some other time then?”
I nod slowly, chewing the inside of my bottom lip, “Maybe.”
“I’ll see you downstairs?”
“Yup, be right down.”
“I’d give him an hour tops, before you lose interest in him,” he injects with a cocky grin.
“Maybe, but at least I’ll be entertained for a good hour,” I answer back, meeting his narrowed gaze head-on. But because he’s too good at this game and the intensity of his stare strips me bare, I avert my eyes. “You’re here,” I say, inanely looking down at his large hand still encircling my wrist.
“I’m here,” he echoes.
Blinking fast, I take the chance to look up at his face. “Why?”
Without warning, he yanks me to him, and I gasp when he pushes me up against the bookshelf behind me and traps me there with his body. Sweeping a large hand behind my hair, he takes a strong, possessive hold of my nape and lowers his head until his breath fans my partially-opened mouth. “Because I want a kiss.”
Yes! Please, yes!
I anticipate the urgent brush of his mouth on mine like it’s a drop of water after years and years of drought. “I want you on my tongue, Aylee.”
I don’t fully grasp the implication of his words. All that matters to me is him satisfying the craving I have for his drugging kiss. I lift my head up more, close my eyes, and wait…and wait…and wait...
He chuckles softly, “Not here, for now.” His thumb glides along my bottom lip in a sweet, torturous caress. “Turn around,” he commands but doesn’t give me the chance to do it myself as he turns me to face the bookshelf. “Don’t move,” he adds hoarsely. His heavy breath along my ear produces a slow crawl of heat low in my abdomen.
I feel the absence of his warmth instantly and I want to turn around so badly to see where he’s gone or what he’s doing. But something keeps me from doing so.
So I wait and ask instead, “Wha…what are you doing?” My voice quivers in a whisper only to choke on a gasp as I feel his strong, firm hands at the waistband of my dark blue maxi skirt and then slowly he tugs it down. A current of cool air in the room sweeps across my exposed butt cheeks. Reaching down, I slam my hand on his to stop him from going any further.
“Maddox…” The stop catches in my throat at the feel of his soft, warm lips whispering along the curve of my butt. His fingertips skim up the sides of my trembling thighs and slip beneath the band of my cotton panties. With his breath steaming-hot along my cheeks, he slides the panties down my legs in a languorous motion and they fall on top of my skirt, pooling around my feet on the carpeted floor.
Panic has my head moving left and then right out onto the open aisle. The sudden idea of someone walking by at any moment to find me with my skirt down, my bottom half exposed, and Maddox on his knees behind me shoots the most electrifying thrill down my spine, invoking a soft moan.
Good Lord, what’s wrong with me? Do I actually want someone to see us?
Yes.
The answer is a dark little whisper in my mind. It ripples like a caress through every crevice in my body.
This is scandalous.
Wicked.
Wrong.
But how can something so wrong feel so intensely right? So astonishingly good? If this is sin then I’ll gladly burn for just a stroke of his tongue along my most intimate place. For him, I’d burn for eternity. I want his touch. I welcome it, crave it, in fact.
It takes everything I have to fight the impulse not to look back. But I need to. I have to see what he’s doing. “Maddox…someone might come.” I look over my shoulder and down to find him staring up at me, a devilish grin pulling at the corners of his wicked mouth, while pure mischievousness glints in his smoky gray eyes.
“Yes you will,” he murmurs, “I’ll make damn sure of it.” The promise in his voice melts me.
My breath tap-dances in my lungs, coming out hot and fast against the books in front of me as I feel the all-too-thick intrusion of his finger slip between the V of my slick flesh.
He makes a guttural sound and it’s so primal, so animalistic that everything female in me responds to it, my core throbs reflexively, my breasts grow fuller, and my nipples pucker inside my bra, demanding the warm relief of his mouth. “Damn, Aylee,” he says, throatily. “You’re so fucking wet, baby.” His finger glides up and then down, and up and back down, playing in my slickness.
“Arch your back and stick your ass out for me,” he directs silkily, masterfully pulling on my strings. Pushing slightly against the bookshelf, my back bows and I thrust my hips back for his total enjoyment.
He grabs the globes of my butt between his hands and parts my cheeks, stripping me completely of any sense of modesty. And then him breathing me in, his face so close to my swollen, pulsating flesh is…indescribable. When his mouth touches my lips, my knees weaken, and it takes gripping the shelf to keep myself upright.
He kisses me there where wetness drips like honey. He uses his tongue that’s so hot, so wet, and so firm to slowly, thoroughly eat me. He feasts on my flesh like it’s ambrosia from the gods. He’s in deep, and I’m bent practically in half, my butt cheeks spread wide. Soft, gasping moans tumble free from my open mouth as I try to pull away from how intense it is. But his grip is so strong that it keeps me exactly where he wants me. My entire universe condenses down to where his beautiful tongue nibbles, licks, and flicks over the incredibly-sensitive nerves of my clitoris. Pleasure I’ve never known, so fierce and astonishing, wrenches a stunning cry from me as my body spasms from my incredible release.
My knees buckle and this time I don’t have the strength to keep myself up. But then he’s there. Strong, muscular arm encircling my waist as he holds my body tight against his. He turns me to face him and covers my mouth with his in a hungry, toe-curling kiss. I taste my essence and I taste him, and the combination of us is deliciously intoxicating.
Chapter 21
Aylee
Later, we’re in his apartment. Leaving the library had been one of the most embarrassing things I’d ever had to do. The instant Maddox and I came down from the stacks, I immediately knew that everyone below had heard my scream of pleasure. While Maddox waited for me outside the library, I hastily packed my things and with an extremely red face, said goodbye to my study group. Just before we left school, Maddox asked if I was able to paint anywhere. With the simplest reply that I could muster, he helped me lug my supplies to his truck and drove us to his apartment. We’ve been working on the painting for the last two and a half hours. We’re taking a small break before getting back to it.
While I wait for him to come back from the bathroom, I sit on a chair in front of my easel, staring at his likeness emblazoned across the canvas. It’s not nearly as close to the real thing, and I’m starting to realize it never will be. Maddox Moore is too much of a force to be captured in a medium. But what I have is turning out to be one of the best renditions of him I’ve ever done. He’s in there in slashing brush strokes. Crimson red and white, and then there’s the negative space in the shadows that creates the illusion of destruction. He’s a god in my painting.
Ares .
Fearsome. Insatiable. Dangerous.