All the Things We Need Page 17

  “And mine didn’t?”

  I shook my head. Warm from the alcohol and the dancing and the banter, I also leaned a little closer. Definitely flirting now, though still uncertain where I wanted to take this. “Nope.”

  “Huh.” Niall didn’t move away. “Is that a deal breaker?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said seriously. “I’m sorry if I did.”

  I appreciated the unexpected apology and shook my head. “You didn’t. I’m used to it. But think of how you’d feel if someone started grilling you on what you like to do in the bedroom and then saying something like ‘weird’ or ‘why would you do that?’”

  “I guess I wouldn’t like it very much.” He frowned. “Shit, Elise. I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “I know you didn’t. Most people don’t.” I shrugged then looked at him. “If we’d met another way, not through Evan, and if you didn’t know up front about my proclivities, would you still find me so fascinating?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. The music swelled and throbbed as the DJ took over for the band taking a break. Niall turned his glass around then drank.

  “I think so. Yeah.” He nodded. “But it’s hard to say, since I do know. And…like you said that first night, it’s not something you do. It’s who you are.”

  I barely remembered saying that to him. The words struck me hard now, in the tender spot between my ribs. Hard enough to set me back a little.

  “Yes. That’s true,” I told him. “I am the sum of many parts.”

  “We all are.”

  I smiled. “True.”

  “Some of my parts would like to get to know some of yours a lot better,” Niall said.

  I laughed again, shaking my head. “Bad, bad, bad. So bad.”

  “You like a bad boy, though,” he told me.

  “No,” I said, leaning closer. “I like a very good boy.”

  I finished my drink, which left me feeling slow and sultry and definitely in the mood to dance. I held out my hand. I didn’t say anything. I looked at the dance floor then at Niall. I let my eyes do the talking for me, and I waited to see if he’d pass this test, too.

  Without a word, needing none, he got up. He pulled me onto the dance floor. And we moved together as though we’d been born for it, as though our parents had met and fallen in love or lust and come together for the sole purpose of making each of us so that we could find one another, right there, right now, on the dance floor where he put his hands on me like he owned me…and I let him, because right then, just then, I wanted to be owned.

  I should not have let him kiss me. I knew it could lead to nothing but trouble and heartbreak at the worst, embarrassment at the least. But that’s the funny thing about lust. It makes you stupid, not caring what might happen in the future when all you can think of is what is happening in the moment. I shouldn’t have let him put his mouth on me, or his tongue to stroke mine. I should not have done a lot of things.

  But I did anyway.

  CHAPTER 26

  Niall had also rented a room at the hotel. He was smart enough to know that he’d be drinking just enough to make it inappropriate to drive home. He didn’t ask me to go upstairs with him. I didn’t promise him I would. We simply found ourselves in the elevator sometime after the bar closed, and when he asked me for what floor he ought to push the button, I smiled and leaned in to kiss him as my answer.

  We didn’t say anything as I followed him down the hallway to his room at the very end. We didn’t touch. I don’t know if Niall was thinking about what we would do if we passed friends or relatives, but I was. Fortunately, the hallway was deserted and quiet, because I wasn’t sure what I’d have done or said if we had passed anyone.

  He opened the door but stepped back to let me go through first. We’d both booked king rooms, though mine had a view overlooking the river, and his didn’t. Both rooms had the same decor, though; his was a mirror image of mine. It made everything feel a little surreal.

  I’d put my shoes back on to come upstairs, but kicked them off now as I turned to face him. He tossed his jacket onto the chair. With the heels on, I was an inch or so taller than he was, but in my stockinged feet I found I could kiss him very nicely without doing more than pushing up a little bit on my toes. My arms went naturally around his neck. His, around my waist.

  I thought he might kiss me, but he looked into my eyes, instead. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I answered. My fingers toyed with the fringy edges of his hair in the back.

  Slowly moving in a circle, Niall danced with me there in front of the enormous hotel room bed. He’d taken off his shoes, too, and the soft shush-shush of our feet on the carpet was our only music, but we didn’t need more than that. He eased me closer, right up against him. My cheek found a natural spot to rest in the curve of his neck.

  I wanted him to kiss me. Morning would be here in a few hours, but it still felt as though the night stretched on in front of us, endless and full of possibility. I was fine with waiting.

  His hands moved from my hips to my ass, pulling me a little closer. Heat curled in my belly. I nuzzled his skin and let my tongue creep out to taste him.

  He shivered, and I smiled.

  “I want to kiss you again,” he said against my hair.

  I looked at him. “So kiss me.”

  “I didn’t know if I needed to ask permission or something.”

  I laughed, though I wasn’t sure if he was joking. “Why would you have to ask permission?”

  “Isn’t that how you do it?”

  Ah, we were back to that again. He was fascinated; I was horny. I stepped back.

  “This,” I said, fisting a handful of the front of his shirt, “is how I do it.”

  I turned him, and he let himself be turned. I pushed him, and he let himself be pushed. Backward onto the bed, he fell a little harder than I think he expected, but I was already climbing up to straddle him. My fingers tugged open his buttons, one by one, and spread open his shirt so I could run my hands up the smoothly muscled plane of his belly and chest. Beneath me, his cock was hard, but I didn’t touch him there with my hands. The pressure of my body was enough for now, the squeeze of my thighs on his hips.

  I put my hands flat on his chest and leaned to offer him my mouth, which I held above his just far enough that he’d have to strain a little to reach it. “Kiss me.”

  In those last few seconds, I wondered if he’d refuse. A flash of something in his eyes, a small twist in his smile. But then he was kissing me, hard, his hands all over me. Mine all over him.

  Mouths open, tongues searching. He hissed when I raked my nails down his chest, though I did it lightly, nowhere near as fiercely as I’d have done with someone else. I pinched his nipples next, and he growled.

  Yes. Growled. Low and raspy in his throat, a wolf-like noise. Both his hands came up to grip my wrists and stop me from moving my hands.

  Both of us were breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes. Slowly, never looking away from me, Niall rolled his hips to nudge his hard cock against me. Then again. When I tried to shift, he held me so tight there was no way I could, not without truly fighting him, and I didn’t want to do that.

  The third time he rocked me against his erection, I moaned. His grip loosened a little on my wrists. I kissed him, nipping gently at his lower lip. Then licking it.

  Niall dug his fingers into my hair, pulling my head back. I gasped a little. His look of smug triumph, that gleam of satisfaction, shot a bolt of electric heat straight to my center. I might like being on top, but that never meant I couldn’t enjoy a little good old-fashioned hair pulling.

  He rolled us both until I was under him. Dress around my hips. I hadn’t dressed for seduction tonight, leaving behind
my fancy garter belt in favor of one with more vintage styling. It doubled as a foundation garment to keep all the lumps and bumps of ladyhood in place. My stockings, plain nude with a utilitarian band at the top instead of pretty lace, were also not what I’d have considered sexy, but at the sight of them, Niall paused.

  “Damn.” He pushed up on his knees to get a better look.

  Pleased, I stroked a fingertip down one garter strap. “You like this?”

  “Yeah.” He ran his hands up my calves, over my knees. He stopped at the stocking tops to let his fingers touch the metal clips. “Very sexy.”

  I had a dozen far sexier bits of lingerie in my drawer at home, but I didn’t try to dissuade him. I sat up and pulled my dress off over my head then tossed it onto the chair. I almost never wore a bra, but in honor of going to synagogue I’d put on a silky, clinging bralette that did nothing to hide the fact my nipples had gone diamond-hard. Propped on my elbows, I watched Niall’s hazel eyes go dark with desire as he took me all in.

  “So fucking sexy.” He undid his belt then his trousers and shucked them off. He wore dark boxer briefs, already tenting.

  I grinned with delight. “More, more, more.”

  “Greedy.” Niall crawled up the bed to cover me with his body. Settling between my legs, several layers of clothing still a barrier, he rocked against me as he found my mouth again. Then my throat, nibbling.

  It had been a long, long time since I’d just made out with someone this way. Dry humping. It made me laugh, and he pulled away to look at me.

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Just…this is unexpected.”

  He ran a hand over my breasts then my belly, which jumped under his touch. “Are you okay with it?”

  It was the right question. He’d been confident to this point. Leading me, as I allowed myself to be led. But in that moment he proved himself to be a gentleman, as well, even if he was doing things to me that someone’s grandma wouldn’t approve of.

  I took his face in my hands. “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yeah.” He turned his face to kiss my palm. Then the inside of my wrist, just over the rabbit inked there. “What does this mean?”

  “It’s to remind me of something important.”

  He rolled off me to look more closely at the tattoo. I thought he’d ask me what was simultaneously so important yet so forgettable that I’d felt the need to permanently ink it into my skin, but he asked a different question. “Why a bunny?”

  “Because,” I said, rolling him onto his back so I could straddle him once more.

  He accepted my nonanswer. He did not accept when I slid my hands up his arms to pin his wrists. Laughing, he twisted to break my grasp.

  “Maybe you want to tie me up,” he said.

  I sat up, not fighting to keep him held. With my hands on his chest, I leaned to whisper in his ear, “You should stop assuming you know me.”

  Then we were kissing again, and there was no room for words with Niall’s tongue in my mouth. With his hand sliding between us to stroke me through my panties, and then inside them, his fingers finding me already wet. He groaned at that. His gaze went unfocused, and I drank in that look as I always did, gorging myself on that moment when need began to overpower rationality.

  “Slower,” I said into his ear when his fingers worked too fast.

  He slowed. “Better?”

  I shivered, closing my eyes and resting my face against his shoulder. “Yes. Like that. Oh…”

  “I want to be inside you, Elise.”

  Laughter shuddered out of me, breathless and full of need. “Yes. That, too.”

  “I don’t have anything with me.”

  His slowly stroking fingers had eased me to the edge of orgasm, but I shifted now to look into his eyes. “Hmm. That could be a problem, huh?”

  Niall rolled us again so that we lay side by side. He kept his hand in place, though he stopped moving. “I want to…”

  “Fuck me,” I breathed, watching his face for a reaction, which, oh, yes, he gave me.

  His eyes half closed for a moment before he focused on mine. “Yes. I want to fuck you.”

  I reached between us to cup his cock. “Good.”

  He pushed into my touch and kissed me again. We wriggled around for another few minutes until he broke the kiss with a gasp. “Shit! I want you.”

  “I want you, too.” I laughed. “Why do you not have condoms with you at all times, Niall Black? How is it that you’ve managed to get through life without learning that at any time you might want to be putting your penis inside a vagina?”

  He blinked, looking taken aback for a second before grinning. “What the…”

  I kissed him, long and hard. I slid my thigh between his to rock against him. “Don’t act like it’s never happened before.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “All the time. Last week in the grocery store, some chick stopped me and wanted to bang me right there in the frozen foods aisle.”

  “Let me guess. You didn’t have a condom.”

  His fingers shifted, easing inside me again so that my head fell back. “Nope. But let’s be fair here. You don’t have any, either.”

  “This is true,” I breathed, unable to say much more than that because he was once again teasing me closer and closer to coming. “So whatever shall we do, instead?”

  Before I could move or stop him, Niall rolled me onto my back to kneel between my legs. In the next moment, he’d hooked his fingers in the waist of my girdle, tugging but unable to get it more than a fraction of an inch down my hips. I burst into laughter at his efforts. He joined me, and we wrestled for a bit, but there was no getting that thing off without a struggle. He gave up and fell back, panting.

  “Cock blocked by lingerie,” he said.

  I pushed up on my elbow to look at him. “I dressed for utility, not seduction.”

  He groaned and tickled his fingertips up my thigh. I wanted him to touch me higher. Give me more. But there’d been too much to drink, too long a day. A yawn slipped out of me, big enough to make my jaws crack. He tried to fight it; I saw the struggle. But he lost to his own yawn. With his head pillowed on my belly, Niall closed his eyes.

  I stroked his hair, surprised at my own tenderness and at how quickly this had turned from frenetic lust to something simpler. I’d been with men who, in place of the sex we’d both been aiming for, would’ve demanded a blow job and some who’d have begged for one, and I was usually inclined to deny both approaches. Niall didn’t demand, and he didn’t beg. I waited for him to move or speak, but the minutes ticked past, and his breathing slowed.

  “Niall,” I murmured.

  He snuggled closer, his fingers pushing beneath my thighs. I let my fingers drift through his hair, then to trace his ear. He shifted a little, though not in protest.

  “Feels good,” he said.

  It did feel good. Not just the kissing and touching and stroking, but…this. All of it. The way my fingers felt in his hair, the soft rise and fall of his breathing. The way he hugged me closer. Everything about being with Niall just now felt…right.

  We weren’t fucking, and I felt all right.

  I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Not fully clothed, cuddling, my face unwashed and my hair tangling around my shoulders. The lights still on. I only meant to close my eyes for a minute or so, not to drift into dreams with a stranger tucked up against me as though we’d known each other our whole lives. Considering how hard it was for me to fall asleep in my own bed with an arsenal of tricks, I didn’t think I’d be able to at all.

  I did, though. I fell fast and deep and didn’t dream. I woke sometime later, disoriented. Niall had turned off the lights, and we’d both shifted on the bed to spoon, him behind me. His arm over my hip, his hand on my belly. My garters were cutting into my thig
hs, and my stomach churned from not enough sleep, a little too much wine, uncompleted arousal.

  I didn’t move, slowly becoming aware of the huff of Niall’s breath against the back of my neck. Light came through the curtains, but I had no idea what time it was. Shit, had I slept through brunch?

  I slid away from him, expecting him to wake, but he didn’t. I used his bathroom to rinse my mouth and smooth my hair. I wiped away the smears of liner from beneath my eyes. I’d have to run and change in my room before heading downstairs, but at least for now I didn’t look like I’d slept under a bridge.

  Back in the bedroom, I found my shoes and didn’t bother putting them on. I leaned over him, but he hadn’t moved. I stroked his shoulder, and he still didn’t stir.

  I did not kiss him on the cheek before I left.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Really, Elise, if you’re that hungover, maybe you should’ve just stayed in your room.” Jill held out a mimosa in my direction, but took it back when I reached for it.

  “I’m not hungover. Just tired.”

  “Well, you look it. Go put some lipstick on.” She shook her head in disapproval.

  “Jill, nobody really cares what I look like. It’s all good. You and Mom did a great job with all of this stuff, relax.” I snagged a mimosa from a passing waiter and tried to pretend I was not looking for Niall. I was starving.

  “We just wanted it to be nice.” My sister pinned me with a stare. “We wanted to make sure William had a nice party, that’s all.”

  “He had a great party. And this is a nice brunch, okay?” In that moment I was trying hard to like my sister. “Look, Mom’s in her glory.”

  She was meeting and greeting, directing people toward the buffet table laden with eggs, bagels, cream cheese and lox. I heard one confused guest asking if there was any bacon and prayed they wouldn’t ask my mother, who could not be counted on not to be snide. All in all, though, it really was a nice brunch. Mom and Jill were good at planning things. Nobody would know how they dithered over stuff, and in the end, did it matter how long it had taken them to decide if they should have vegetable cream cheese alongside the plain?