The Experiment Read online

  This was no slow seduction. She was sure neither of them could’ve stood waiting a minute longer than necessary to get naked. They stripped themselves and stood naked in front of each other – and for the first time with anyone, Melissa realized something.

  “What?” Matt asked.

  “I’m not embarrassed,” Melissa said, passing a hand over her breasts, belly, thighs. “About my body, I mean.”

  “Why would you be? It’s fucking gorgeous.”

  Melissa laughed, cupping her breasts again, the nipples still damp and tight from Matt’s mouth. “I mean, I’m not nervous being naked in front of you, Matt.”

  “Good.” He kissed her again. His cock nudged her belly.

  When he put his hands on her ass, kneading gently, Melissa shivered. “Bed.”

  Matt looked over her shoulder, then at her. “Melissa. Are you sure? We don’t have to.”

  “You must be the only guy who’s ever asked me if I was sure,” Melissa said with a lifted brow. “That’s very, very sweet.”

  “What can I say, I’m a sweet guy.” Matt laughed, then looked serious. “I mean, I want to do this. God, I think I might bust something if I don’t get inside you…”

  Melissa drew in a gasp at that, so bold and blunt. So damned sexy. “I know.”

  “I just want to make sure you’re okay with it. Because…this isn’t the experiment any more.”

  “I know that.” She shifted to press her belly against him, loving the thickness of his prick between them. This evidence of his desire. It made her knees weak.

  Matt passed a hand down her hair and gathered it into a tail at the base of her neck, then twisted his fingers into it. “I never got the impression you were into one-nighters.”

  “No. But this doesn’t feel like that. Does it?” This conversation would’ve been surreal with any other man she’d ever taken to bed, but somehow it fit with Matt. Analysis made sense.

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Bed,” Melissa said again, more firmly. “I want this.”

  And Matt gave it to her. He pushed her back on the bed with his kisses, covered her with his body. The sweet weight of him pushed her hips upward. When he moved a little ways off her, Melissa made a noise of protest that turned quickly into a moan when his fingers found the heat and slickness between her legs.

  It felt as good as she’d imagined. Better, in fact. Matt’s fingers found her swollen clit and rubbed gently, then more firmly. His tongue stroked hers as his fingers dipped down into her pussy to fill her. He fucked into her gently with two fingers, his thumb pressing in gorgeous, perfect counterpoint on her clitoris, and Melissa shook with the pleasure.

  “Good?” Matt murmured into her mouth.

  “Very,” she whispered and tilted her hips to give him more access. “Deeper.”

  Again, he gave her what she wanted. Needed. Craved. They’d already had four days of foreplay, and Melissa had spent the entire day imagining what it would be like to have sex with Matt. She was so close to tipping into orgasm already from just this simple exploration of her body that she put her hand on his wrist and looked at him.

  “You want me to slow down?” he asked.

  “It’s so good already, that’s all.”

  Matt shot her a super sexy grin. “Believe me, Melissa, I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass myself, here.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Matt.”

  “I’m serious.” He pressed a kiss to her throat, then her breasts, then slid down her body to draw a line with his tongue along her belly. He stopped at her hip, his fingers still stroking gently.

  She looked down at him. “I promise to judge you on quality, not quantity, okay?”

  He laughed and turned his face into her hip to bite it gently. “Good to know. So if I finish in like, half a minute, that’ll be okay?”

  “It’s sort of…oh…” She breathed out on a wave of pleasure as his thumb rubbed her clit in small circles. Her thigh muscles leaped and her hips bucked the tiniest amount. “Flattering.”

  “I want to taste you,” Matt said in a low voice.

  “Oh, God, please do,” came Melissa’s answer as she opened herself to him further.

  No anxiety, no fear, no embarrassment. Nothing she’d ever come to expect from a first time with someone. Matt slipped his fingers out of her and replaced them with his mouth and lips, his tongue, and Melissa shuddered to the very edge of orgasm almost at once.

  He pushed his hand under her ass while he lapped at her clit, then used his tongue to provide the same steady pressure his thumb had been giving. Tension built, up and up. She shook with it, but Matt held her still.

  Melissa looked down at his face buried between her thighs. Matt had his eyes closed. He made a long, low sound of pure desire, like she was the yummiest thing he’d ever tasted.

  Melissa went over. White-hot waves of desire swept over her. Her clit pulsed under Matt’s talented tongue as she came, fingers clutching at the sheets, hips bucking. Her vision went hazy with the ecstasy.

  She cried out his name.

  He followed her through it, easing off just right when the pressure would’ve been too much, but keeping his mouth teasing her through all the aftershocks. When she’d quieted, her breath still coming a little harsh in her throat but her body no longer twitching, Matt kissed her belly and moved up over her body to find her mouth.

  “Wow,” Melissa murmured, boneless and sated.

  Matt chuckled. “Good?”

  “Mmmm, yes.” She opened her eyes and rolled to face him. “Unbelievably.”

  She thought he might be more insistent, then, about getting some for himself, but Matt just gathered her close and rolled them so he was on his back with Melissa supporting herself against his chest to look down at him. This gave her an excellent view of his erection, which beckoned the touch of her hand.

  He hissed when she took him in her fist, a look almost of pain flitting across his face. “Fuck.”

  Melissa, mindful of what he’d said, gave him a gentle, downward stroke, then slid her hand to cup his balls. “I’d like to repay the favor.”

  “I’ll never last,” he warned her, but with a grin. “And Melissa…I’m not one to turn down a good blow job…”

  “You’re sure it would be good, huh?” She stroked him upward, and Matt’s dick throbbed delightfully against her palm.

  “Yeah. I know it would. But I know that I’d shoot off in about two sucks.”

  “Hmm.” Melissa pretended to think about that. “That wouldn’t be much longer than it took me.”

  They both laughed at that, though breathlessly.

  “This feels good,” she told him as she let her fingers drift up and down his length. “I don’t mean the orgasm, though I have to tell you, Matt, it was spectacular.”

  He buffed his fingernails against his chest. “Thank ya, thank ya.”

  “Just…this. Altogether.”

  He looked at her seriously, then drew her to his mouth for a kiss. “Yeah, it does.”

  “I want to make love with you,” Melissa told him. “I don’t care if you come right away, I want you inside me.”

  Matt groaned, but grinned. “Quality, not quantity. You promised.”

  Melissa reached into her nightstand and pulled out a box of condoms she hadn’t had occasion to use in forever but was super grateful to left in the drawer when she’d pulled out the rest to take along to the lab. She didn’t want to get up and go to her purse, all the way out in the living room. She held up one of the condoms, then another.

  “Color preference?”

  “None,” Matt said.

  “Blue,” she said with a grin and tore open the package. She studied his erection carefully as she sheathed him in latex, her grin getting bigger at Matt’s frustrated groan. “There.”

  She’d had first times that were more like gymnastics meets, her partner trying to impress her with how many positions he could bend her into, but this time Melissa simply threw a leg over Matt’s h
ips and straddled him. She reached between them to guide his cock inside her, settling all the way on it so slowly they both groaned at the same time.

  He filled her up, all the way, delectable pressure against the back of her pubic bone making her clit start to tingle again. She made a murmuring noise of pleasure, then again when Matt put a hand between them to press his knuckle to her clit.

  His eyes were bright, his lips parted and wet. “You like that?”

  “Yes.” Melissa rocked her hips.

  Just as she hadn’t been anxious about being naked in front of him, now she had no fears that she wouldn’t please him with the motions of her body. In fact, she didn’t think about it at all. She simply moved. What felt good, she did. When Matt groaned or shifted or thrust at the way she moved, Melissa did it again. And again.

  Their bodies worked in perfect time. She moved up as he pulled out; she pushed down when he thrust into her. Slowly at first, then faster. With every thrust his hand pressed her clit with just the right amount of pressure.

  “I want you to come again,” Matt said through slightly gritted teeth.

  “I’m going to,” she breathed, and gave herself up to the pleasure.

  It didn’t hit so hard this second time, instead creating slow ripples of ecstasy. Matt thrust deeper inside her. The pleasure built and burst. This time she didn’t cry out his name. This time, it slipped from her lips as easily and sweetly as the orgasm he was giving her.

  This time, he said hers, too.

  After, Melissa found herself tucked up against him as naturally and easily as if she belonged there. She lay on her side with Matt’s arm around her, his breath puffing every so often into her hair and the warmth of him lulling her into a sated doze.

  “Melissa,” he said quietly after a few minutes.

  “Yes?”

  His arm tightened around her, just a little. “Do you think the experiment was a success?”

  She smiled and turned to him. She kissed him. “Yes, Matt. I do.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Margaritas and hot wings on the way.” Matt tipped a bottle of Corona toward the view.

  White sand. Blue water. Booze, just like his frat brothers had promised. And as for babes…

  “Thanks, baby,” Melissa said, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. She kissed his shoulder. “I’m starving.”

  Well, he only needed one.

  Layover

  Excerpt

  Nothing about Graham had become unfamiliar. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the tip of his smile, the flex of his jaw and throat when he spoke. All those small details had been burned into her memory and kept fresh viewing the photos on his Connex page.

  His hair had grown, feathering over his ears in tufts the color of a wren’s wings. There was nothing else avian about him. Nothing else so soft. Every line and angle of his face looked as though it had been drawn with a fine brush, the edges sharp and clear, not blended or fuzzy.

  “It’s good to see you.” Graham slid his phone into the pocket of his khakis.

  She expected him to reach for her, even if only in a purely casual social gesture. When he settled for an incongruously impersonal handshake, her heartbeat stuttered at the simple touch of fingertips and the heat of his palm, and she was grateful he hadn’t embraced her. It would have been too much.

  “You, too.”

  Never had there been words so bland yet so fraught with tension. Julia lifted her chin a little but turned her gaze to keep from looking at him full-on. She didn’t want to burn him with her eyes.

  “Are you ready?” Graham looked around the lobby, then back at her. “Hungry?”

  “Yes. I kept thinking I’d grab a snack while I waited, but then they’d announce something else about the flights and I’d hang out to see what it was…” She trailed off with a shrug and put a hand over her stomach. The rumbles and roars inside had only a little to do with hunger, at least the sort that could be satisfied with food.

  “C’mon. I’ll take care of you.” Graham held out his hand, and she took it.

  He didn’t drop it as he led her across the parking lot to his car. He opened the door for her and kept hold of her hand to help her inside. The thud of the door as he closed it reverberated in her belly and between her thighs, which Julia pressed together under her skirt.

  She’d showered quickly and changed her clothes, though it meant she’d have nothing clean to wear home tomorrow. It had been more important to look good now, when it mattered who saw her. When it mattered that Graham saw her.

  An entire year vanished as they drove. Graham asked her about the new fish she’d bought for her fish tank, the only pets she allowed herself since she traveled so often. The fact he’d been paying attention sent her pulse racing. So did the way he shifted gears, his big hand engulfing the gearshift. She only had to move her leg half an inch to the left, and his knuckles would brush the fabric of her skirt. The corner he took made the decision for her. Graham glanced at the shifter, then at her, and Julia looked back.

  What had she been so afraid of, anyway? Why had she wasted so much time? They could have been cyberfucking for months, even if they hadn’t done so much as do anything more in person than shake hands.

  She’d been stupid.

  Graham pulled into the lot of a cozy-looking restaurant and turned off the car. For the first time, their conversation died. He turned in his seat to face her, and Julia braved herself to look at him. Why had she thought this would be so difficult?

  “Are you ready?” Graham asked.

  If she touched him, Julia was convinced electricity would arc from her hand to his. It crackled unseen between them. She could smell it, the tangy ozone scent of desire.

  “Absolutely.”

  One word said quite a lot. His smile said more, and all at once she had no more doubts. No fear of rejection, or making a mistake. The urgency didn’t fade, but it shifted. First dinner and later, then…the rest. The cake. There’d be time for all of it. Graham’s smile told her so.

  Maybe it was her answering smile that had emboldened him, or maybe he’d come to his own realization, but Graham made no pretense that this was anything other than a date. Last year, the setting and their companions had constrained them, but here there was nobody to judge. This wasn’t work.

  It was all about pleasure.

  About the Author

  photo credit: Whitney Hart Photography

  I was born and then I lived a while. Then I did some stuff and other things. Now, I mostly write books. Some of them use a lot of bad words, but most of the other words are okay.

  If you liked this book, please tell everyone you love to buy it. If you hated it, please tell everyone you hate to buy it.

  Find me here!

  www.meganhart.com

  [email protected]