Power play

This erotic sex story from His Billionaire Bride by Madeline Ash is published with permission.

Hotter15 minsAdult MFContemporary
Erotic sexy story excerpt from His Billionaire Bride by Madeline Ash

Edwin slept.

On his side, facing away from her. Shirt off, bare-footed, pants on. He’d fallen asleep gazing out at the city lights.

If Carrie could paint, she’d paint him like this. Half-naked, features hidden. The shadowed plane of his back tormenting her with everything it protected. Shielding his heart. His true expressions. Even blocking the light that touched him from the world below.

She hadn’t slept.

Hard to find rest while dying from a man’s beauty.

He’d known. Somehow, he’d known that despite her repeated requests he stay, sleep with her, she wasn’t ready for sex. She wanted to be, but in that sharp-eyed way of his, he’d sensed that wanting physically wasn’t the same as being there emotionally.

He’d followed her into her bedroom and caught her hand, tugging her away from the bed to kiss her. Slowly. Lips gentle, tongue threading arousal through her in a loose, glowing weave. With the lust she’d felt in him just minutes before, she’d expected him to tug on that arousal with a harder kiss, tightening her need until she found his belt again and they dissolved into sliding skin.

Instead, he’d pulled back.

“I don’t want to rush you,” he’d said, running his fingers through her hair. “Don’t think that just because I’m here now, we have to do this.”

Her scalp had tingled under his nails. “I like doing this.”

“Me, too.” He’d grinned. “We do good making out. But intense observation aside, we’ve only known each other since Monday. We can just make out tonight. Everything else can be—anticipation.”

“I’ve spent months anticipating you.” But she’d pulled back a little. Like perhaps she was arguing with herself. It had been so long since her last lover. And not good, never good. The reality of Edwin being here, in her bedroom, had her confidence retreating. It had happened so suddenly, his sure-footed entrance to her life. So little time to prepare for whatever cliff edge she’d end up on when this was over.

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“What’s another night?” he’d asked.

She’d hated her own hesitation.

“This two-week thing,” he’d said. “Ignore it. Don’t let it push you. We’ll do what we’ll do in that time. No regrets if we can’t comfortably fit in more. Not that I could ever regret a night of kissing you.”

A night of kissing. The idea had fluttered somewhere between her heart and stomach. Smiling softly, she’d said, “Okay.”

His expression hadn’t flickered as he’d moved in. “One request,” he’d said against her mouth. “Can we stay off the bed? Restraint will be easier if you’re not literally lying underneath me.”

“Forced to agree.”

So they’d made out against the doors to her walk-in robe. Enflamed, arrhythmic kisses. Slow and deep as his heavy groans, urgent and explosive as her fast-roaming hands. It was adolescent; it was intensely adult. And she couldn’t get enough, would never get enough, because Edwin was limitless. There was no such thing as enough of him. He went on forever, endless light and outward-pouring energy.

Later, much later, they’d parted.

“You should sleep,” he’d said, breath hard.

“Yes.” Big weekend. Trip upstate. Donor appreciation event. Sleep required. “Okay.”

Dazed and fizzing, she’d hauled herself into the bathroom to change into a summer set of pajamas. Emerging, she’d found him lying half-clothed on her bed, and it had struck her again—potential finally fulfilled, threatening her with the emptiness she’d face when he left.

“I usually leave the blinds open.” She’d paused, unsure. “To wake with the sunrise. The city glow can be bright, though, so I can close them tonight.”

“No. Leave it,” he’d said, eyes on her.

Shyness nudged her to the light switch. For a few seconds, the room was black. Carefully, she’d moved around the bed, eyes adjusting to the glow from the window.

“Am I on your side?” he’d asked softly.

“Kind of.”

“Meaning yes?”

Sliding onto the covers beside him, she’d said, “Meaning my side’s the middle.”

He’d laughed, and she’d almost kept sliding until she was on top of him.

“I like this,” he’d said, then rolled away to look at the view. Or to stop himself from reaching for her. “Being here.”

She’d settled on the far edge of the mattress, on her side, staring at his back. She liked it, too. The undeniable presence of this redheaded prince in her bed.

She liked it too much.

Body alive with aching, she’d laid still and listened as he filled the silence. Chatting, asking easy questions, all while facing the window. Eventually, his talk had quietened, and he’d slept.

Edwin. Slept in her bed.

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Still sleeping now.

It had been hours. Yet instead of winding down since he’d fallen asleep, she’d gone from loosely aroused to sexually agitated. Her concerns over being vulnerable had eased entirely. The darkness helped. So did a sleeping bedpartner. Yet, she lay on her side, staring at his back, aching to trace the length of his spine and scrape him from sleep with the trail of her fingernails.

One truth held—his exploration of her would be too much tonight.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t explore him.

The idea lit her up so intensely she inched across the mattress. The first man she’d wanted to touch for his own sake. She wasn’t ready to find her own pleasure, to have Edwin find it for her—but to find his…that unearthed a new clawing greed within her.

Holding her breath, she pressed a palm to his shoulder blade and slid it slowly down his back.

No reaction.

Edging closer, she fanned her fingers and swept her touch outward along his side. Her fingertips curved over onto his bare stomach. Smooth skin, sensitive, warm—and still.

She smiled wryly. He challenged her, even in sleep.

Lifting her head onto his pillow, so close his body heat met with hers, she placed an open-mouthed kiss to the soft hollow behind his ear, pressing her tongue against his skin.

That woke him.

He sprang into consciousness, body jolting as he gasped in the dark. To ground him, remind him of where he was, she kept a hand on his waist and moved even closer until her breasts and thighs grazed against him.

His breath out was shaky. “Hello.”

“Hi.” She tilted her chin up, took the lobe of his ear in her mouth. His naked back was hot, hard. She wanted to eat him whole.

He shivered. “Can’t sleep anywhere but the middle, huh?”

“Not sleeping,” she murmured over his shoulder. His beautiful, edible shoulder. In a surge of boldness, her hands spread around him, one sliding over his shoulder and down his chest, the other drifting to circle low on his stomach. “Very awake.”

His abs tensed beneath her touch. “I can do awake,” he said, starting to turn into her.

“Wait.” She held him in place. He’d steered their earlier kiss. It was her turn to be in control. “Don’t turn around.”

“Don’t—” He angled his head toward her, his colorless features confused in the faint light. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“I want to touch you,” he said firmly.

“I want to touch you first.”

Tension held him coiled as he hesitated. Then, with a rough exhale, he reached a hand behind him to grasp the back of her thigh, settling more securely against her, his ass melding into the cradle of her hips.

Permission granted.

When she’d thought about this, joined in their surrender, melting heat across their skin, she’d envisioned a blur of breath, hands, mouths. Reality was bolder. Sharp with physical contact, biting with need. She wanted to climb him, legs and arms wrapping so tightly they both bruised.

She settled for touching him. The firm, smooth drop of his stomach. The hard pucker of his nipples. The jutting angle of his hipbones, leading down to where she burned to hold him. Her breath stung in her throat as she trembled with everything she wanted—to do to him and have him do to her.

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His breath caught as she thumbed the band of his pants. The flush of reaction spreading through her only flared when his hand joined hers to help unbutton him. Freed, with pants dropping to the floor, he caught her fingers in a sure grip.

“Promise me I can do this to you.” He turned his head, half-facing where she clung behind him.

She could feel him against her knuckles. Erect, sleek like wet glass. The thought of holding him made her dizzy. “I promise.”

He let her go.

She curled her hand around the base of him. Couldn’t tell if the quiet gasp of shock came from him or her. Sliding up, she closed her eyes, taking any focus sight demanded and giving it to her palm. Awareness, clarity, all her attention reforming around him. His shoulders curled forward, hinging in on himself as he flexed his hips, pushing more firmly into her palm.

Matching the bend of his body, she pressed her cheek to his back and rose her grip up to his tip again, getting a feel for him. Ridged, yet smooth as silk. She swallowed down a shaky breath—and started to stroke him.

“God, Carrie,” he said, voice rough, and found her other hand. Guided it up his chest, flattened it against his skin. If she’d thought her pulse was running so frantically his would never catch up, she was wrong. His wild heartbeats flew as fiercely as her own.

Vaguely, she recognized it as a problem. Palms over pounding hearts. Her name spoken in gratification. A sensation unfolding in her chest that achingly reached for him. But she didn’t care.

Because this was everything. Hips tucked hard against him. Breasts tight and straining for his touch. Desire hitching at his uneven, stifled breaths.

And safe. Erotic, infuriatingly unsatisfying, but safe.

Until—

“Clothes off.” He spoke a split second before he started to turn. Startled, she snatched her hands away to hold him in place, pushing at his shoulder blades. If he turned, she might end up beneath him…and they both knew where that would lead. Groaning, he let himself be restrained. “Okay, you can do it.”

Take off the only layer between them? “What happened to not wanting to rush me?”

His body stilled. “You woke me up for this, Pea, not the other way around. And call it ironic, since I’m basically a peasant in a penthouse right now, but I’m not into power imbalances.” He lifted his head, eyeing her over his shoulder. In the dim city light, his expression was wary. “If I’m naked, so are you.”

“You’d prefer me to stop than stay in my pajamas? You can’t be—”

“I’ll take a satisfying shower.” He was serious. “But lying here naked and facing no one while you’re covered up behind me…I might as well come alone.” He shook his head, and his next words came out soft with indignity.

“I’ve accepted I can’t have commitment from you, Carrie, but don’t make me feel cheap.”

It was like he’d pushed her off the rooftop.

Her gut warped, her skin prickling as she hit his truth. Too busy protecting herself, she hadn’t realized the position she’d put him in. It felt like sin to cheapen the most precious man in existence.

“You’re right.” She wriggled away from him, cold with shame. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He didn’t turn around.

She rolled off the bed onto her feet. Her singlet, shorts, and underwear came off faster from standing. Then she was crawling across the covers and imprinting her body against the back of his. The sensation of hot naked skin would have driven her hand straight to his erection if she weren’t so focused on fixing this.

She pressed her mouth to his shoulder—once, twice. “I’m sorry, Edwin.”

Slowly, he relaxed against her. Loosening, accepting.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel cheap.” Her mouth hardly lifted from him as she spoke. His skin on her tongue was the heady scent of his bedroom times a thousand. “It’s not that you don’t mean enough to me. You mean too much. I don’t know how to…do all the things you can do.” Talk. Observe. Empathize. “I don’t have experience as a considerate lover.”

“It’s okay.” He twisted, meeting her eyes. Searching for something she hadn’t realized she was giving until he took it with a small, cautious smile.

“I—I want this to be good for you.” He’d said he wouldn’t take pleasure from her without ensuring she felt it in return. Yet, she clearly couldn’t get it right for either of them. “But intimacy isn’t my thing, and I don’t know how to—”

“Come here,” he said, reaching an arm behind him, circling her waist and sliding her bodily over his side. Suddenly, she was in front of him. Naked in front of him. Heat filled her face, her blood, as his grip shifted to caress her side. Voice thick, he murmured, “How could you hide this from me? And before you start thinking, don’t.” He cupped a hand over her eyes until she closed them. “Just…”

Feel.

The tender skimming of his lips over hers, seeking entrance.

His mouth felt hotter than it had earlier, richer, and she sank onto the covers, into his kiss. Slowly, he touched her, stroking his hands over her breasts, waist, shoulders. Reawakening, she wound her arms around his neck to draw him closer. He smiled, teeth against her lips, as his fingers made their way down to toy low on her stomach. Shivers erupted at her navel. How had she not known her belly was so intensely sensitive, sending his caress shooting like sparks down between her thighs?

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He moved on. Over her hip to grasp her ass, a hold that from past lovers had felt dominating, but now felt intimately erotic. He palmed her in a wide circle before moving up her spine.

Taut and trembling, she half-lifted herself onto her side, reaching out. As she wrapped around him, his rigid patience fell away in a rush. He thrust into the barrel of her curved hand, his groan betraying how close she’d brought him earlier.

“Please,” he whispered, eyes pressing closed.

“Yes,” she said, hardly breathing from her own ache. She wanted—if only she could—it was so hard to think beyond him. “Edwin.”

His lips lifted. A distracted smile, perhaps because his name had triggered all of this tonight. Or perhaps just because he liked to hear her say it.

“Edwin,” she said again, under her breath, as she kept stroking him, her movements growing rougher to match the slight flex and fall of his hips.

“Please,” he said again. Top lip pressed against her forehead, he asked unsteadily, “Can I touch you?”

If she hadn’t been so close to her own edge, clenching around nothing, she’d have been too worried to agree. If she hadn’t been sure she’d come from a mere graze of his knuckle, she wouldn’t have risked it. But she was—and desperate for him to touch her. A twisting, grasping, begging need. He’d guided her to the edge beside him, and she trusted him to take her over with him.

“Yes, okay,” she said. “Yes.”

His hand trailed down her middle, right to where she burned slick for him.

As he slid over her for the first time, her body both yielded and tightened.

Inviting him, even as her tension built for more. He stroked her, once, twice, too many times, and when her own hand moved faster over him, forcing him to pick up the pace if they were to do this together, he gave a breathless laugh and pushed a finger inside her. A crackling bolt of pleasure shot through her, growing steadier as he withdrew and added another.

It took less time than she’d thought possible. This surge had been building since he’d first turned and caught her watching him across the dance floor, green gaze sparkling, lips upturned in curious appreciation. Months in the making…and every second of the past week driving her to breaking point.

His disarming flirtations. His thoughtful gestures. His compassion and candor and—and the—the all-consuming feel of him thrusting inside her…

“Carrie,” he said as he led her, knotted tight but starting to split at the seams, into the blinding white of release.

Hitting her like a fist, her whole body wrapped around the sensation as it burst, magnificent at her core.

Slowly, she returned to herself.

They were both breathing hard. His fingers were deep inside her, and her hand was slick with his release. Their bodies tangled, skin hot and damp, and, in the past, she’d have been mortified by the sticky reality of such aftermath.

“Thank you,” she murmured, sinking onto her back with a sigh.

One side of his mouth lifted in a smile. “And you.” Then he shifted, kissing her softly.

After cleaning up, they lay facing each other. He brushed his fingers through her hair, eyes closed, and she traced invisible paths across his chest. The moment was silent and tender, and deep inside her, so far down she couldn’t tell if it was the back of her mind or the bottom of her heart, something took an unsettled step forward. Something frightened and shy, so severely battle-scared it should never have survived this long.

Alarmed, she snatched her hand away. No matter how hard she’d worked to keep it shielded, no matter how she’d deflected, blocked, and protected—

The love left in her had finally noticed Edwin.

*

Begging for more?

You can buy His Billionaire Bride here.

Madeline Ash is a contemporary romance author. A two-time RITA Award finalist, she has also won Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year award (RUBY). You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bookbub, or give her five stars on Goodreads or Amazon, or check out the review of His Billionaire Bride at AAR.

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