Lost to You (Take This Regret 0.5)(37)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I was still shaking as I worked through the rest of his buttons. Christian just stood there, watching me. When I finally released them, I pressed my palms to his chest and ran them up to push his coat off his shoulders.

Christian’s muscles twitched, jerked at the contact. Shrugging the rest of the way out of his coat, Christian tossed it to his couch, turned and slowly unbuttoned mine. He threw it on top of his.

Then he stepped back and took me in. His gaze slid softly from my face, his eyes flicking to the exposed skin at my shoulder, to my br**sts, caressed down my jeans, and back up again.

He took my hand. “Come here.”

His room was down the short hall. It was dark inside, and I could only make out the subtle silhouette of his bed in the backdrop of night. He pulled me behind him as he went to his desk along the opposite wall. He flicked on the small lamp resting at the far corner of the desk, clicking through to the lowest setting. It cast the room in a faint glow, illuminated his beautiful face with subdued light.

I reached out to trace his face, the sharp angles, the bold lines. My fingertips smoothed against his strong brow, played along his soft lips.

Christian just barely kissed them, his lips parting as I freely explored.

I felt the smile on my mouth. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered.

Christian laughed quietly, as if what I’d spoken was absurd. “Look at you, Elizabeth.” His fingers tickled along my collarbone. “You are perfect.”

His mouth caressed along mine as one of his hands twisted in the mass of my hair. The other burned into the small of my back.

I snaked my hands under his shirt. My touch was fevered as I splayed my hands and ran them up his stomach, to his shoulders, and tore his shirt over his head.

What hid under Christian’s shirt was glorious.

Lean, taut muscles jumped beneath my hands. Christian sucked in a desperate breath. “One touch, and you’re killing me already, Elizabeth.”

A smile twitched on his flirty mouth, but his expression spoke of so much more than that. This was a need that had captured us, a love that had left us completely undone.

His mouth went to my shoulder. “Do you remember that night?” He tugged my collar farther off my shoulder and pressed his teeth into my skin.

My breath caught.

It wasn’t enough to hurt, just enough to weaken my knees. I clung to his arms. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall.

“This right here is what finally threw me over the edge.” He kissed along my flesh, drawing in a shaky breath as his hands made their way under my sweatshirt. Heated palms grazed my sides.

Slowly he dragged my shirt over my head, his gaze drifting down over the black lace of my strapless bra. With a single finger, he traced over the lace ridges of the cup. His face was painfully close when he reached around with both hands to unclasp its hold.

It fell away, and goosebumps flashed across my flesh. I swallowed the thick knot that formed in my throat when Christian stepped back and brazenly contemplated me in nothing but my jeans, his eyes roaming, memorizing.

And it wasn’t awkward or any of the things I worried it might be.

Christian reached out and dragged his knuckles over the bud of my breast. “You are perfect,” he said again.

One hand slipped to the back of my neck and the other grasped my side, his mouth urgent on mine as our bare chests met.

I caught fire. “Christian,” I begged through a whimper.

“I know, baby, I know,” he mumbled between kisses, nudging me back toward his bed. He eased me down onto it, and I grasped at him when he didn’t follow.

He caught my hands, climbed to his knees on the bed as he pinned them over my head, left them there as he traveled down my body and kissed me on my belly as he slowly unbuttoned my jeans.

I was gasping for air.

He got back to his feet, pulled them from my legs, and dropped them to the floor.

He stood at the end of his bed where he’d left me in only my panties, my knees twisted to one side and my arms draped over my head.

I felt exposed. Vulnerable.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to be.

He was so beautiful as he stood there soaking up every inch of my body. My eyes wandered and did the same, watching as he slowly released each button on his jeans. He pushed them down, stepped out, and kicked them aside.

Heat flooded my face as I took in Christian in nothing but a pair of tight boxer briefs. My heart beat fast, spurred on by this insane desire to touch him and for him to touch me.

Kneeling on the edge of his bed, he gently spread my knees apart with both hands. He dipped his head, dropped a kiss to my inner thigh, and crawled the rest of the way up my body to settle between my legs.

I gripped his shoulders, and Christian brushed his fingers along my cheek, smiled down at me before he kissed me long and slow. He rained those kisses along my jaw, pressed them to my chest, captured my breast in his mouth.

I was adrift, my fingers in his hair as Christian’s skimmed up and down my sides. My body vibrated, resonating with emotion.

He rose to his hands and abruptly his shoulders dropped as he dove down to press his mouth to my hipbone.

I sucked in a sharp breath as my hips jerked from the bed.

He rocked back up on his hands, his eyes chaotic as he stared at me. He didn’t look away as he wrapped his hands around my waist, his fingers sliding down to gather the edges of my panties. He wound his fingers through, palmed my backside.

I was half exposed.

A suppressed moan broke from his mouth. “You have the sweetest ass, Elizabeth.” He squeezed once before he shimmied my panties down, for one second shifting to my side to pull them off.

I was squirming, this unknown need Christian had created in me knotting my every muscle.

Kneeling between my legs, Christian stared at me as he grazed the back of his hand up my inner thigh. “I’m going to touch you, okay?” His voice was hoarse, his attention flicking down between my legs then back up to me.

Somewhere inside, I searched for embarrassment, to find a reason to be ashamed.

But it was nowhere to be found.

This wasn’t like the few second fumbles I’d had with Ryan. This wouldn’t leave me feeling dirty and used, and Christian would not send me away disappointed.

“Please.”

Christian watched over me as I looked up at him. His fingers found me. My mouth went dry.

In seconds, I was breathless, couldn’t fathom how free I felt, this need to experience with Christian everything I’d never experienced before.

My back arched as pleasure built.

And I was saying his name, begging, pleading, because he was driving something in me no one had ever managed to reach before.