Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

Until Clay tugged his boxers down his hips. His erection bobbed, thick and rigid, impossible for her to ignore. She felt heat and moisture between her legs, as well as the urge to rub the swelling throb of her clit.

But tonight she wouldn’t have to touch herself, wouldn’t have to imagine a man between her legs satisfying all her desires. Tonight there’d be reality instead of fantasy.

Tonight there was Clay.

She drank in the sight of him, so incredibly beautiful from his dark hair to his muscular legs to his erect cock that made her mouth water. He bore scars on his arms, some she remembered him getting on the job because they often worked side by side on shared projects. He’d blow off most cuts and gouges and scrapes no matter how deep. He was tough.

He sat on the bed. “Come here, Ella.”

She moved forward on shaky legs and stopped in front of him, her breasts level with his face. Her nipples puckered and he apparently noticed that, because his lips curled up.

He reached out and traced his finger around each nipple. Her breath caught, her body shuddering all over at the contact. It had been so long. So damn long. Tears rushed to her eyes and she blinked them back.

This is just sex. Quit making such a big damn deal out of it. It doesn’t mean anything.

He slid his thumb over her nipple, a soft back-and-forth action. Her sex quivered with delicious sensation. For the first time in years, she felt her body swelling, coming to life, arching toward a man’s touch. It felt achingly familiar and yet oh, so different.

He widened his legs and pulled her between them. His thighs were warm pressed against hers. He moved his hands from her thighs to her hips, ignoring the panties she still wore, sweeping his touch over her waist as if he were memorizing every inch of her skin. This slow exploration made her pulse skitter, her body temperature rise.

“You have a beautiful body, Ella. It’s a shame no one’s touched it in so long.”

He swept his hands around her back and drew her toward him. She braced her hands on his shoulders as he fit one nipple into his mouth. Slow, easy, teasing her as his tongue snaked out to lick around the areola, tantalizing her with his warm, wet tongue until she couldn’t take it any longer. She dipped farther in, sliding her breast against his tongue.

His low hum of approval melted inside her, made her tingle in anticipation.

He fit his mouth over the bud, sucked gently and rolled his tongue over her nipple. She tilted her head back and moaned at the nearly unbearable pleasure of it. With each tender suck her pussy quaked. She had no idea that connection could be made. Had it just been so long that she didn’t remember?

That had to be it. She’d felt pleasure with James. Sex had been good with him. Really good.

Stop. Thinking. About. James.

Not now, not when the pleasure was so great, when it was only Clay she wanted to think about. She wouldn’t compare one man to the other, wouldn’t think about being in bed with Clay and what it meant. It meant nothing.

It meant everything. It would be the first time she was going to be with another man besides James.

Clay leaned back. “Something on your mind?”

She was panting, her body on fire from his mouth on her breast. “No. Yes. I’m sorry.”

He released her and she sat next to him.

“It’s James,” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s okay to think about him, Ella. You can’t try to pretend he didn’t exist. You loved him.”

She looked down at her hands. “It doesn’t seem right.”

He tipped her chin with his finger, forcing her to look at him. “Was he the only man you were with?”

She nodded.

“Then it’s natural you’d feel strange about this. I don’t expect you to erase James from your memories. You shouldn’t feel that way, either.”

She loved that they could talk about James. Sitting naked on the bed together, they were having a conversation about her dead husband. She’d never be able to do this with anyone but Clay.

“Just let it come naturally and quit putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect. If he occasionally pops into your thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Most guys would hate that.”

He leaned in, kissed her. “I’m not most guys.”

She was beginning to see that. “Thank you.”

“I’d like to think he’d be okay with this. That he’d trust me.”

She smiled. “I know he would.”

“Then quit worrying about it and let’s have some fun.”

She exhaled. Clay was right. She was obsessing over every little thing. Frankly, she was surprised he hadn’t already kicked her to the curb for being too much effort. She might not even be worth it.

“Okay, now,” he said, lying back on the bed and pulling her into his arms. He dragged her on top of him. “Where were we?”

“You had my nipple in your mouth.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You were sucking it.”

He shifted her upward. “I remember. You tasted good.” He lifted her nipple to his mouth.

And just like that, she fell into heat and arousal, all other thoughts fleeing her mind.

Contact was an explosion of heat. She held on to his shoulders, watching him suck and lick one nipple, then the other, until she was too weak to hold herself up. She collapsed on top of him and pressed her mouth to his, her tongue diving in with a passion she’d held in reserve before.

But not now. She’d cleared her head, dismissed her reservations. It was time to focus on one thing—Clay.

He rolled her over onto her back and laid his palm on her rib cage. Again, she felt her heart pounding against his hand. She lifted her gaze to his. For some reason, watching him look at her was incredibly sobering. He seemed to be so serious, but not at all with the same intense look that he had during business meetings. Because this