“I want this.” Her voice shook.
“Then come up to our suite.” Kellan stepped to her side and held out his hand, his blue eyes somehow full of pride and hot promises. “I know that took courage. Let us reward you.”
A deep breath rattled through Belle’s chest and she dredged up the courage to slide her fingers across the masculine heat of his callused palm. Finally they touched not as colleagues, but as lovers.
Belle squeezed his hand. Kellan wasn’t a pampered boy who’d never done a lick of hard work in his life, and his hands proved it. They were big hands that could shelter and protect, hands that could offer such pleasure.
As he led her toward the elevator, Tate and Eric flanking them, peace washed through her. This was right. She was ready.
* * * *
Tate dragged in a long breath and briefly wondered if his cock could saw through his pants. Of course, it wouldn’t happen. Physics made that outcome impossible, but his cock throbbed against the cotton of his boxers, insisting it wanted out—and inside Belle.
She’d said yes. He stepped into the small, elegantly decorated elevator and turned to watch her enter behind him. Eric put a hand out, making sure the door didn’t close on her. Damn it. He should have done that. Sometimes social niceties eluded him, but he vowed to make a study of them because Belle deserved a gentleman.
In fact, she made him want to be a better man. He’d watched his parents push each other to publish more, to excel in their fields. The almost palpable jealousy between them had pervaded their home as though they’d bred competition into the walls. His mother and father had always been rivals of a sort, even taking small delight in the other’s failure. They’d trained him to measure himself against his brothers and only be satisfied when he was on top.
Tate didn’t want to compete with Belle. He wanted to make her happy and swore he’d do everything possible to make that happen. Still, doubt niggled. He wanted a future with her so badly. But what if he said the wrong thing? What if she didn’t care for him the way she did Eric and Kell? Or what if all she wanted from him was sex? It wouldn’t be the first time a female had slotted him in the awkward idiot category and shunned him once they climbed out of bed.
God, he hated feeling so vulnerable.
“Hey.” Belle’s voice brought him out of his thoughts as the elevator doors closed, cocooning the four of them alone.
Tate swallowed hard, nerves getting the best of him. “I’m not smooth, Belle.” He couldn’t give her what Eric and Kellan could. He stood a better chance at crafting an argument to win over the Supreme Court than being anything beyond a liability at a simple dinner party. He’d learned that his genius didn’t buy him love.
She stared up at him, cupping his face in a way that made him feel adored. “I don’t need smooth, babe. Will you kiss me? I’m nervous, but I think I’d be much calmer if you kissed me.”
A happy shudder went through his body. She wanted him to put his lips on hers. Still, he hesitated. Should he have the first kiss? He’d shared women with his best friends before but nothing with this much gravity, nothing he’d intended to last. But Belle was the one.
Eric nodded his way, which set him at ease.
Kell stepped behind her with a wry smile. “I think we would all be a little less nervous if you kissed her, big guy. Let’s see if you can do it without your penis poking out of your pants.”
Crap, could everyone see his erection? On the other hand, if Eric and Kell didn’t have massive hard-ons, Tate would eat his latest case file.
“I’ll try,” he joked. “No promises.”
Then he turned his attention back to Belle, who looked up at him with both a radiant smile and a silent pleading on her delicate face. She wanted him to kiss her. Eric and Kell were okay with him claiming her lips first. If Tate had his way, they would share thousands of kisses during their lives together. But he still wanted their first to be special.
Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he lowered his mouth to the dusky peach pout of her lips, losing himself in their softness as he poured every ounce of longing he felt into that kiss. The minute his mouth fused to hers, rightness pounded his brain, seared through his body.
Belle responded instantly, both with him and there for him. She kissed with her whole being, giving him a soft little moan and leaning into him like he was a lifeline. His self-consciousness melted away. Suddenly, he didn’t feel awkward trying to express his feelings because he didn’t have to talk. He could simply show her with his mouth and hands and cock. Yeah, he wasn’t awkward with those.
Tate had practiced sex with the same vigor he’d put into his studies. After his first experience, his libido had skyrocketed, sure. But he’d applied himself because he’d been determined to be good in bed. Thanks to his decadent youth, sexual confidence wasn’t a problem now. He planned to employ every bit of that knowledge to please Belle, to stroke her warm mocha skin and penetrate her sweet pussy until he gave her so much ecstasy she’d never want to leave. All the women in the past who had used him for sex no longer mattered. Only the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with did.
He stroked his tongue over that plump bottom lip he loved. In fact, her lush mouth had incited more than one fantasy. Over and over, he’d imagined how she would look on her knees with those sensual lips parted and taking his cock deep. Even the thought incited him to urge her lips apart and demand entry. A spike of pure desire filled Tate’s cock. He needed more of her. He’d waited over a year just to touch her. And damn it, if he was already forty-two percent of the way through his life expectancy, he refused to let another moment slip past before he claimed her.