Borrowed Beauty

Chapter Twenty-Four: Sensitive Bits

Olivia

“Did you just shut the door with my butt?” I laughed, still clinging to Josiah’s shoulders.

“I had to,” he explained, and squeezed his fingers into my butt cheeks, “my hands are full.”

I squirmed self-consciously, suddenly feeling a little too aware of the size and shape of my body. “You better put me down before you give yourself a hernia,” I grumbled, but all that squirming only caused more friction between our bodies.

“Never,” he growled and backed me against the door, pinning me there with his body so that he could free his hands and continue to kiss me at the same time. I didn’t know if he meant he would never put me down, or that he would never get a hernia, but I was content either way.

His scent wafted around me, the masculine odor stronger and deeper and even more intoxicating, sandalwood and pine and something unnamed that was uniquely Josiah. The more I breathed it in, the more I forgot to be embarrassed about my body. The more it seemed like we fit together just right. As if my generous curves had been custom-made to fit his large body.

He finally had to let me slide down the back of the door until my feet hit the floor because he couldn’t figure out how to get my shirt off while keeping me suspended in the air. Once my boots hit the thick carpet, he tugged the t-shirt over my head, making my hair crackle with static electricity, but I barely noticed it, not when a different kind of electricity was arcing from his fingertips to the bare skin of my back. I shivered with delight as they played up my spine and started to struggle with the catch on my bra.

His eyes darkened and his brow furrowed in frustration as the tiny hook and eye closure refused to yield to his large fingers. “How the hell do you get this thing off?”

I laughed and contorted my arms behind my back to unhook it myself. I watched his face closely as I let the straps slide off my shoulders. I hadn’t exactly been planning for this situation, and I’d chosen practical underwear over pretty, but Josiah seemed less interested in the bra than he was in what it was holding. He slid the straps down my arms slowly, raising goosebumps everywhere he touched, until finally, my breasts were free and he tossed the garment aside.

He stared at me so long that I started to squirm and reached up to cover myself with my hands. “I know, they are too large,” I muttered, feeling my face heat up.

“They are exquisite,” he corrected me, pulling my hands aside gently to replace them with his own. No one had ever used that kind of language to describe any aspect of my body before. I was the ugly sister… but the derogatory label flitted out of my mind as his fingers kneaded me gently. It was rather remarkable how my breasts fit into the curve of his large hands.

“No fair,” I said, and started tugging at the hem of his shirt. I was too short to draw it up and over his head, as he had done for me, so the best I could do was shove it upwards and slide my hands underneath. My explorations revealed a delightful contrast of soft skin over hard muscle, silky smoothness, and the coarse friction of the sparse hair that was sprinkled over his chest and down the center line to his belly button. I could have sworn I didn’t like body hair on a man, but on Josiah, it felt… just right.

He let go of me long enough to skin off his shirt, then he went back to his exploration of my body, and I went back to the whole problem of clothing. His torso was bared to me, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted, no, I needed to remove every barrier between us. With boldness I didn’t know I was capable of, I went to work on the button of his pants, shoving them off his narrow hips even as he was trying to guide me toward his bed.

I was barely even aware that we were in his room. Previously, I’d only had a brief glance inside when I had passed while the door was ajar. It was decorated in blues and earthy browns, very masculine, and a little too dark for my taste, but it suited Josiah perfectly. It looked like he had one of those California-extra-huge beds. The space was neat and tidy and a bit minimalist, but that also didn’t surprise me. Josiah didn’t seem like the mementos and knickknacks kind of guy. The details were a blur to me now, as all my senses were honed in on the man before me.

He tried to step backward, holding my hands to drag me with him toward that huge bed, but his slacks had dropped around his ankles, and he tripped, falling backward gracelessly on his butt. I would have laughed at him, but he tightened his grip on my hands and pulled me down with him, and I landed with a grunt on his chest, sure that I must have broken his ribs, or at least knocked the wind out of the poor guy. However, as we lay there, nose-to-nose, my breasts crushed against his chest, he didn’t seem that uncomfortable. His eyes traveled all over my face and then went to my hair. He reached up and pulled away the headband that was barely containing it, then he ran his fingers through it like a master furrier, testing the texture. It spilled around my shoulders and cascaded over his chest, but rather than being annoyed by the tickle, he seemed to be delighted by it.

I watched his reaction for about a nano-second before I bent my head back to his lips, needing to taste him, needing to be closer, needing something that I couldn’t articulate, just needing. He seemed to understand my unspoken desire, as he clutched my body against his and rolled us over so that I was on the bottom, and he was over me, crushing me under his body weight. I couldn't breathe, but at the same time, I loved it.

Josiah quickly rearranged himself so that he was supporting himself on his arms, but that left only his mouth free to explore. And it did. He found the sensitive spot behind my ear, the place where my pulse throbbed in my neck, the delicate juncture of my shoulder where a mark would go. He paused and stared at the spot.

For one long, terrible, wonderful moment, I thought he was going to mark me. His mouth hovered over the spot, his hot breath caressed my skin, and his teeth grazed it, ever so lightly, causing my whole body to shudder in response. And then, to my relief… or was it disappointment? He moved on.

The moment was all but forgotten when his mouth found my breast, kissing, nipping, teasing, first one side, and then the other, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached up, threaded my fingers through his hair to hold him still, and arched my back, pressing my n****e against his lips and mewling until he took it in his mouth and sucked it deeply. The jolt of pleasure went straight to my core, adding fuel to my mounting desire.

There was still the matter of my jeans, the denim suddenly a ridiculously thick and stiff barrier between us. I writhed and wriggled until Josiah got the hint, and with a dark chuckle, he sat back on his knees and undid the snap, and lowered the zipper.

Note to self, there is no sexy way for a plus-size girl to divest herself of a pair of tight jeans, with or without the help of a partner. Josiah peeled them down my hips, but they got stuck on my thighs. He moved lower to tug at the leg bottoms and ended up dragging me a few inches across the carpet, which, I’m pretty sure, left a rugburn on my back. I tried to kick them off myself and ended up kicking him in the process. Luckily, my heel landed on his thigh, and not on his more sensitive bits.

It was a hot minute before we realized the boots had to come off first.

When we finally got both our shoes and the jeans off, the two of us there on the carpet in only our underwear, bathed in the soft yellow light from the single bedside lamp, panting from both the effort, the laughter, and the burgeoning passion, and we stared into each other’s eyes… the moment was magical.

It was then that I knew this was more than lust.

I was falling in love.