More women than he'd like to admit had done a whole helluva lot of things to him in his life, but none of them had ever practically made Derek come in his pants just by rubbing a cheek on his thigh.
He meant it when he said all he wanted was to get to know her better, but the sight of Layla there, on her knees in front of him, all that hair falling around her like a sheet of ebony silk...it was enough to make any man's good intentions seem like the worst idea ever.
The only reason he'd tried to turn her down--okay, he used the word "try" loosely because a man could only be expected to try so much--was because right before she'd gone all wanton sex kitten on him, when she was still snuggled up against him talking about marching band and musicals, he thought perhaps the thumbtack had known exactly what it was doing when it sent him here to little old Maybe with its houses with towers and band teachers with voodoo powers over his dick.
Maybe this was the place where he'd finally find more, and maybe, that elusive more was Layla.
This wasn't his tour bus or a hotel room. She wasn't a groupie. She wasn't an empty square on a game board to conquer and claim as a victory. He didn't want her to think that was all he was about, because he wasn't.
He could be so much more if she let him.
Unable to deny Layla's gentle command to give her what she wanted, Derek half-slid off the couch to kiss her. Her wine-sweet breath mingled with his as her lips parted, urging him to take everything he wanted and then some.
She whimpered as he hauled her against him, crushing her to his chest, and her arms moved restlessly over his back, seeking an anchor. Derek let out a low growl of his own as he wrapped his fingers in her hair a little more roughly than he intended and tilted her head back, sweeping his tongue around her mouth, determined to devour every last drop of her sweetness.
Layla shivered in his arms when he pulled her hair, a tiny cry that might have been shock or pain escaping her throat to reverberate in his mouth. Derek cursed himself for the umpteenth time that night.
He should have been more gentle. But that hair...so long and soft and black in his grip, a thick satin rope he'd give anything to be bound with...he'd been fantasizing about getting lost in that hair for days. He'd jacked off more than once imagining how good it would feel to have all that silk wrapped around his cock.
Hell, he'd buy a closet full of red pants if she'd promise to let him fist her hair anytime he wanted.
Derek broke the kiss and loosened his fingers in her hair, prepared to take a softer approach. The apology died on his lips, and his cock, already full to bursting, strained even more against the confines of his pants when he saw the lust-glazed look in her eyes.
"Don't stop," she whispered between shallow breaths. "I don't mind if you...pull my hair. Just a little."
She sounded so vulnerable, so soft. So opposite the strong Ms. M. who chewed out strangers for hurting her students' feelings, who had no problem yelling at someone through a megaphone or protecting what she considered hers.
Something had shifted between them, and she'd let down her guard. Laid herself bare, showing him a side of her he knew no one ever got to see. And she'd done it for him.
Derek slid completely off the couch, shoving the coffee table out of the way with one hand. More books scattered to the floor next to the one she'd tossed earlier.
Layla scrambled to wrap her legs around his hips as he lowered her to the floor. She fit around him like the missing piece of a puzzle he never even knew he was a part of. He knew the fit would be even more perfect once his was deep inside her, all that hot, slick muscle clenching around him and trying to lock him in place.
When she lifted her hips to grind her pussy against him, the heat of her taunting him through their clothing, he couldn't help but push back, a forceful roll of his hips pinning her to the floor and teasing at the friction they both needed.
"Do that again," she ordered, her eyes rolling back when he obeyed. Her hair spread out beneath her as she moved, a sheet of midnight silk complimenting the rose flush of her cheeks.
Derek knew she liked his pants, but they were seriously in the way right about now. So were hers, if he was pointing fingers. If she'd been wearing a skirt, he'd have had it up around her waist, his tongue in her pussy, and her halfway to heaven by now.
"Do you like it rough, Ms. M?" The fingers of one hand had found their way back to her hair again and had sneakily began to wind around the ends of the strands nearest her shoulder. Just a little touch, like she said. He didn't have to pull hard.
"I don't know." Layla squirmed beneath him, trying to prompt him to move his hips some more. "Haven't exactly been with enough men to find out."
Interesting.
And a bigger turn on than it should have been. He could give two shits about how many men she'd been with, but the fact that she hadn't been with very many yet here she was with him...maybe she believed there was something special about him--about them--and it wasn't all in his head after all.
He should have told her that. Made her understand that he wanted to put whatever game she thought they were playing back in its box so they could give the real thing a shot. But the time for that would have been before she licked his pants. Before she'd diverted all his good intentions from his head to his dick.
Derek stilled over top of her, lowering his face so their lips were just inches apart. He lifted a strand of Layla's hair to his lips and then to his nose, inhaling the scent of her. He fanned the ends like a brush between his fingers, and drew a path down his cheek and over his jaw, crossing the space between them to continue the stroke over the contours of her neck, her chin, her temple.
It was as if he was painting her there, a picture of her at this moment to keep with him forever. He wanted to remember the softness of her skin and the need in her eyes long after she'd decided she had better games to play.
Because she would decide that. He wanted it otherwise, so naturally she'd want the opposite. That's just the way it went with everyone in his life.
And he never got his way.
One thing he'd learned was to enjoy it while it lasted.
Layla's eyes grew wide as he painted his picture, tracing the dark curve of her brow, the gentle slope of her nose, the dimple in her chin. Her lips parted, and he traced them, too.
"Derek..." Her voice shook with the same desire it held when she so innocently accosted his pants for her own pleasure. "Please..."
Layla locked her heels behind his thighs and pushed on his hips so his pelvis was once more nestled against the juncture of her sex, his dick lined up perfectly with her pussy. Where it belonged.
"When you look at me like that, it's too much. But this..." She rolled her hips against him, her brow crimping in frustration. "This isn't enough. I need more. I need you inside of me. Now."
"Yes, ma'am." He never was one to argue with teacher.
Now she was pushing him away, her heels on his stomach nudging him off so she could shuck off her jeans. She lifted her hips so he could help her, hooking her thumbs in her panties as he tossed her jeans on the couch.
"Wait. Promise me you'll let me play connect the dots with those some time."
"What?" She paused.
"Connect the dots." Derek waggled his eyebrows and traced a slow zigzag of dots from her waistband down over her swollen pussy lips. As he traced his line, her eyelids drooped and her thighs drifted open. He bit down on a groan when he discovered her panties were soaked through, and he pushed a finger between her swollen lips, cotton and all. "Unless you want to play now?"
She collapsed back on the floor when the tip of his finger found her hard little clit. Her back arched off the ground and her fingernails clawed at the elastic waist of her panties.
Fuck. He was normally a patient man, but even he had to admit he didn't have the patience for a game of connect the dots right now. She shook her head as if reading his mind.
"Okay. Then next time. Promise." His fingers joined hers in the waist of her panties, keeping her from ripping them off.
"I promise," she bit out.
"And I'll hold you to it."