“I think about you all the time,” he murmurs, mouth brushing over my sternum. “When I’m alone. When I’m fixing something, or laying awake at night, or hearing the creak of the stairs. You’re everywhere in this house. In me.”
He kisses the place where my heart beats—once, then again—slow and sure, like he’s trying to map the rhythm into memory. The warmth of it ripples through me, quiet and devastating. It feels like being known.
I cup the back of his head, fingers threading into his golden hair. “Then let me keep you.”
He lifts the hem of my sweater again. This time, I help, arms raised, the knit skimming up and over. The air kisses my skin, and then so does he—gentle presses of his mouth along my collarbone, the slope of my shoulder, the tender hollow at the base of my throat.
He peels away the rest of my layers with a patience that makes my pulse stutter. Buttons slipped. Zippers eased. A low sound of approval when I shiver against his touch.
“Look at you,” he says roughly. “You’re mine to look at. And I’m yours to own.”
“Say it again,” I whisper.
“I’m yours,” he says, steadier now. And the room seems to echo it back. The curtains part ever so slightly, moonlight stretching across the floor.
I tug him closer and work clumsy fingers at his shirt until it’s open, then gone. I smooth my palms over his shoulders, down his chest, greedy for heat, for the slide and flex of solid muscle.
He’s firm in a way that speaks of physical labor. Broad across the chest, thick through the arms, built by years of hauling wood and lifting beams instead of lifting weights.
A body made for me to hold on to.
His hands map mine, too—spine, hip, the soft place at my waist that makes me gasp, and he follows the sound like a compass. When the back of my knees meet the bed, he breaks our kiss only to look at me properly.
I lie back, and he follows, braced on one forearm, the other hand smoothing down my thigh. His mouth trails a line lower, lower, across my stomach and then the inside of my knee. It’s the sort of slow worship that has me arching helplessly into the sheets.
He meets my eyes and holds them, dark and intent.
“Breathe,” he whispers. “I want you soft and wet and ready for me.”
I do what he says. One slow inhale, and then a ragged exhale through my mouth.
I’m still trembling—not from nerves now, but from anticipation, from the charged awareness of his hands on my skin, the warmth of his breath, the steadiness in his gaze. There’s nothing rushed about the way he moves as he kisses down the line of my body.
“Wells,” I say, and I don’t recognize my own voice—low, pleading, sure. “Please.”
“Tell me what you want,” he says. “Remember, Els. This time, it’s not one and only. It’s forever and a day more. What do you need from me?”
“You,” I whisper. “All of it. Everything you can give me.”
When he settles between my thighs, I go still. His palms span my hips, anchoring me to the mattress, and then his mouth is on me. He parts my folds, licks into me like he’s parched, and I’m the only thing that could ever slake it.
The first long sweep of his tongue makes me gasp.
The second has me clutching at the sheets.
The third—paired with the slow, curling press of two thick fingers—breaks me open.
He works me with painstaking control, groaning low when I arch into his mouth. It makes me feel like my pleasure is the only thing he’s ever wanted. My unraveling is the only thing he seeks.
His eyes flick up, locking on mine, and there’s something wildly indecent and wickedly reverent there. He doesn’t stop pumping and licking until I’m shaking, slick, and helpless, every muscle tensed toward the finish.
I’m lost in the warm heat of his mouth, the steady drag of his fingers, the way his tongue circles and flicks and presses until I’m unraveling in his hands. When it finally crests, I desperately cry out for him, and he doesn’t stop until I’m fully spent.
He thoroughly kisses his way back up my body. My skin is damp, my pulse wild. He presses his lips to my ribs, my shoulder, the hollow of my throat, then finally my mouth.
I taste salt and sweetness, something warm and heady and real.
“Elsie,” he breathes against my lips. “Let me take you apart, too. Let me wreck you.”
