“Yes, love. I know,” I rasp.
My hands slide along her hips, her curves, the warmth of her body pressing into mine. She arches into me, wanting, needing, matching every bit of the hunger tearing through me.
I nip her lower lip, slow and deliberate. She gasps. Her nails scrape lightly up my arms, sending fire straight down my spine.
Her voice is barely a breath. “I want you.”
Something inside me snaps.
I grab her waist, lifting her easily. Her legs brace around me as she lets out a shocked, breathless sound that goes straight to my head. Her hands fly to my shoulders, gripping tight.
I press my forehead to hers. “Ella,” I growl softly, “I’m two seconds away from forgetting the whole world exists.”
Her lips part. “Then forget it.”
I kiss her again, harder, deeper, hungrier. Her fingers sliding through my hair, body fitting against mine like she was made for this moment, for my hands, for my mouth, for the way I can’t stop touching her.
Her whisper comes soft and wrecked against my lips. “Take me.”
My breath leaves me in one rough exhale. I look at her, really look at her—flushed, breathless, eyes dark with want—and my voice drops to a low, shaking rumble.
“Sweetheart…” I lift her higher, her breath catching. “If I keep kissing you out here…” I murmur against her throat. “…I’m not stopping.”
Her fingers tighten in my hair. “Then don’t.”
And that… that’s the moment I give in. Heat slams through me, sharp and consuming. I kiss her one more time, slow, deep,claiming, before pulling back just enough to speak against her mouth.
“Hold on to me.”
She does.
I turn toward the cabin door, her breath hot against my neck, her body wrapped around mine, her voice a whisper that shreds every last piece of restraint I have left.
“Cole…”
I growl softly, grip tightening on her thighs. I carry her inside as the door closes behind us, the world narrowing to nothing but the sound of her breathing and the heat waiting to swallow us whole.
In the seclusion of my bedroom, I set her down on the bed, hovering over her, feeling every inch of her curves under me. I lower my lips to hers, and we kiss, long, mapping, relearning. Our mouths talk like people who’ve had a backlog of unsaid things.
Her breath stutters when my hand slides under the hem of her blouse and finds the warm skin of her stomach.
I cup her belly, spreading my fingers over her smooth skin, trailing kisses down the slope of her neck. My mouth finds the soft swell of her collarbone. She tilts her head, offering herself like she means it, and I don’t take that for granted. My handswander, and when I find the curve of her breast through fabric, she makes a small sound that lives in my chest.
“You don’t have to hide,” I murmur. “Not with me.”
We peel our clothes off like we are learning anatomy and trespassing at the same time. Nothing is rushed. Because we both know what frenetic lust can do—make people forget the person beneath the heat. We take time to read each other’s skin.
When she’s on her back on my bed, I drag my mouth up the inside of her thigh, slow as confession. I don’t skip the marks. I kiss them, trace them with my tongue, and watch her. Her breath hitches in delicious waves under my touch.
I delve into every delicious drop she has to offer, letting her juices trail down my chin as I play with her nipples. She digs her fingers into the sheets, eyes squeezed shut, and when she climaxes, she says my name like a prayer and like a warning.
“Cole!”
I don’t stop until she clamps her legs around my head, halting me. I come up from between her legs slowly, lips glistening, fingers sticky with her. She’s crying—not ugly, not of despair, but of release, of disintegrating the weight she’s carried into dust.
She relaxes as I trail kisses back up, and when my mouth finds hers, she’s soft and slick and trembling. We move like a conversation, give and take. There is no leering, no objectifying. This is reverence disguised as hunger.
Her hand finds my hair and holds on like that’s the safest thing in the world. “Cole,” she breathes, and I taste the way she says it—small and raw.
