I answer with, “I want you, too.” Look at me, using my words. Kind of.
He pulls my shirt over my head, stares at my breasts with open appreciation, and buries his face between them. “Want you so badly,” he groans against my skin.
“I thought maybe you didn’t, because…” I falter when he looks up at me. Desire burns in his eyes. The sight of it sets an ache at the apex of my thighs.
His tongue swipes over the top swell of my right breast, his teeth sinking lightly into the flesh. “I was trying to take it slow,” he says against my skin. “Be a gentleman.”
My fingernails rake through his hair. “Don’t be a gentleman with me. Not right now.”
Gabriel locks eyes with me, holding my gaze, and I see the moment it happens. He goes from sane to crazed. His hands slide down my body, cupping the backs of my thighs and lifting me onto him. When he gets me situated, he reaches for my bra, flipping down one of the cups. Through his house we go, my flesh in his mouth and my hands twisting in his hair.
We make it to his bedroom, and my back hits the soft sheets of an unmade bed.
Gabriel dips a knuckle into the hollow of my throat, dragging it down the centerline of my body, his gaze heavy and steady on mine. He keeps it there until he comes up against my jeans. He flicks them open and tugs them over my hips.
I sit up, reaching my fingers into the waistband of his pants. They drag back and forth, not going any lower, and he takes a sharp breath. I end the torture, and push his sweats down. He steps out of them and kicks them away.
He is beautiful. Every inch of his olive skin is muscled, taut. Hunger sweeps through me. I reach for him, and he folds over me, urging me to lie down.
Gabriel kisses me softly and pulls back to look at me. His eyes rake over my face. “Are you good?”
Considering I have the most incredible man I’ve ever met naked and on top of me, I’d say I’m better than good. I’m fantastic.
I lift up on my elbows, catching his lips with mine. “I’m so much better than good.”
He smiles against my lips. Two of his fingertips slide over me, pushing their way into the seam of my thighs. I open for him, the same way I opened my mouth for him in the hallway.
He moans quietly when his fingers hit their mark. His eyes remain locked on mine while his first finger goes to work. “You’re gorgeous, Avery.” I am his focus, his attention undivided, and something about that elevates the experience.
I gulp, my breath hurtling from my throat, as his second finger joins his first while his thumb works in tandem. It’s a delicious, exquisite sensation, and he watches me experience it. With one palm flat against his chest, fingers curled around his muscle, I tip my head back and rise.
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
Then I’m there, weightless and floating. My thighs quake, my hands tremble as I fall back to earth, shattered in the very best way.
I open my eyes.
A lopsided smile tugs up one corner of Gabriel’s mouth, brown eyes deep and dark. “I love watching you. You’re beautiful.”
Maybe I should feel shy, but I don’t. Not under his gaze that’s simultaneously worshipping and extracting from me a part of myself that is mostly unexplored.
I wrap a hand around the back of his neck and pull him down to me. He kisses me reverently, tasting and enjoying, and all I want in this exact moment is everything.
Gabriel leans over onto one forearm, using his other hand to push my hair back from my face. He hooks an arm under my knee and lifts, pressing himself against me. He moves, just enough to cause friction. Leaning down, he kisses the corner of my mouth. “Please tell me you’re on birth control. I have condoms, but”—he shakes his head, and he’s still rubbing our centers together, and I’m on the edge again—“there’s no way I can allow a barrier between us. I have to have you, Avery. All of you.”
“It’s our lucky day.” My hands grip his shoulders. “I’m on birth control.”
Gabriel enters me, so slowly, sucking a breath through his teeth. His head swings side to side like he’s in disbelief. “I knew you’d feel this good.”
My mind is a mixture of thoughts, but they all pale in comparison to the emotion hurtling through me. Gabriel’s words, his actions, his presence and his scent, it all mixes to create a heady experience.
Gabriel rolls over, taking me with him. He sits up, and I am astride him. His hands are on my hips, guiding me. We are forehead to forehead, nose to nose, lips to lips. I swallow his moans and he drinks in my gasps. I’m there again,
climbing,
