There’s no fear. No hesitation. Only heat and need and the deep, undeniable truth thatthis—this man, this moment—was always going to undo me.
And I’ve never wanted anything more.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, voice raw, forehead pressed to mine. “Because if I kiss you again, I’m not going to stop there.”
“Don’t stop,” I murmur in response, lips brushing his.
I grip his arms, strong, solid, then slide my hands around to his back, drawing him closer, no longer shy. No longer hesitant. No longer worried about what happens next.
His kiss burns through inhibitions. His hands, rough, blazing a path down my back, along my waist, under my dress, gripping my hips and pressing me against him. The groan that works its way up his throat ignites my core, pooling warm and molten in my belly.
In one fluid motion, he sweeps me into his arms, strong and sure, like I weigh nothing at all. The air shifts as he carries me through the dim hush of the house, each step slow and certain, like he’s memorizing the feel of me against him. When we reach his bedroom, he lowers me gently onto the edge of the bed, but he doesn’t follow. Not yet.
Instead, he sinks to his knees in front of me, reverent and focused. His fingers find the straps of my boot, undoing them with quiet precision. As he eases it off, he presses a kiss to the delicate jut of my ankle bone, soft and deliberate. A promise. A pause. His other hand slides beneath my knee, lifting just enough to remove my sandal with a whisper of leather against skin. Then his mouth follows—lips grazing the inside of my calf, warm and unhurried, like he’s tracing a path he already knows by heart.
Up.
Up.
Each kiss a question.
Each breath, an answer.
As he crawls onto the bed, settling between my knees, his mouth hovers just above my thigh.
“Do you have any idea,” he murmurs, voice rough and low, “how hard it’s been to touch you and not take you?”
I meet his gaze, heat blooming low and bright. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to be touched and not taken?”
He smiles at that—just barely—but it’s gone as quickly as it came, replaced by something sharper. Hungrier. His hands slide beneath the hem of my dress, up the backs of my thighs, dragging slow and deliberate. I tip my head back, breath catching, nerves crackling to life.
When he peels away the lace at my hips and slips it off, he pauses. My dress settles back in place, covering everything, and for a moment, he just stares. Me, leaning back on my elbows in his bed, half undressed and wholly his for the taking.
His eyes flick to mine, hooded and unreadable.
He reaches for the hem of his shirt and tears it over his head, muscles flexing, jaw set, then lets it fall forgotten to the floor. And then he’s on the bed, the heat of him wrapping around me as he hitches my dress back to my waist and buries his face between my legs.
A surprised gasp escapes, followed by a moan I don’trecognize as my own. My hands find his shoulders, his hair, desperate to hold onto something as sensation crests and crashes. There’s a stretch of time where everything is heat and breath and wild abandon, where I lose track of where his hands end and mine begin.
My hips lift. My back arches. The world narrows to him—his mouth, his hands, his name catching like a prayer in my throat. Intense bursts of pleasure bloom in my body. My hips buck as my back arches. My nerve-endings crackle and sing while my breath catches in my throat. I cry his name and he lifts his head, a dangerous glint in his eyes and a wicked curve to his mouth.
“I like the way you say my name,” he says, voice wrecked.
He swipes a hand across his mouth and moves beside me, shedding the last of what separates us. I pull my dress over my head, toss it aside, and reach behind me to unhook my bra. It falls with a whisper to the floor.
His gaze darkens.
And then he’s on me—hands, lips, heat and hunger—every touch a brand, every kiss a vow he hasn’t spoken aloud yet. When he finally presses into me, slow and deliberate, our foreheads touch, breath mingling. I clench instinctively, undone by the sheer rightness of it. Losing myself as he moves, slow and tortuous and controlled, building and pounding and thunderous. Our bodies are a symphony. Our movement a prayer, my name falling from his lips like poetry.
We move together—chasing, claiming, surrendering—until all thought falls away and the world dissolves intosensation. And when his eyes meet mine, I know I will never be the same. Not after this. Not afterhim.
This is right in a way I’ve never known before. Right in a way that completes me and terrifies me and then all thought leaves me as an orgasm surges through my body. He keeps his rhythm, hands planted on either side of my face, forehead pressed to mine as he finishes with a groan I feel in my soul. Our breath mingles. My heart pounds.
When it’s over, when we collapse into the quiet, our breath mingled and skin damp, he stays close. One arm curled around me. One hand still planted beside my face, grounding me.
His forehead rests against mine.
We lie tangled in the silence, my body still buzzing, my heart a drum in my chest.
