“Archie, please—”
The first broad stroke of his tongue against my core steals the rest of the sentence. My spine arches off the bench, and my fingers find the stone edge and grip. He hums against me, and the vibration radiates through my entire body.
Every slow pass of his tongue feeds the lust surging through me.
When he slides two fingers inside me, my hips buck off the bench. The stretch, the fullness, and then his fingers curl forward and find a spot that makes my whole lower body clench. His tongue keeps its rhythm while his fingers stroke in counterpoint, and my body doesn’t know what to do with all of it—hips rolling toward his mouth, bearing down onto his hand, the dual sensation stringing a hot wire of pleasure between every point of contact. I’m squirming on the bench, white-knuckled on the stone, making sounds I’d be embarrassed by if I could think.
“Archie, I’m—I can’t—”
He sucks gently and curls his fingers at the same time, pressing firmly against that spot inside me, and my whole body seizes. The pleasure slams into me—a wall of sensation that locks my spine and steals every thought. My thighs clamp around his head, my hand yanks his hair hard enough to hurt, and I can feel myself clenching around his fingers in rhythmic, helpless pulses. The humid air, the glass walls, and the distant thrum of music from the ballroom swallow my cries.
His tongue gentles but doesn’t stop, fingers easing into a lazy rhythm that coaxes me through the aftershocks. Each one rolls through me smaller than the last until I’m weak as a kitten, slumped on the bench with one hand still tangled in his hair because without it I’d be flat on my back among the orchids.
He presses a kiss to my inner thigh and sits back on his heels, looking up at me with the most devastatingly smug expression I’ve ever seen on a man’s face.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” I say. My voice is wrecked.
“Too late.”
I pull him up by his loosened tie and kiss him. The taste of me on his mouth, the salt of sweat, the intimacy of it—my ribs ache in a way I wasn’t prepared for. This man just knelt on a stone floor for me. Took his time. Paid attention. Didn’t rush to get to the part where he got his.
I’ve never had that before. The realization thuds through me, tender and bruising at once.
“My turn.” I push him gently onto the bench and stand between his knees.
He watches me, breathing hard, his hands flexing against my hips as I free his cock and stroke the thick length of him. The sound he makes—a sharp exhale through clenched teeth, his head tipping back—sends a fresh pulse of heat through my spent, oversensitive body.
I hike my dress around my waist, climb onto his lap facing away from him, and sink down slowly.
The angle is deep. Deeper than I expected—a thick, stretching fullness that makes my inner muscles flutter. I have to stop halfway, thighs braced, hands gripping his knees, just breathing through the intensity while my body adjusts. Then gravity and want pull me down the rest of the way, and he’s fully inside me, so deep I feel it in my belly. His forehead drops against my spine, and I hear him swear—low and guttural, muffled against the silk of my dress.
I roll my hips, testing, and we both groan. From here, I control everything—the pace, the depth, the tilt that turns a slow grind into a sharp flare of pleasure radiating through my core. I find the angle that hits the spot his fingers found earlier, and my rhythm becomes uneven, breath catching. His grip tightens on my waist, fingers digging in, and I can feel his thighs trembling beneath me with the effort of letting me lead.
Then his hand slides around my hip and down, fingers finding my clit—still swollen, still sensitive—and the first touch makes me jolt.
“Too much?” Mouth hot against my shoulder.
“Don’t you dare stop.”
His fingers circle in slow, slick strokes while I ride him, and the sensation splits my focus wide open. Him thick and deepinside me with every downstroke. His fingers sliding against the oversensitive nerves still humming from before. Every time I sink onto him, his fingers press harder. Every time his fingers press harder, I clench around him. The sensation is maddening—pleasure building on pleasure, gathering low in my pelvis like a held breath with nowhere to go but through me.
He moves beneath me, hips lifting to meet mine, driving the rhythm harder. His thrusts push me forward onto his fingers, his fingers push me back onto his cock, and I’m caught between them—grinding, gasping, my head falling back against his shoulder. His free arm wraps tightly around my waist. I grip his forearm, nails digging crescents into his skin, holding on because my body is shaking in a way that feels like it won’t stop.
“I’m close,” he grits out against my shoulder. “Tessa—”
“Wait for me—”
I grind down onto him and into his hand at the same time, chasing it, right there, right at the edge—
His fingers press firmly as his hips snap up hard, and my whole body goes rigid. This orgasm doesn’t crash—it swells, deep and enormous, a slow tidal pull that starts where he’s inside me and radiates outward through my belly, my thighs, the soles of my feet. I clench around him in long, rolling contractions, and the sound that leaves my mouth is low and raw and comes from deep behind my navel, primal and involuntary.
The clenching of my body pulls him over with me. His arm locks around my waist, hauling me down tight as his hips stutter and thrust up one last time. The sound he makes against my shoulder blade is wrecked and barely human. My name. Just my name, like it’s the only word left.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
The drip of water somewhere in the pipes. The muffled ghost of music from the ballroom filtering through glass and distance. My heartbeat loud in my ears, gradually slowing. His breath warm and unsteady against the back of my neck.
I lean into his chest. His arms wrap around me, heavy with spent energy, and his lips press against my hair. I can smell jasmine from the planters overhead, the green scent of growing things, the fading trace of his cologne under sweat and sex.
