He hears the way my breath breaks.
Feels the way I arch.
Sees every secret I try to hide.
“Oh,” he whispers. “You do like that.”
His thumb drags slow circles at the hinge of my hip, just shy of where I burn for him, the proximity enough to make my whole body tense.
“You want more,” he says, not a question. “You want it so bad you’re trembling.”
I am. Damn it, I am.
He leans in so close his lips almost brush mine, but he doesn’t kiss me yet.
He waits… watching me break apart inch by inch under everything he’s not letting himself do.
His breath ghosts my mouth.
“You want my hands on you?”
My answer is a shakily whispered, “Yes.”
His hand moves to the back of my neck, fingers curling there with a controlled dominance that sends heat pooling low and fierce.
“You want me to touch you where you’re aching?” he murmurs.
I nod, breathless.
“Use your words, Delaney.”
I swallow. “I… yes. Please.”
His eyes go molten.
“That’s it,” he praises wickedly. “Beg so sweet it hurts.”
Caleb’s smile is sin made flesh. His hand finally ventures between my legs, but not fast or hard or greedy. He’s excruciatingly slow, so that even the press of his palm is more promise than touch. My brain whites out in stops and starts, the air in the room too thin and too thick all at once.
He doesn’t move on me, not really. He just molds his hand there, heat radiating, thumb coasting the edge of my underwear in a lazy, taunting rhythm.
“Still trembling,” he observes smugly, “and you’re so damn wet for me I can feel it through your clothes.”
I can’t even bite back the sound I make. He’s not rushing, and it’s torture. I want to writhe against him, but he holds me perfectly still, his free arm wrapped across my back until my pulse is boxcar-hopping along my skin.
Any coherent thought of resistance goes up in smoke. I’m trapped, not just by his arm and the line of his body but by the way his hand cups me, an unyielding, gentle shackle. I don’t know if I’ve ever been held this way, if anyone has ever demanded so much with so little.
“You like that?” His lips graze my temple, his stubble scraping a line that makes my knees skitter. “You want me to keep going, or do you want to beg a little first?”
The flick of his thumb dips under the elastic, just enough for my hips to twitch, and now I can’t help it, I am whimpering into his chest. I sound like prey, and he knows it.
Caleb hums a satisfied affirmative. The faintest smirk plays at his lips when I look up at him, and he’s so fucking pretty about it, jaw sharp, pupils consuming his eyes.
I can feel him smiling against my jaw, feeding on my desperation.
I bite down on a knuckle to keep from making an obscene sound, but it escapes anyway, a wrecked little sob. I hear him inhale, as if the noise is a kind of drug. His movements hitch, just a fraction—the pleasure is mutual.
Then he leans in so his mouth is against the shell of my ear and says, altogether too softly, “I want to see you come apart. Right. Now.”
