The same damn flame.
And when it got to be too much, Tennessee jackknifed up to a sitting position, but she only slid her knees up higher so they were sitting the same way they’d been down on the couch.
“I’m completely clean,” she told him, with a frown, like she wanted to make sure he knew she was being serious.“I’m not saying that flippantly.I’m scrupulous about testing, whether I have any reason to be or not.”
“Noted.”Tennessee smoothed his hands over that wild hair of hers, all those silken red-gold waves.“I am also clean.Not because I’ve been scrupulously tested, but because time would tell tales if there were any to tell.”
“That sounded almost poetic, Tennessee.”She shifted slightly, there where she sat pressed up tight against him, and he could feel how hard and hot he was against all of her softness.Touching her heat.Close, but not quite there.“Are you telling me it’s been a long time?”
“It feels like a lifetime,” he said.“It’s definitely been years.”
“Years.”She looked baffled, and it was almost unbearably hot to witness.“Why?”
“Because I have certain preferences,” he told her, his attention on the perfect shape of her ears.“And I see no point in pretending otherwise.It only leads to frustration.”
“Preferences,” she echoed.“How exciting.Do you—”
But Tennessee was finished talking.
He took her head between his hands and he kissed her, long and deep.Once, then again, and when he was ready he pulled back just enough.
“Shut up, Matilda,” he ordered her, his mouth still touching hers.“Decide if you want to use a condom or not.”
“I’m good,” she whispered against his lips.“But I—”
“Why don’t you let me take care of this,” he suggested, and he couldn’t seem to keep from smiling.“You can tell me later if you have any complaints.Okay?”
And he could feel her melt.Her whole body was a shiver.He could feel it there in that sweet heat between her legs, and that shiver kept on going.
“Okay,” she whispered.
So Tennessee kissed her again, and then he reached down, set his hands beneath her butt, and lifted her up.She was already breathing hard, so all he did then was play a little bit, holding her up as he moved himself, just the very tip, through her wild, glorious heat.
Then, lifting his gaze so he could pin all that gray and blue fire with his, he lowered her down.Inch by agonizingly perfect inch, and he watched her flush.Then break out in a kind of sweat.Then open her mouth to gasp, though he did not speed up.He kept going slow.
Then slower still, to give her time to accommodate him.
And then, when he lowered her fully and he was in her deep, she tipped forward a little bit with her eyes closed tight and pressed her forehead to his.
“I think…” She breathed out, and it was shaky.“I think that if I just…”
“You’re not doing anything,” he told her.“Remember?”
But he moved her up just a little bit and then sank her back down hard, and she imploded.
It came on her quick, like a punch, then shook through her again and again.
And it took an iron sort of will to ride that out and to keep from falling over that cliff himself, but Tennessee was nothing if not perfectly capable of asserting his will over anything and everything.
He’d made it the project of his life, and now he understood why.
It was all worth it so he could hold himself still as Matilda sobbed against him, and only then, when she finally came back to herself—her eyes something like silver with all of that passion and pleasure—did he move her up a little bit to settle on her knees.
Then he gripped her hips and began to move.
And there was no pretending that this wasn’t intimate.They were staring straight at each other.There was no hiding.
It was raw, intense, and felt so damn good that Tennessee was surprised with each stroke that he could keep going.
