Because we had been. Ten years of hunger, ten years of wanting, all of it crashing together in this moment.
I laid her on the bed and stepped back just long enough to pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes roamed over my chest, my tattoos, the scars that mapped my body like a road atlas of violence.
"You're beautiful," she breathed.
"That's my line."
I crawled over her, caging her body with mine, and kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. I wanted to commit every moment to memory.
Her hands explored my back, tracing the lines of muscle, the raised tissue of old scars. When her fingers found the phoenix tattoo over my heart, she paused.
"What does this one mean?" she asked.
"Rebirth." I pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Rising from the ashes. Finding something worth living for again."
"When did you get it?"
"The day I decided to come back for you."
Her eyes glistened, and she pulled me down for another kiss, this one softer, sweeter. Full of emotion neither of us could put into words.
I took my time undressing her, until she lay beneath me completely bare, and I felt like I might die from the sheer beauty of her.
I stood just long enough to strip off the rest of my clothes, and her eyes went wide when she saw me. All of me.
"God, Hudson." Her voice was barely a whisper. "You're..."
"Yours." I climbed back over her, settling between her thighs. "Every inch of me. Yours."
I kissed my way down her body, relearning every curve, every sensitive spot. The hollow behind her ear that made her gasp. The spot on her neck that made her moan. The swell of her breasts, the peaked nipples that hardened beneath my tongue.
By the time I reached the apex of her thighs, she was trembling. Begging.
"Please, Hudson. I need you."
"Not yet." I spread her legs wider, looking at the glistening evidence of her arousal. "I need to taste you first."
I lowered my mouth to her center, and her back arched off the bed with a cry. She was sweet and tangy and perfect, and I licked and sucked like a man dying of thirst who'd finally found water.
"Oh God. Oh God. Hudson."
I worked her with my tongue, circling her clit, dipping inside her, learning what made her writhe and what made her scream. When I slid two fingers inside her while sucking on her sensitive bundle of nerves, she shattered.
Her orgasm was violent, her whole body convulsing, her hands fisting in my hair as she rode my face through wave after wave of pleasure.
I didn't stop until she was limp and gasping, her chest heaving, her eyes glazed.
"I can't," she panted. "I can't possibly come again."
"Challenge accepted."
I crawled up her body and positioned myself at her entrance. The head of my cock pressed against her slick folds, and we both groaned at the contact.
"Are you sure?" I asked, even though holding back was physically painful. "We can stop here if you're not ready."
"If you stop now, I will kill you. I’m on the pill. I just want your skin on mine." She grabbed my hips and pulled me closer. "I need you inside me, Hudson. I've needed you for ten years."
I pushed forward slowly, inch by agonizing inch, feeling her stretch around me. She was tight. So fucking tight. And hot. And wet. And perfect.
