She breathed. Closed her eyes. Opened them.
"Okay," she said. "I'm good."
Jack kissed her again. Slower now. His hands found the buttons of the flannel — his flannel, on her body, the intimacy of that almost undoing him — and unfastened them one at a time. The first button revealed the hollow of her throat. The second, the faint freckles across her chest. The third, the soft curve of her breasts, bare underneath. She hadn't been wearing anything under his shirt. That knowledge hit him low and hot, and his fingers stalled on the fourth button.
"You okay there?" Clara murmured, a ghost of a smile on her mouth.
"Just — having a moment."
"Take as many as you want."
He exhaled a laugh against her collarbone and finished the buttons. The flannel fell open, and he pushed it off her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor around her feet. Clara's fingers worked his t-shirt up, her palms skating over his stomach and chest as she pulled it overhis head. The touch of her hands on his bare skin — warm, deliberate — sent heat spreading down his spine and pooling low in his gut.
His jeans went next. Clara's fingers found the button, the zipper, and Jack stepped out of them while his hands traced the curve of her waist, thumbs hooking into the waistband of her underwear. He dragged them down slowly, his knuckles grazing the outside of her thighs, her calves. She stepped free, steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder.
When they were bare, standing in the morning light with nothing between them, Jack traced the freckles on Clara's shoulder. A slow line, connecting dots. The same thing she'd done to him that first morning after — her fingers mapping his scar, his sternum, the lines of his chest.
"Like what you see?" Clara murmured.
"Yeah." More than she knew. "Get in bed."
"Bossy."
"Only when I know what I want."
She got in bed.
He followed her down onto the quilt — her grandmother's quilt, the one that had covered them through every version of this — and settled over her, weight braced on his forearms. Clara's thighs parted to make room forhim, and the press of skin against skin — his chest against hers, his hips cradled in the V of her legs — drew a shudder from both of them. Four days. It had only been four days, but his body was reacting like it had been months, every nerve ending tuned to the warmth of her beneath him.
He kissed Clara's throat. Her collarbone. The hollow between her breasts. Slow, deliberate. Clara's fingers threaded into his hair, tightening when his mouth found her breast — a slow, open kiss that made her arch up into him, her breath catching on a sound she didn't bother to hide.
"Jack—"
He drew her nipple between his lips. Gentle at first, then firmer when her hips rolled against him, the friction of her body against his cock sending a sharp pulse of want through him that made his arms shake. He could feel her — warm and slick against his stomach — and it took everything he had to keep the pace slow instead of giving in to the instinct to grind against her.
He moved lower. Kissed the underside of her breast. The soft skin below her ribs. The dip of her navel. Clara's breathing changed — quicker, shallower — and her hand stayed in his hair, not guiding, just holding on.
Clara’s low moan created electric sparks in every nerve ending. He pressed his mouth to her hip bone. Looked up at her. “God, I missed the taste of you.”
Bit her lower lip on a shy smile and let her knees fall open.
Jack settled between her thighs and kissed the sensitive skin along the inside of her leg. Clara twitched, her fingers tightening in his hair. He took his time — mapping the territory he'd learned over weeks of paying attention, reading her responses the way he read grain in wood. Slow kisses tracking higher. The graze of his stubble against her thigh drawing a sound that went straight through him.
When his mouth finally found her, Clara's hips lifted off the mattress and her hand fisted in the quilt.
"Oh — God?—"
He went slow. Long, deliberate strokes of his tongue, learning her rhythm again, finding the places that made her gasp and the ones that made her whole body tense. He'd always loved this — the way Clara came undone under his mouth, the way her composure cracked and the woman underneath emerged, unfiltered and raw and trusting him with the most vulnerable version of herself.
Her thighs were trembling. Her breathing had gone ragged, punctuated by small, desperate sounds thatshe'd be embarrassed about later and that he would never, ever get tired of hearing. He slid one hand up her thigh, then pressed two fingers inside her, curling them forward while his tongue kept its steady rhythm.
Clara's back arched off the bed. "Jack — right there, don't — don't change anything?—"
He didn't change anything.
Her orgasm built in waves he could feel under his hands and mouth — the tightening of her thighs, the clench of her body around his fingers, the way her breathing went silent for one suspended second before she shattered. A full-body shudder, her hand pulling his hair hard enough to sting, a broken moan muffled by the arm she'd thrown over her face.
He worked her through it. Gentle now, easing her down, pressing soft kisses against her inner thigh while she caught her breath.
