He surges up and cups my cheeks, kissing me until I’m breathless. “If anything I do,” he pants when we come up for air, “makes you uncomfortable…”
“You’ll know.” I hold his gaze until he nods.
Gently, he eases me down onto my back and stretches out next to me. “We’ll go slow, sweetheart.” Lifting the hem of my tank top just enough to expose my stomach, he kisses a line down the center of my body until he reaches the top of my shorts.
Every time his lips touch my skin, there’s a spark of electricity that makes my breasts ache and my core clench. Griff slides his right hand under the soft fabric until he’s cupping the bottom of one of my breasts, then pauses, his blue eyes meeting mine. God, I want more. Need it.
“I’m okay, Griff. Truly.”
The first skate of his thumb over my nipple makes me gasp. The second tears a whimper from my lips. No man has ever brought me pleasure by just…touching me. “More?” he asks.
“More.” I’m squirming, clutching the sheet tightly in my fingers, my toes curling as Griff nudges the tank top higher until the breast he hasn’t yet touched is exposed to the cool air in the room. His lips brush the tight nub, and oh my God. Pleasure shoots straight down, and goosebumps race along my skin.
“You taste like honey,” he says, then bites down gently. “Fuck. I wish I could hear you.”
It takes everything in me to release my death grip on the sheet so I can touch his cheek and get him to look up. “You hear my heart.”
His eyes shimmer, and he scoots up so we’re face to face. “And you hear mine.”
“Take off your shorts.” I don’t know where this sudden boldness comes from, but I need to see him. All of him.
“It’s hard…unless I stand up.” With a grunt, he rolls off the bed, and his arousal is alreadyveryobvious. A pair of black boxer briefs hide under his shorts, and he arches his brows, asking for permission.
“Those too. Y-yes.”
Deep breaths. He’ll stop if you need him to.
Griff hooks his right thumb under the elastic band, and after a couple of attempts to make his left work the way he wants, I get to my feet and stand in front of him.
“Sometimes…when I’m nervous, my hand…I can’t…” The shame in his eyes is too much for me to bear, and I cover his hands with mine.
“Then let me.” I can’t believe I’m doing this. Stripping a man naked. Willingly. The Calvin Kleins fall to the floor, and I swallow hard as I take a step back. He’s as big as I’d imagined—feeling him pressed up against me the previous night gave me some idea what to expect—but it’s more than his size. It’s thevthat angles to a neatly trimmed patch of hair surrounding his cock, the way the tip glistens, and his thighs. The man has thighs like a Greek god.
“Say something.” He doesn’t move, and I force myself to meet his gaze. “Sloane? We can stop. Right now.”
“No.” Before I lose my nerve, I strip off my tank top. The low, appreciative rumble in in Griff’s throat makes me shiver, and I pull down my shorts too, leaving me in nothing but a pair of nude panties. “I know they’re not…um…sexy. But they’re no-show under just about any outfit and—”
Griff clears his throat. “Sloane? You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen in my entire life and all I want in the world right now is to hold you.”
Stepping into his embrace, I wait for the panic. The memories. The fear. But his heat calms me. And his scent? It’s intoxicating. Bergamot and oak, like being out in the woods. “Wh-what now?” I ask once I tip my head back so he can see my lips.
Scooping me up with his right arm, he carries me the three steps to the bed and lays me down with a stifled grunt of pain. Before he joins me, he squeezes his left shoulder—hard—a couple of times, but before I can ask him if he’s okay, he shakes it off and kneels next to me. “Can I touch you, sweetheart? Take off those panties and taste you?”
I’ve come this far, and Griff hasn’t pushed me, hasn’t done a single thing but be patient, understanding, and…perfect. So I remove the last barrier between us.
“Fuck. You smell like heaven.”
With my knees bent, I’m completely exposed, and Griff stretches out on the bed between my thighs. “Once I go down on you, I won’t be able to hear you if you need me to stop. Promise me something, okay?”
“What?” No man has touched me down there in years, and while I know about oral sex—when I hurt my knee, I read all sorts of romance novels—I’m terrified. Not of Griff. Not of experiencing pleasure. But of how I’ll react. Whether I’ll freak out and ruin what I think could be beautiful.
“Tap my head. Grab my hair. Ifanythingfeels wrong, if you need a minute, if it’s all too much.”
As soon as I agree, he wraps his right arm around my leg gently and presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh. Excitement and fear tangle in my head when he trails his lips closer to my mound.
With two fingers, he spreads my lower lips open. “I’ll never get enough of you, Sloane,” Griff murmurs, and the vibrations so close to my clit are almost too much. Thrusting my hips slightly, I ask him for more without words and he understands.
The first pass of his tongue has my back arching, and I stifle my yelp. Every stroke sends waves of pleasure through me. They threaten to drown me, but if I die like this, it will be worth it. Griff anchors me with his arm, but he’s not holding me down. He’s holding on.
