Then he settles into the pillow, breathing slow and deep, and dozes off.
Even in sleep, he never fully relaxes.The arm around my waist, rigid as steel, keeps me locked against him.The leg he shoved between my thighs would take an act of God to move, not that I’d try.
I crane my neck and watch him in the glow of the computer screens.
His face.
His mouth.
The faint scruff on his jaw.
God, he’s beautiful.Not pretty or delicate.Beautiful like a mythological warrior, built out of scars and near-death battles and muscles that aren’t earned in gyms but in fights no one else survived.
The guys I’ve been with are all noise and hands and rushed moments in dark corners.None of them touch me the way Jag does just by existing.None of them makes me ache the way Jag does when he’s asleep and defenseless beside me.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this.But I always do.
His body presses against mine, hot, solid, and unmistakably male.His heat seeps into me, sliding under my skin.I can’t help it.My fingers lift, hover, and settle on the hard flesh of his abdomen where his shirt rides up.
He’s hard everywhere, made for running, climbing, fighting, and surviving.I trace lightly, brushing over the contour of muscle and the dips between them.
He makes a sound in his sleep, a rumble dragged from deep in his chest.His arm tightens around my waist, anchoring me to him, but he doesn’t wake.
Encouraged, I let my fingers wander higher, sneaking under his shirt.Each tiny movement draws another unconscious reaction from him, subtle but responsive.A twitch.A groan.A stirring between his legs.
My mouth hovers near his throat, and he leans into it, shifting closer.
I shouldn’t kiss him.But I do anyway.Just a soft brush of my lips where the veins and tendons strain in his neck.He tastes warm, almost sweet.Alive.My mouth lingers without meaning to, my breath fanning against his jaw.
He exhales a sound between a sigh and a moan and shifts again, climbing my body in his sleep, his hips lifting and searching.His hand slides up my back, fingers curling as if guided by his dreams.
He touches me without waking.Not grabbing.Not claiming.Just reaching.The gentle, instinctive, intimate way he does it sends a rush of melty, fizzy heat low in my tummy.
I let my hand drift up his chest, fingertips finding every familiar ridge, every honed inch of strength.My lips follow the line of his throat, soft kisses against fever-hot skin, each one bolder than the last because he keeps answering me with those unconscious sounds, those tiny shifts of his body pressing into mine.
I shouldn’t want him this much.But wanting Jag feels like gravity, constant and impossible to fight.
Still asleep, he nuzzles closer, burying his face in my hair.His breathing speeds up and tumbles down my neck, lifting goosebumps across my skin.
I melt into him, into the body I’ve dreamed about for years, into the man who haunts every thought I shouldn’t have.
Because here, in the dark, with his hardness jabbing against me, I can finally admit it.
There’s no one else I’ve ever wanted.
His hand finds my hip, wrapping around the sharp bone.His warm, full lips touch mine, brushing, opening.Then he licks.I lick back.And he groans.
One second, he’s half-draped over me.The next, he rolls fully on top, his weight pinning me in the way I always imagined.His mouth crashes onto mine, hot, desperate, and searching, and for a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe at all.
It’s my first kiss.
My first real one.
Not the practice ones I give stupid boys in stairwells.Not the forced ones I walk away from with regret in my teeth.This is… Something else.Something older.It’s heavy, deep, and grown-up.
My whole body goes electric as his lips move against mine with a hunger he never shows when he’s awake.His hands roam desperately, up my sides, along my back, gripping, pulling, trying to join us in the way he joins with women for money.
I know how he moves his body, but I’ve never seen the male part of him he keeps hidden in his pants.My fingers tingle to touch it.
