And Trent understood that. God, he understood that. Because in the weeks after his mother died, the only thing that had made him feel anything at all was the weight of Dove's hand on his arm and the sound of her voice cutting through the silence. She’d been his reminder. His proof that the world still had texture and warmth, and that someone in it gave a damn whether he lived or died.
He hadn’t recognized that as love. Not until recently.
But now it was his turn to give her what she needed.
He kissed her back.
Not gentle. Not careful. He gave her what she was asking for—all of it, everything, his hands and his mouth and the full weight of whatever he was feeling. She arched into him, a sound catching in her throat that was half sob and half something else entirely, and he swallowed it. Took it in. Held it for her so she didn't have to.
Her hands were everywhere. Pulling at his shirt, pushing at his shoulders, dragging him down onto the bed with an urgency that bordered on desperate. She was relentless. Demanding. Moving against him with the focused intensity of a woman who'd spent her adult life channeling every emotion into action because sitting still with feeling was the one thing she'd never learned to do.
He let her lead. Let her set the pace and the pressure and the rhythm of it, because this wasn't about him. This was about giving her whatever she needed to get through the next hour, the next minute, the next breath. If she needed fire, he'd burn. If she needed tenderness, he'd be soft.
The quilt his mother had made ended up on the floor. His shirt was somewhere near the window. Her hands found the scar on his ribs where a gator had caught him when he was nineteen, and she pressed her mouth against it like she could heal old wounds with new ones.
He watched her tongue trace that old line of raised skin, and the heat of it shot through him. He slid his palm up under the hem of the shirt she still wore and found warm skin.
“Dove,” he said, or maybe he just breathed it. Her name tasted like honey and whiskey and the morning. He gathered the shirt in his fists and pulled it up. She lifted her arms without hesitation, hair catching on the fabric, and then she was bare in the gray light, every inch of her goose pimpled from the blast of air and the kind of need that didn’t care about temperature.
He set his mouth on the slope of her shoulder where the shirt had slipped before, then lower, tasting skin that still held the faint blueberry sugar of yesterday. She arched and gripped his head like she intended to keep him there.
He had other plans.
He kissed his way across her neck as he cupped her perfect breasts. He licked one nipple and then sucked it into his mouth, hard, demanding, and unforgiving.
A half gasp mixed with a deep guttural groan escaped her mouth.
Easing off the bed, he shed his jeans and tugged her to the edge. Curling his fingers in the elastic of her panties, he yanked them to her ankles, and tossed them across the room. For a moment, he held his breath and just stared at her, sprawled out in his bed like she belonged there. Like she was home. He reached out and twisted one nipple while he slipped a finger inside her, rubbing his thumb across her clit.
She arched into his hand, spreading her legs wider, rolling her hips, as if begging for more. He stroked her with one finger, then two. She clutched the sheets in her fist and bit down on her lower lip as she moaned softly.
He could do this all day long and be satisfied.
But right now, she needed more. He leaned over and pressed his tongue where his thumb had been, his fingers still gliding in and out.
“Oh god.” She clutched his head, her fingers threading through his hair, and her hips rolling with the rhythm of his tongue. “Yes, Trent. Yes…”
He draped both legs over his shoulders and drove his tongue deep inside. If sunshine were a flavor, that’s what she tasted like, and he couldn’t get enough. He reached up and toyed with both nipples, plucking, twisting, and pulling. Not too hard, but hard enough that he was meeting her demands. He lapped at her clit, circling and sucking, before diving inside, and then repeating the motion while her fingers dug relentlessly into his scalp.
Her breath came in quick pants. Warm liquid spilled from her like a fountain as her body bucked and jerked.
“Oh, yes, yes,” she managed. Her legs tightened around the sides of his face. Her back arched. Her muscles continued to twitch, and soft moans rose from her lips and landed on his ears like sweet music.
Carefully, he pushed her legs apart and kissed his way up her belly, across her breasts, to her lips. She shoved him to his back, her hand gliding down his chest.
He grabbed her wrist. “I won’t last if you do that. Not today.”
“That’s fine.” She smiled, climbing him, thighs bracketing his hips, heat searing between them. She reached for him and guided him in with a surety that knocked the wind out of him. He had a last flash of the world—curtains breathing with the morning, the smell of damp earth finding its way through the screens—and then it narrowed to the tight, yielding slide of her around him.
His body knew what to do. He tried to take inventory—steady her, let her set the pace, don’t get lost and leave her alone in this—and then she moved, and thinking fell away like useless equipment tossed overboard. She rocked hard, head tipped back, throat bare. He set his hands on her hips, gripping tight, holding on for dear life as she controlled everything.
She made sounds that hit him low, not pretty, not composed—broken pieces that told him she was right there with him, and that was all he needed. He bit the inside of his cheek and kept his eyes open, watching her face change as the rhythm found them. Sweat slid down his temple. The mattress complained.
“More,” she said, rough as gravel.
He gave it. He sat up and wrapped an arm around her back, pulled her tight against him, chest to chest, her heartbeat knocking against his. He filled his palm with the curve of her, thumb drawing a line that made her gasp and clench. He swore under his breath and did it again because that sound lit him up like a match in dry grass.
He kissed her mouth, her jaw, the damp hollow below her ear where her pulse hammered. She caught his earlobe in her teeth, and he almost came from that alone, that small, mean sweetness, the way she claimed him without asking permission.
