I can lose her.
The thought carves through me, cold and sharp. I've lost everyone, spent my whole life keeping people at arm's length because being alone hurts less than losing someone I love. And Molly? I can't lose her. I won't survive it.
Her fingers slide up my chest, around the back of my neck, thread into my hair. The touch grounds me, anchors me, drawing me back from the edge of panic.
I won't lose her. Not if I can help it.
I can't speak, so I kiss her instead, hoping I can tell her what I can't say in words—my need and my fear and the tumbling of my falling heart. This kiss isn't the desperate clash like before, this is deliberate. Claiming. My tongue slides against hers, and I swallow the little sound she makes, greedy for more. Trailing myhand from her face to her neck, feeling the rush of her heartbeat there, racing as fast as mine.
Mine.
I don't know where it comes from, the feeling rising in me like a violent wind.
Mine to protect. Mine to cherish. Mine to keep. If she'll let me.
My hand moves on, collarbone, shoulders, my fingers tracing the neckline of my shirt on her body. The swell of her breasts brush my bare chest. My cock throbs, remembering the only time I've touched them skin to skin beneath her shirt, when she was spread out on her table and I touched her until my name rode her breath, felt her come around my finger, in my hand.
I pull back to look at her, sliding my hand to palm her breast through the shirt, pleased when she gasps, arching into my touch. The weight of it in my hand is everything, even through fabric.
I want more, need to see. This time, I don't announce, I don't ask, just reach for the hem, holding her gaze, looking for dissent. My fingertips brush the bare skin of her thighs, her hips--she sucks in a breath that I feel everywhere. I draw the hem higher, shifting to my side so there's space. First, her stomach, soft and pale. There's a little freckle near her belly button where I want to put my mouth. Her ribs, the undersides of her breasts--she lifts, taking the hem herself, drawing it over her head, her damp hair falling messy around her face when it spills out of the neck. She tosses my shirt and lays back down, her face turned to mine.
I have held her breasts, touched them a dozen times through her clothes, but nothing could prepare me for this, the candlelight washing over her, gilding her skin, her nipples tight, dusty pink. The soft weight of them, the curve. The slope of her shoulders, a scar on her collarbone. The dip of her waist, theflare of her hips in my boxer-briefs. I drink in the sight of her, for too long, I realize when she moves to cover herself.
"Don't," I plead, command, catching one of her wrists. Gently pull it away, pinning it to her side softly. "You don't hide from me. Not from me," I whisper, stroking her breast slowly, restrained, and she sighs beneath me, melts, her other arm falling away so she can touch my chest. My cock is so hard it's painful, straining against my sweats, aching when my thumb skates over her nipple. She gasps, shifting to press her breast into my palm. The weight, the heat--I knead, squeeze, watch her face, watch her flesh spill from between my fingers, her eyes fluttering closed, then the sight of her tight nipple between my fingertips. My skin is dark against hers, rough against the softness of her--she's so fucking soft, how is she this soft?
She whimpers.
That sound,fuck. I need to hear it again.
Down her stomach my fingers drift, hungry to taste all of her at once. Every fucking instinct screams to tear her clothes off, bury my face in her breasts, between her thighs, but I hang onto my leash as best I can, not wanting to go too far, praying I can keep my shit together.
But tonight, I'll have her naked. I toy with the waistband of my boxer briefs around her hips, folded over a couple of times, and she watches me, her breath shallow as I hook my fingers in the band, meet her eyes for permission, which she grants by lifting her ass and sliding them off one hip, letting me take over. Her breasts bounce with the motion, and I have to close my eyes, jaw clenched, hauling myself back from the edge. Slowly, I undress her, pausing at her hip bone, pressing my thumbs to the hollows, then lower, revealing her pussy inch by inch until my boxers are down her thighs and tossed away.
Molly lays back on my pillow, her hair spread around like a halo, eyes on mine. Her pretty skin is flushed from chest to neck. Legs slightly parted, relaxed, not hiding from me.
I can't move.
The curve of her beasts, tipped with tight nipples. Her stomach rises fast. The bare expanse of her pussy, pink and glistening. Her thighs trembling.
I've seen beautiful women. I've been with beautiful women. But I have never felt like this--like I'm standing at the edge of something holy. Like if I touch her wrong, I'll shatter us both.
She’s the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my entire fucking life.
I'd tell her, if I could speak.
My cock throbs, my hands desperate to touch her, heart slamming against my ribs. Throat dry. Another freckle, this one on her hip, and my fingers brush it. I want to touch everything, taste every inch of her. Mark her so everyone knows she's mine.
"Grey?" Her voice is small, uncertain, snapping me out of my trance. She's biting her lip like she's unsure.
"Fucking beautiful," I rasp in a voice that doesn't sound like mine, too raw, too wrecked. I lean over her, settle in next to her, my free hand sliding up her thigh, her hip, her waist, the silk of her skin beneath the roughness of mine. "Molly, you're…" Can't finish. Words gone.
The leash slips.
My mouth finds hers, deep and hungry, and she rises into it, alive beneath me. Her nails rake down my back while mine map the curves of her body--waist, ribs, the swell of her breast. She bucks when I pinch her nipple, breaking the kiss with a hiss of my name that goes straight to my cock.
I drag my mouth down her throat, teeth grazing her pulse, tongue tracing her collarbone. Her hands twist in my hair, pulling me lower, impatient, and I let her guide me, hoveringover her breast I'm still palming, close enough that my breath ghosts over her tight nipple. She arches, whimpering, trying to close the distance.
Not yet.
