His hands slide under the thin fabric of my camisole, palms hot against my skin. The contact is electric but not overwhelming; he moves slowly, giving me time to adjust.
Nerves wake up everywhere he touches.
I realize I’m clinging to his shoulders, fingers digging into muscle, my chest pressed against his. His heart is pounding as hard as mine.
“I like you like this,” he murmurs. “On me.”
“I like me like this,” I murmur back, which is somehow both the most honest and the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever said.
He laughs deep in his chest, the sound vibrating against my sternum.
“Tell me what feels good,” he says. “Show me.”
The request makes my cheeks burn, but my body answers before my mouth does.
I roll my hips experimentally.
His grip tightens on my waist, a quiet sound escaping him.
“That,” he says hoarsely. “That feels very good.”
“Noted,” I say, a little breathless.
We find a rhythm—slow, exploratory, heat building in increments. His mouth trails along my jaw, down my neck. Each press of lips, each scrape of teeth is a new data point in a map I didn’t know I wanted to build.
My hands slide down his chest, over the scars and muscle, marveling at the solid reality of him. When my fingers brush his nipples, he shudders.
“Sensitive,” I observe.
“Yes,” he says, voice wrecked. “Careful, or I lose all my very good plans.”
I file that away for future experiments. Because there will be future experiments. That thought alone sends another pulse of heat through me.
His hands come up, fingers hooking in the straps of my camisole, pausing.
“Yes?” he asks.
The question goes straight to my nipples, already hard as pebbles.
“Yes,” I answer, voice barely there.
He eases the straps down over my shoulders, slow enough that I could stop him at any point. When they fall halfway down my arms, the neckline dips.
Cool air skims the upper curves of my breasts. My skin prickles.
His gaze drops, then darts back up immediately, as if he’s forcing himself not to stare.
“You can look,” I whisper. “I-I want you to.”
He exhales as if he’s been holding his breath for centuries, then lets his gaze travel down, reverent and hungry all at once.
“Beautiful,” he says simply. “You are… goddess, Sophia.”
Affection and want swell together inside me, almost painful.
I tug the hem of the camisole up. He helps, lifting it over my head, and then I’m bare from the waist up, sitting in his lap, heart pounding like a drum.
The air on my skin is shock-cool. His hands are fire.
