I never want to stop. I never want to come back down from this feeling, this heat, this weightless ache, this dizzy, perfect freefall into him.
Intous.
seventeen
KNOX
The second my fingers slip into her hair, I’m done for. It’s reckless, the way I drag her closer, but she tilts her chin and meets me there like she’s been waiting, too.
Christ, her mouth. Soft and warm and right there, splintering whatever careful control I thought I had left.
It’s been so long since I’ve let myself want like this, touch like this. And when she lets out this soft sound caught at the back of her throat, it rips straight through me. That’s it. That’s my undoing.
Her fingertips skate the back of my neck, and I finally pull back just enough to see her, to ground myself before I forget who I am entirely. And there she is with wide, searching eyes. Kiss-bitten lips. Breathing just as hard as I am. There’s nothing but heat and tension lingering in the space between us, something that doesn’t just burn butpulls. My chest aches with a want that’s dangerously close to need.
I didn’t see this coming, but now that I’ve had a taste of her, I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to go back to what life was like before.
And then she looks at me like I’ve cracked something wide open in her. Like I’m sitting here holding every delicate part of her, and she’s still deciding if she’s brave enough to let me keep it.
“Juliette, I?—”
“No.” Her head shakes, quick and pleading. “Knox…please, don’t stop.”
Her voice is shaky, threaded with something close to desperation. That’s all it takes to blow whatever was left of my restraint to hell.
Shewantsthis. God help me, I’m already gone.
I haul her against me like I’ve been needing to do since the second I laid eyes on her. Hands skating down to her hips, gripping tight, selfish and starved, I lift her like it costs me nothing when really it costs meeverything. Her legs wrap around my waist, and it feels so natural, so goddamn perfect.
Somehow, I find my footing and stand, carrying her across the room. We hit the couch in a tangle of limbs and need, careless in a way I haven’t dared to be in years. Her fingers are in my hair, lips tracing the edge of my mouth, and all I can do is hold on and give in. Take. Offer. Match her hunger with mine.
“Juliette,” I rasp.
She looks at me. Really looks, and it’s not just heat or want in her eyes. There’s something wild and raw.
Her heartbeat slams against my chest, right in time with mine. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel empty or lost.
I just feel her.
She shifts in my lap, all soft curves sliding against hard lines. And fuck, when she rocks against me, my cock twitches in response. The friction is maddening, a sweet kind of torture that makes it impossible to think straight. I’m hard as hell, straining against denim that suddenly feels two sizes too tight, and there’s no hiding it.
My hands tighten at her waist, holding her there, holdingmetogether. She feels too good. Her touch is featherlight as she drags her fingers along the edge of my jaw, and my pulse stutters in my throat.
Before reason or patience or every line I shouldn’t cross has a chance to claw its way back into my mind, our mouths crash together again.
Hard. Desperate.
I’m drowning in her.
The taste of her, the heat of her, the soft, broken little sounds she makes—it’s all chaos in my veins. My hands roam on instinct, greedy and mapping the curves of her waist, the line of her spine, committing every inch to memory like I might wake up tomorrow and this will all be gone.
Her tongue slides against mine, tentative, then bolder, and I know I’m not walking away from this unchanged.
Ishouldstop. I know that. I should pull back, catch my breath, say something that isn’t just her name rasped into the space between us like a prayer.
But, hell, she tastes like every good thing I forgot I was allowed to want.
Sweet and wild. Soft and reckless.
