He said, as he gripped her waist, fingers flexing, “I’ll tell you if I need to stop,” and she nodded, murmured “Me, too,” and that was good; that was true and also more mutual.
They were on equal footing here, the way they had been all day.
She toed off her shoes and her socks as he hooked his thumbs into her waistband, as he lifted her enough to slide her pants down her legs, his head bending as he kissed along the top of her thigh,her knee, and oh,god, his hair, the way the ends of his hair trailed along her—
“You’re so soft,” he said against her skin, and she set a hand on his head, right side, her fingers running through the silky, dark strands.
She said, “You are, too,” and he curved his mouth against her, dragged his teeth against her inner thigh, which made her jolt with pleasure. She could somehow sense him filing that away, keeping track, getting answers to the questions he didn’t need to ask out loud.
He came back to her mouth, his lips on hers harder, one hand on the side of her neck as he led her farther back onto the bed, rising up and over her in all his dark, soft, sinuous heat. Once he had her there—in the middle of this huge bed she didn’t think she could find either edge of, the crisp white duvet beneath her, her skin bared to him and her limbs restless with wanting to be covered in him—that was when hetrulystarted to wander.
Her body a map he was making only in his mind, his mouth and hands surveying her—stopping,staying, when she gasped, when she arched, when she whispered his name. He saidI like thisat the join of her neck and shoulder, told her how good she smelled there, told her he couldlivethere, except there were other places he wanted to see, too. He turned her when he wanted to unhook her bra, got distracted by the line of her spine, showed her a new place there halfway down—she could not remember a single thing she knew, no matter that she had never been anything other than top of her med school class in anatomy—that sparked with feeling when his tongue licked across it, her whole body still buzzing from it when he turned her over again, when he stared down at her breasts and groaned desperately, lowering his head and letting his damp forehead rest against her sternum for a few perfect seconds,his breaths deliberate and determined while he got himself back under control, readying himself to wander again.
New paths, then: her hand back in his hair, down the back of his neck, along the ropy, strong shoulder covered by his shirt while he explored. The outer curve of her breast, the highest crest of her hip bone, the crease above her thigh where the elastic of her underwear rested, apparently waiting all day, all herlife, to be soothed by the breath he blew across it. She thought vaguely, indistinctly of another night in a Paris hotel room; she thought not of Jamie but of herself, of how badly she wanted to beclaimed—a youthful desire, a lonely one, nothing Jamie ever could really understand anyway.
She thought of how this was nothing like that. She thought of being discovered, not claimed; she thought of beingLayla Bailey, of lying beneath a man who could say he was afraid, who could build his confidence not by possessing her body but by visiting it,learningit,likingit, wanting to wander all night in it…
He licked her—right at the wet seam between her legs, and she couldn’t think of anything,anythingelse. A groaning, famished licking, and then sucking, like he hadn’t spent half his day tasting some of the best, sweetest things in the world, like he had never tasted anything else at all. She nearly came off the bed from it, the single-mindedness of it, the whole-bodyness of it—hers, but also his; she couldfeelthat it was also his, and she could see the way he’d let go of something within him, both his hands hard against her now, holding her open, both his shoulders tight against her thighs, his hips pressed tight to the mattress, moving in time with her own.
At some point, probably right about the time he slid two fingers inside her, right around the time she cried out his name—stretching it and transforming it into a swear word she could not everremember saying out loud at a time like this—she realized she’d lost track of one of her hands. One was still in his hair, but the other was on what she could reach of his shoulder—over his shirt on that forbidden left side. She jerked it away, her curse turning into a gasping, “I’m sorry!” but he didn’t stop—he only lifted his left hand and gripped hers with it, no caution now, and guided it back to his body.
This time, to his skin. To the side he worried so much about. His jaw, his neck—the whorls of scarring beneath her palm and fingers meaning nothing to her beyond trust, beyond permission, an invitation to start making a map of her own. The thought of it, of this first indication that his confidence was building, that he would be able to get to that promised next step with her, made her pleasure ratchet higher. Soon she would be able to touch him, to explore him, to make him feel good the way he was making her feel right now…
She whimpered and squirmed beneath him, desperate to get there, because oh,god, he was so good at wandering, so good that he couldn’thelpbut find the very best destination, and he knew exactly where—
He curled his fingers.
He sucked harder.
And oh—
Oh, he got her there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She came like a city of light, like a tower of sparkling gold.
From his spot between her legs—a heaven he would not have ever been able to fathom—he watched it happen, looked up at the rolling crest of her body, her chest heaving, her head tipping back to expose the long line of her neck, her hair spread beneath her. Something that made you stop and stare, awestruck and also somehow relieved—this big, beautiful thing you always wanted to see was as good as, better than, you ever imagined it could be.
He couldfeelit, of course—the way she pulsed rhythmically around his fingers, how that pulse echoed at the base of his cock, even though that part of him wasn’t anywhere near her. And he could taste it, too—a rush of that same tangy sweetness he’d been trying to get his fill of for the last few best fucking minutes of his life.
But watching it was something else.
He waited while she came down from it, his fingers eventually sliding from her but his mouth resting on her mound where she held him, a hand in his hair, like she needed the pressure—like holding him there prolonged the light that flashed and flickeredout of her. He could not help it—he licked at her again, seeing if he could spark her like this another time, but she curled her fingers, catching at his hair tightly, a scolding that had him shoving his hips against the mattress again, his own need asserting itself in a way he’d been able to hold off while he’d been memorizing her, meditating on her.
“Griffin,” she said, breathlessly full-naming him, which had the same effect as the hair-holding, so he lifted his mouth, raised himself up and over her, bending his head to kiss her again—a filthy, wet kiss that she moaned into, and he thought,Layla Bailey, Layla Bailey, this is what you taste like, this is you without being fuckingamicable; this is you when you let yourself feel something real.
She tipped her head back as though she heard him, arching again, her now-freed lips pressing together, a moan of what sounded like frustration rumbling behind them. He thought she might say,Fuck me, which would have been good, would have set him on some kind of autopilot mode. He could get up, grab the bag he’d left on the floor. One flick of his fingers over the button on his pants, his zipper lowered. Shoving down the cloth just enough to get inside her. He’d been with women that way since the fire—fast and focused once they were past foreplay.
Good for them, but at best narrow for him.
But of course, Layla didn’t sayFuck me. Not after everything that had been between them before this.
She said, “How’s your confidence now?” and curled her free hand into his shirt, telling him without words what she wanted.
Not fast, not so focused.
Wandering andreal-feeling, exactly what she’d let him have of her.
