"Flora."
"Yes."
"Stop talking."
I stopped talking. He kissed me again, slower this time, deeper, his palms resuming their path up my sides, thumbs tracing my ribcage. When he found my breasts I gasped into the kiss and rocked my hips into him and felt him groan, low, rough, a sound that went straight through me.
He pulled back. Looked at me, flushed, breathing hard, sitting on his counter with my legs around him and my shirt shoved up and honey still on my lips. "Tell me you want this," he said. Quiet. Direct.
"I want this." The words scraped out of me. "I want you. I've wanted you since you lifted that bee off my nose and I need you to stop being noble about it."
He made a sound, half laugh, half growl, and dropped to his knees.
My brain shorted out. He was on his knees on his own kitchen floor, pushing my thighs apart, looking up at me with those dark steady eyes. "I've been thinking about this since you moaned at my honeycomb," he said. His fingers hooked under the waistband of my pants and tugged. I lifted my hips because my body had taken over completely.
He pulled my pants down. My underwear with them. And then his mouth was on me.
I came apart.
His tongue was slow and deliberate and devastating, the same patience he used on the hive frames. My head fell back against the cabinet. My hand found his head, the buzz of cropped hair under my palm, my thighs shaking around his ears. He held my hips pinned, steadied, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. Each lick. Each press of his tongue on my clit. Patient and thorough and completely, ruinously intent.
"Oh my God," I breathed. "Oh my... Atlas..."
He groaned into me and the vibration sent me over. I came with my hand over my mouth and his name on my tongue, and he didn't stop. He kept going through the aftershocks, softer now, gentler, coaxing the last tremor out of my body until I was boneless and gasping on his countertop.
He stood. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looked at me, undone, half-naked, my chest heaving, and said, "Sweet."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Was that — did you just review me?"
"Better than the buckwheat."
"I should hope so. The buckwheat smells like wet socks." I was babbling. He was undoing his belt and every coherent thought left my head. "I want... can I..."
"Not this time." His voice was rough. Strained. "Your mouth gets on me and I'm done, and I'm not done with you."
I reached for the counter to brace myself. My hand landed in the spilled honey, thick and golden on my fingers. An idea hit me. I closed my honey-slick fist around his cock.
He went still. Completely, utterly still, except for the sharp intake of breath that moved through his entire body. Hard and thick and hot in my grip, the honey making everything slick and golden and obscene. I stroked him once, slow, and watched his jaw clench so hard I thought he might crack a molar.
"Flora," he gritted out.
"Mm?"
"I need to be inside you. Right now."
"Then get inside me."
He pulled me to the edge of the counter. Lined himself up. His thumb dragged a streak of honey across my hip. His lips followed, wet, the scratch of his beard on my skin. Then he pushed into me and I stopped breathing.
He was big. I'd known he would be. I'd felt it. I'd had my fist around him. But the reality of him filling me, stretching me, that slow relentless push until he was all the way in and my forehead was on his shoulder and I was making sounds I'd never made in my life.
"You alright?" he asked against my hair. The words came out raw. His fingers were trembling on my hips.
"If you ask me that instead of moving, I'm going to lose my mind."
He moved.
Fast. Hard. His grip on my hips pulling me into each thrust, the counter exactly the right height for him to stand and driveinto me. I hooked my legs around him and held on. The honey jar rattled. A mug fell, then a spoon. I didn't care. His teeth scraped my pulse point and I felt myself climbing again, fast, impossibly fast.
