“I’m quite short, actually,” she returned, only to make him laugh, a startled little huff coming out of his mouth as his eyes came up to meet hers and his grin seemed to ache at his cheeks.
“I’m going to have you now,” he told her, leaning forward so that their noses brushed, bracing his hands over hers where they dug into his mattress and stroking her wrists with his thumbs. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m going to have you, too,” she replied. “Mr. Reed.”
He chuckled, nipping at her lip. “Do not call me Mr. Reed.”
And then, quite suddenly, she found herself on her back. There was warmth and weight and so much pleasure atop her as Roland braced himself over her body, kissing his way up from the dimpled curve of her hip to the soft brace of her ribs, his hands running freely over her bare legs.
She tried to prop herself up on his pillows, to watch him, but every new flick of his tongue or scrape of his teeth sent her collapsing back again, stars exploding in front of her eyes.
He was not shy with his touch nor his taste, his fingers tripping and sliding into the soft, naive flesh between her thighs as he sank his teeth gently into the little dip where her hip gave way to her leg and then licked the damage as though he wanted to taste his own audacity.
He left his hand to explore between her legs, stroking gently without demanding entry just yet, while his mouth traveled back up, dropping kisses and gentle nips on the soft flesh of her belly and up along the narrow center of her chest, where he hesitated for a moment, breathing out a hot gasp of air over her breasts as he rested his forehead between them.
Only then did his fingers begin to push into her.
He raised his head, watching her through the curtain of his gilded hair as he discovered her from the inside, drinking in every gasp and twist of her body as new and incredible sensations began to shiver and settle and turn over her.
She slid her hands along his shoulders, struggling to keep her eyes open, seeing the way his lips curved every time they started to flicker shut again as he began to kiss the curve of her breasts, working in agonizing slowness toward her dark, aching nipples.
When his tongue darted out, flicking against one, she released a sound that she did not know herself capable of, her hips bucking up against him, dragging his wicked fingers deeper into her want. It won a groan from him as well, as though he somehow felt her pleasure vicariously by merit of providing it to her, and rather than drawing back to give her reprieve, he lowered his head and doubled his attentions, his hand moving in answering pulses below.
She ceased to be able to think, her fingers curling and pulling at the muscled lines of his shoulders as she writhed and pled with him, nonsense words rising up in her throat. There was no day before this, no life full of complications, no worry or strife or logic or intellect.
Only sensation.
Only him.
Only her.
She tried to say his name but the only word that would leave her tongue wasplease.
She said it over and over again.
“Please,” she sighed so softly, it was almost a prayer. “Please.”
And finally he answered, his own lips and tongue coming to silence hers with the warm, firm press of assurance and the weight of his body colliding down on the burning, buzzing need of her own as he ran his hands down her sides and brought her thighs apart, guiding her knees around his hips.
“Look at me,” he whispered against her lips. “Mae, please. Please look at me.”
It took some effort. It took two shallow, dizzy draws of breath, but she managed to lift her eyelids, to blink them open and bring his face into focus as he hovered over her, dropping kisses over her brow, the tip of her nose, the corners of her lips.
He lowered a hand to touch her again and to touch himself, to guide them together. And again, he beseeched her so sweetly, “Please look at me.”
She wasn’t sure she would ever wish to look upon anything else ever again.
She reached up again to touch his face, to trail her fingertips over the curls that hung down over his cheeks as he began to join them, as his hips moved forward in slow, delicious dips of progress.
She memorized the expression on his face, this mix of reverence and satisfaction as it happened, as they fully joined together. She gave him her attention, the focus of her eyes and the rise of her hips, and when a soft smile of wonder broke over her face, he mirrored it, leaning down to kiss one dimple and then the other as well.
He took his time, finding the gossamer strain of balance between what pleased him and her own newfound exploration.
“There?” he would say, shifting his hold under her knee. “Like this?”
And then he would kiss her, no matter what the answer was, as he continued to drive her over the edge into something adjoining heaven.
“Oh!” she cried, pulling at him, filling her hands with every perfect dip and swell of his warm skin. “Oh, I feel … oh, that!”
