It just rolled up, like it had always been there, waiting.
All she had to do was give in to it, open herself up to it—like with the magic, like with her feelings. The same way he did, because as the pleasure crested in her, so it did for him. His hips lifted off the bed, his hand fisted in her hair. And this time it wasn’thoneyorkid, it wassweetheart. It wasbaby. It was babbling abouthow good she made him feel, until all of it descended into nothing but groans and gasps, so guttural they only sent her higher.
And so did the feel of his come on her tongue.
Sweet as anything, so good and hot and filthy she could have cried. She did, in fact—she sobbed as her whole body shuddered through this bliss, so unable to take it that she couldn’t stay on her knees. She sagged against him, helplessly, messily; she couldn’t even keep up what she was doing. He spilled in her mouth, then over her cheek, her lips. He had to finish himself off with a hand over hers.
But he didn’t seem to mind.
The moment he was done, he gathered her up. He wrapped his arms around her, so tightly it felt to her like disappearing into him. And once she was there she knew: she never wanted to get back out. This was it for her now. Being surrounded by him, as he murmured into her hair:No one has ever done more right by me than you.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She suspected they’d laid there for about an hour before he finally got up. So it didn’t surprise her when he did. It made sense that he needed to—most likely he was getting tired of the feel of the mess still on him. Plus, he was still wearing his jeans. They had to be getting uncomfortable.
But then he spoke.
“Okay, then, I’ll leave you to sleep, night night,” he said. As if he expected her to be alone here in his bed, while he… well, she wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Take a nap on his broken-down sitcom couch? That seemed deranged, and yet there weren’t exactly a lot of other options.
She had to say something.
“Jack, where do you think you’re going?”
“To get some shut-eye. And you should, too—got a long day of learning how to kill hellhounds ahead of you. Heck, you’ve got a long day of learning anything. I want you to be able to clean those clothes my bullshit ruined.”
“Right. Right. But why again do you think we can’t do that here?”
He paused there, one hand still on the bed. Expression a maze of trying to work that one out. “Because… well, I mean… you probably… we haven’t really established—” he tried. She had toput him out of his misery before he got to the end of whatever nonsensical thought he was brewing.
“Established what? That two people who’ve had sex shouldn’t sleep together? I think the rules of dating and being in a relationship are pretty clear on what you should be practicing here, even to you.”
“Okay, first of all, we haven’t had sex. I’ve touched your pussy, and licked your pussy, and you’ve… done that to my… you did that to me. And second of all, I never said we shouldn’t. Or that it wouldn’t be good practice for anything. Iassumedthat you wouldn’t want to.”
There, his expression said.Get out of that one.
Even though nothing had ever been easier.
“So you thought I would expect you to take the couch. After that.”
“Well, it sounds nuts when you say it in that tone of voice.”
“It would sound nuts in any tone of voice, Jack. Here, look, I’ll say it like a funeral director trying to announce the world has ended. I regret to inform all persons here gathered—” she started, and now it was his turn to cut her off.
Exasperated about it, but he went ahead.
And he started stripping off his jeans as he did.
“All right, okay, I believe you. Move over.”
“So you’re going to actually sleep with me, then.”
“I am. But be warned: I snore.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do.”
“And I roll around a lot. I could crush you in the night.”
“I promise I’ll be totally, totally fine,” she said—which seemed to satisfy him, at least. He clicked his fingers and the lights went off. And then there was just silence, and the shape of him in the darkness. His back to her, as if, yeah, okay, he had agreed to do this. But he didn’t want to go any further than that. This was his limit—lying next to someone with a space between them the size of the Grand Canyon.
