Seeing him knocks the air out of me anyway.
“Nat.”
He crosses the room in three strides, and I’m off the ground.
His arms close around me so tightly I can’t breathe, but I don’t care. My bag hits the floor. My sunglasses go with it. I bury my face in his neck and inhale, and the smell of him cracks something open that I’ve been holding shut since I walked back into my father’s house.
“Hey, Princess.” His voice is rough against my hair. “Hey. I’ve got you.”
I nod into his neck. I can’t talk yet. If I talk, everything I’ve been swallowing is going to come up at once, and I don’t know what shape it’ll take.
His hand moves to the back of my head. He holds me there, and I can feel his heartbeat slamming against my chest. He’s been carrying this, too.
I pull back enough to see his face. He looks tired. Not in a way anyone else would notice, but I can see it in the tightness around his mouth, in the faint bruise-colored shadows under his eyes.
“Hi,” I say. My voice comes out scraped.
His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Hi. You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I don’t even know if it’s true. I only know I’m done talking.
I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him, and whatever restraint he was holding onto dies fast. His mouth is hungry and desperate against mine. One hand slides into my hair, the other around my waist, hauling me in so tight there’s no air between us.
His mouth leaves mine long enough for him to say, low and ragged, “Jesus Christ, I missed you.”
I laugh once, breathless and shaky. “You’re not the only one.”
Then he kisses me again, walking me backward toward the bedroom until my legs hit the mattress. My hands are under his shirt, pulling it up, and he breaks the kiss just long enough to yank it over his head before his mouth finds mine again. He strips my blouse off fast, like patience is a language he has forgotten. The second his palms hit bare skin I make a sound I couldn’t stop if I tried.
He pushes me back onto the bed, and I pull him down on top of me. The weight of him is the first thing that’s felt real in a month.
His mouth moves down my neck. My collarbone. He pulls the cup of my bra down with his teeth. His tongue finds my nipple, and I arch into him so hard my spine leaves the mattress. He sucks, then bites gently, and the ache between my legs sharpens into something desperate.
Clothes come off in pieces. His belt. My jeans, dragged down my legs and tossed. His hands shaking just enough that I notice. The bra goes and his mouth is on my other breast, tongue circling, sucking, while his hand slides down my stomach and into my underwear.
His fingers find me soaked.
He groans against my skin.
Two fingers push inside me and my hips buck up to meet them. He curls them, slow, pressing against the spot that makes my vision blur. I grab the back of his neck and hold on. A month of nothing and now his fingers are inside me and I’m already close. Embarrassingly close. Trembling around him with my face buried in his shoulder.
Every touch feels amplified by absence. Too much and not enough at the same time.
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know. Let it happen.”
I come on his fingers with a gasp that I couldn’t hold back if I tried. He works me through it, slow and steady, his mouth against my temple, until my legs stop shaking.
I don’t give myself time to come down.
I push against his shoulders until he reads it and rolls onto his back. I straddle him and feel his cock pressing hard against hisboxers, against the wet heat between my legs, and the friction alone makes me grind down before I can stop myself.
His breath catches. His hands grip my thighs.
