"Yes."
"That speech you came to give didn't exactly land."
"No."
The corner of her mouth. She sits back on the edge of the bed and reaches behind her, both hands finding the headboard rails and wrapping around them. She looks at me with an expression that is entirely a challenge.
"Like this."
"Like that."
I take my shirt off. She watches. I cross to her and I don't rush. Her throat first. My mouth on the pulse point that jumps when I get close. Then lower. Her collarbone. The freckles across her chest that her filter smooths away. I am studying them now at the range I've wanted since I understood what I wanted.
My hands on her waist. Her ribs. The soft curve of her stomach. She holds the headboard.
"Declan!"
"Not yet."
I get my hand between her thighs and her whole body shifts forward, chasing. Her knuckles go white on the headboard rails. I work her slowly. Two fingers. My thumb on her clit. Thesame deliberate pace that has nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with watching her unravel by degrees.
She's wet. Wetter than I expected, which tells me she's been thinking about this longer than the twenty minutes since I arrived. I use that. I keep the pace where I want it and she rocks against my hand and bites down on the sound she's trying to hold.
"Don't," I say.
"Don't what."
"Don't keep it quiet."
She makes the sound. Full. Unguarded. Mine.
"Good girl."
Her body responds before her brain does. I see it: the way her back arches, the way her thighs open wider, the involuntary forward push of her hips. She's playing to it now. She knows she's playing to it. She doesn't care.
She comes against my hand with her back arched and her knuckles white on the headboard and her thighs clamped around my wrist. Clenching. Pulsing. Her whole body pulling tight and then releasing in waves. I watch all of it.
She's still breathing hard when I get my pants off. Still holding the headboard, which I didn't ask her to keep doing.
She just is.
I get on the bed. Position myself between her thighs. She looks up at me. Flushed. Wrecked. Completely lucid.
She releases the headboard and puts both hands in my hair and pulls me down.
"Now," she says.
I push into her slowly. One long stroke. Unhurried. She makes a sound that starts low and climbs and her hands go straight to the silver at my temples. Grabbing. Pulling me closer. Her thighs lock around me and she takes me completely and her head tips back and I stay there.
Fully inside her. Not moving. Just this.
She has looked at my temples across dinner tables for three years. I know what that look meant. I know it now, with her hands in my hair and her body around mine and her face undone in the lamplight.
One more second. Just because I can.
"Declan." Strained.
"I know."
