“I’ll get a towel,” Jamie offers, but I shake my head.
“Not now.”
He lifts his brows and I lift mine right back, hooking my forefingers through his belt loops and pulling him close. I rise onto the balls of my feet and kiss him once more, dragging my lips along his stubbled jaw, his rain-slick neck. I imagine I can feel his pulse racing against my skin.
I press my mouth right there, right at his carotid. “Not yet.”
15
Jamie
We half-stumble through the darkened apartment toward Marigold’s bedroom, Marigold giggling and shushing me when I almost topple into a wall. I silence her right back with another kiss, my teeth catching at her soft lower lip as I draw her in close, our bodies pressed together. She arches toward me like a flower toward the light, and I’m already so fucking turned on. Maybe it’s the scent of her, like ripe berries. Or just the way she rolls her hips against mine and insinuates one hand between us to fiddle with my shirt buttons.
“C’mere,” she mumbles against my mouth, and against her lips, mine curve into a smile. She hooks a finger into my belt loop and tugs me after her down the hall, letting us into the dim, streetlamp-illuminated space of her bedroom.
I’ve only been in here once. But I’m glad for it, because that means I have a general map of where the furniture goes; I navigate us to her bed without tripping over anything, at least. She’s so small—over a foot shorter than me—so it’s nothing to lift her up and toss her onto the bed, following after with my mouth trailing kisses along her calf, smoothing the wet silk of her dress up toward her hips.
Her thighs fall open for me automatically and I nip my teeth against the soft, vulnerable skin there, then slip my fingers beneath the fabric of her black lace thong.
I take my time. I smooth my hands along her skin, brush a kiss against the soft dusting of hair above her mound. When I finally slide my tongue between her warm lips, she twists her knuckles in my hair and moans, her legs tightening briefly against my shoulders.
My hands wander farther afield beneath cool silk, seeking out the expanse of her stomach, her ribs like hidden ridges, then finally the faint swells of her breasts.
It’s time to admit that I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for, oh, about the past three years. She smells sweet and musky at the same time, a heady scent that makes me want to drive into her—but no, no, I have to take my time. I settle for grinding my hips down against the mattress instead, desperate for even that muffled pleasure.
“God,” she murmurs, arching up toward my mouth as I curl my tongue around her clit. “Fuck, Jamie—”
I grin against her and redouble my efforts. It earns me another tight, wanting sound. And I swear I could keep doing this forever just to hear her make that noise, to know how good I can make her feel.
I keep going long after my jaw starts to hurt, chasing those little gasps and the squirm of her body beneath my hands, my lips, my tongue—until at last she cries out and her hips undulate toward my mouth, the taste of her abruptly slick and sweet.
As she lies there, catching her breath—chest rising and falling like she just ran a fast mile, her hands slow and lax now on my back—I make my way up her body and tuck my head in against the crook of her neck to lay a kiss against her hot skin.
“Here,” she mumbles, and she struggles with my shirt buttonsenough that I half-rip my own shirt off. Her sex-drunk fingers fare better with my belt and fly, and then they curl around me, and it’s my turn to groan as she pulls me in close.
“I need you,” I say—plead, really. And she catches my mouth with her own, tasting herself on my lips as she arches up and welcomes me in.
The clench of her body around me is disorienting, intoxicating, and I whisper her name reflexively,Marigold,a sound that comes out ragged and needy in a way that would be embarrassing if I wasn’t too fucking turned on to care.
Her fingers drag down my shoulders as if, even with me rooted inside her, she still can’t get me close enough. I start to move—slowly at first, a bit cautious of hurting her. But turns out there’s no need, and slow is the last thing Marigold wants.
She pulls me into her with a hard rhythm, both her hands—so beautiful when playing the piano, so delicate—now gripping my ass to set the pace.
It feels insanely good, good enough I start to worry I’m not gonna keep up—or last. I flip us around so I’m the one on my back, and Marigold doesn’t miss a beat. She rides me like it’s her goddamn job, and I slide my hands toward her perfect breasts as she leans over, her sex-tangled hair falling to graze my cheek.
“How’s that?” she says, breathless.
“Perfect. Incredible. Sublime. Please don’t stop.”
A hoarse laugh, and then she’s kissing me again—rougher this time, with teeth.
She must guess how hard I’m trying to hold myself together, maybe from the way my fingers grip her hips so hard the knuckles have gone white. Because after a few minutes she says, “You can come whenever you want. I won’t stop you.”
And thank god for that, because I was about to tip over the edge anyway.
I snap up toward her two more times, three, and then the heat surges up wild and fast. Pleasure crests over me like an ocean wave, and I groan out her name, pulsing my climax deep into her tight body.
She works me through it with slow rolls of her hips, then slides off me to wind her body around mine, her long fingers toying with the base of my neck as I strip off the condom and toss it into the bedside trash bin.
