I patted the mattress. “This isn’t the same bed. Got rid of the old one not long after that night. Couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping on something where the last woman on it wasn’t you.”
Her face softened. She looked at the bed, then back at me. She nodded once. “Thank you for telling me.”
I looked at her. Fourteen months of keeping my hands to myself. Of not touching her because I knew I hadn’t earned it. And now she was two inches from me, looking like she was waiting on me to keep up.
She kissed me first.
I let her have two seconds of leading before I took over. Got my hand in her hair, angled her mouth the way I wanted it, and kissed her back the way I’d been planning to on the drive I never got to take.
She pulled at my shirt. I helped her. She sat back and looked at me in the low light, her eyes moving over my chest and shoulders, and I watched her watching me. “Okay?” I said.
“More than.” Her hands came back up, pressing flat over my heart. Her fingers spread wide, tracing the lines of muscle, the dip between my ribs. “I forgot how much I missed looking at you.” She said it simply, like a fact. Then her eyes came back to mine. “Take my shirt off.”
I reached for the hem and pulled it over her head. She reached back and unclasped her bra, letting it fall. I held the shirt in my hand and looked at her, the way the low light caught the curve of her breasts.
“Come here,” she said.
I dropped the shirt and put my hands on her. Drew my thumbs across her collarbone, down the swell of her breasts, across her nipples. She inhaled sharply, her back arching into my palms. I bent and kissed the hollow of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, lower. I took a nipple in my mouth and her hand came up to grip the back of my neck.
“Fuck,” she gasped. “Holden—”
I switched sides. Slower this time, circling my tongue, my hand covering the breast I’d left, and she made a sound that sent heat flooding straight down my spine.
She was the one who moved first — climbing into my lap, her knees settling on either side of me, and I could feel her through the layers still between us, the heat of her pressing down against where I was already hard. Her hands were in my hair, pulling just enough to tilt my head back as she kissed me — deep, open, hungry. I got my hands on her hips and she rolled against me, slow and deliberate. I groaned against her mouth.
“Down,” she said. “All the way.”
I laid her back against the mattress. She let me look at her for about a second before she reached up and pulled me down with her.
“Stop thinking,” she said.
“I’m not—”
“You are.” She turned her head to look at me, just slightly amused. “I can hear it from here.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.” She curled her fingers in my hair and pulled, hard enough to make a point. “So stop.”
I kissed her mouth, her jaw, her neck. The hollow behind her ear that made her breath hitch. I worked my way down her collarbone, her ribs, the soft skin of her stomach. Her body tracked every touch — small shifts, muscles tightening, her breath going shallow. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her jeans and pulled them down with her underwear, slow, kissing the skin I uncovered as I went. Her hip. The inside of her thigh.
I pressed another kiss to her inner thigh and felt the small catch of her breath. Then I put my mouth on her. The sound she made was quiet — a low, sharp exhale — like she’d beenexpecting it and it still surprised her. I worked her slowly, relearning what she wanted. Her thighs came up on either side of my shoulders and her hand gripped the sheet beside her, just holding on.
I flattened my tongue and dragged it up the full length of her, then circled slowly. She swore under her breath and her hips lifted off the bed.
“There,” she breathed. “Right—”
I stayed there. Found the rhythm she was chasing and held it, steady, relentless. Her hand moved from the sheet to my hair, gripping hard, and her breathing came apart — short, ragged, not trying to control it anymore. I could feel her thighs shaking against my shoulders.
I slid two fingers inside her, curling, and she cried out — not quiet, not restrained. I worked her with my mouth and my hand together, matching the rhythm of her hips, and she came — her whole body clenching, her back bowing off the mattress. I worked her through every wave until her grip in my hair finally loosened and she pulled me up by the jaw.
She kissed me, tasting herself on my mouth, and the way she did it — messy, unguarded, her tongue sliding against mine — had me grinding up against her thigh, needing more.
“Your turn,” she said. She pushed me onto my back, and I went. She straddled my hips and her hands moved to my belt, undoing it with steady fingers. She pulled my jeans and boxers down and I kicked them off. She wrapped her hand around me and I had to press my head back into the pillow and just breathe.
“I missed this,” she said. Her voice was low and rough, and she was looking at me while her hand moved — slow, deliberate, her thumb circling the head on every upstroke. “I missed the way you look when you can’t think.”
“Bea—”
