“Again,” he instructs, dark eyes flicking up to mine.
“I can’t—” I start to shake my head.
“You can.” He doesn’t look away, but he groans against me. “One more, Ren.”
It’s the sound of my name. He doesn’t say it often, but I think, despite all my best efforts, I like being Ren if she’s half of who Miller Colson-Burke says she is.
And I think that, maybe, I do deserve all of his undivided attention and I deserve the way he makes me feel.
I do come. Again. And again. And again.
He doesn’t stop until I practically beg.
“Good girl,” he murmurs quietly, planting kisses along the inside of my thighs. Pushing to stand, he grabs my hands, pulling me into him, and he drops his mouth to the crown of my head.
My palm flattens against his chest, and I feel his heart racing underneath the broad muscle.
“You, uh, you okay?” he asks, hand cradling the back of my head, fingers twisting along my scalp.
I nod softly, eyes practically fluttering closed. The sound of his heart might be the most beautiful lullaby I’ve ever heard.
“Was it, uh—” He pulls back, one thumb carving across my cheek. “Was that—alright? For you?”
“It was fine.” I shrug, like it’s a casual thing.
“Fine?” he repeats, voice strangled.
“Yeah. Fine. Average. Mediocre.” I wave a hand around. “You know, run-of-the-mill.”
But my cheek twitches with a smile underneath his palm, and he rolls his eyes, snorting. “Oh fuck you, Ren.”
I blink up at him. “You want to?”
He stares down at me, swallowing, before his face splits with a grin and his mouth crashes against mine. “Yeah, I fucking want to.”
“What are you reading?” Miller’s wide hands grip the steel rungs of the dock ladder as he pulls himself out of the water.
I’m not really reading. I’m trying—but it’s a bit hard when someone you have a crush on, the size probably bigger than any asteroid that triggered a mass extinction on any planet in any universe at this point, stands in front of you. Perfect, soaking wet, dripping lake water from messy hair and the stretching valleys of muscle twining around his body all golden from the sun.
When that same person probably isn’t just a crush, because he’s been all over your body now, and when you stop to think about it, you realize he’s all over your heart, too.
I tap my screen, smiling softly. “It’s a new journal issue about the suspected habitat adaptability of the saurolophus.”
“Which one was the saurolophus?” He shakes out his hair, droplets flying off, peppering the muscles stretching along his shoulders, and he crouches down, hands finding my calves.
“They had duckbills.” I inhale when he drops to his knees, and those worn hands slide up my thighs.
“From the movie?” His fingers trail across the flare of my rib cage.
“Yes. Ducky.” I wrinkle my nose at him, setting my phone on the dock beside me. “We don’t know as much about their migration patterns over long distances as other species, but it’s interesting. They were actually able to travel on both two and four limbs so—”
One brow lifts, and he stretches out, settling between my legs before dropping his chin to my stomach. “What a coincidence, I’d drop down to my knees or get on all fours for you, too.”
“That’s not quite the same, but—” I shove at his face, and his teeth rake along my palm when he bites at it.
He gives a lopsided grin—lazy and spectacular under the midafternoon sun, damp hair curling around his ears, waves cresting across his forehead, and navy eyes so, so bright. “Can I do it again?”
“You’re not ... bored?” I hate the way it creeps in—the anxiety seeping out of old wounds that I’m trying so hard to stitch back together.
