I ran both hands up his legs at once, palms flat, feeling the lace slide slightly under the pressure, and when I reached the tops of his thighs I spread them a little and looked up at him from that angle and found him watching me with his chest heaving and his forearm thrown across his face like he needed to block out some of what he was feeling.
“Hey.” I pressed a kiss to the inside of his right thigh. Then his left. “Look at me.”
He moved his arm. His eyes found mine, dark and fully blown, and I held his gaze while I pressed my lips to the lace at the top of his thigh and watched his jaw work.
“I've got you,” I said. “I'm not going anywhere.”
His hand tightened in my hair.
I turned my attention back to his legs and let my hands do the talking — long strokes down to his ankles and back up, thumbs working into the muscle of his calves, palms spreading wide over his thighs. My mouth followed a different path each time, never predictable, going by the sounds he made and the way his hips moved in small, involuntary shifts toward me.
“Rook.” My name, barely holding together. “Please.”
I slid my hands down his calves in one long stroke, pressed a last kiss to the inside of his knee, and then I moved off the bed and stood at the foot of it and looked at him.
He looked back from the pillows, chest heaving, lips parted, eyes dark enough the hazel had all but disappeared.
“What are you doing,” he said. Less question than accusation.
“Giving you something to look at.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. His hands, which had been loose at his sides, curled into the duvet.
I reached down and grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head. I dropped the shirt on the floor and stood there for a second and let him look and watched his jaw clench.
I reached down and undid the button of my jeans.
I went slow. The jeans hit the floor and I stepped out of them and straightened up and just stood there at the foot of the bed in nothing but my boxers, and I watched his eyes move down my body like he was taking inventory.
I let him look.
Then I ran both palms flat up my stomach, slow, the way he'd done to me — from the waistband of my boxers up across the muscle of my abdomen and my chest, pressing in, feeling the warmth of my own skin under my hands, and I heard the soft sound he made from the pillows and kept going.
“Rook.” His voice had a raw edge to it. “Come back here.”
“Not yet.”
I spread my hands across my chest, thumbs dragging inward, and rolled my shoulders back.
I then dropped one hand to my stomach, dragging my fingers down the center of it slowly, following the trail of hair south to the waistband of my boxers, and let my fingers rest there for a moment. His eyes followed my hand the whole way down. His chest was moving faster.
I brought my palm down against the front of my boxers.
The sound of it pulled a sound out of him that was half-laugh and half something rawer than that, and I felt myself throb under my own hand and didn't try to hide it.
“Rook—”
“You're staying there.” I wrapped my hand around myself through the cotton, loose and unhurried, feeling the weight of it, and watched his hips shift against the mattress. “You're going to watch.”
He made a sound that was nowhere near a protest.
I stroked myself slowly through the fabric, not enough to be anything other than a demonstration, and kept my eyes on him the whole time. The stockings were still on his legs, the lace bright against the sheets, and he was pressed back against the pillows looking like something I should not have been trusted with. His hand had moved to his own stomach and was resting there without quite touching himself, fingers curled like he was physically restraining the impulse.
“Don't,” I said.
His hand went still.
“That's mine,” I said. “You don't touch that without me.”
