His night-sky gaze held her in thrall. Aubrey focused on that wide-open expanse, the one she called home.
The world tipped. She fell, upward and inward, into warm, welcoming depths. She wanted to stay there forever. “Do it.”
He searched her eyes. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Please.”
“All right.” He reached down.
She braced.
“I love you,” he said, and pushed.
Reality condensed to crystalline perfection. He sank into her along with his words, and in exactly the same way—slow and deep and binding.
It didn’t hurt. That surprised her. Every TV show she’d ever seen had promised pain, but when Nick joined himself to her, her body sang out a high, clear note. She melted, melding with fire and rain and darkness.
Some of that transformation must have shown in her expression, because Nick went still. His fingertips found her face again. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She inched her legs wider.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. It feels like... God, I don’t know what it feels like, but you should definitely keep going.”
He did, hesitant at first, then surer, with his lashes touching his cheeks and the guttural syllables of her name in his mouth. Time washed over her in waves. She had never felt so full, soabsolute. And yet her soul seemed to be billowing out from her body, a luscious unstitching of herself she had no desire to fight.
Television did get one part right, though. She didn’t orgasm. But Nick did, and she found she liked it better that way, because something deeper than pleasure claimed her in the moment when his breath shortened and the tendons in his neck raveled tight. A mangled curse slid off his tongue as he buried his face in her shoulder.
Her fingers pressed indents into his back as he went rigid against her. A dizzy whirl of pride claimed her. God, look at what they’d done together. Look at what their bodies had created.
She bottled up the moment, storing it on a high shelf in her mind.
Nick gave one last shudder and went slack, surprisingly heavy once he became dead weight. “Holy shit,” he murmured. “Holy shit, that was... I don’t even know.”
She ran her nails lightly along his back, up and down.
He lifted his head. Shots of color dusted his cheeks. “Sorry. I couldn’t hold back. I’m an asshole.”
She sighed, small and contented. “No. That was... perfect. That was exactly what I wanted.”
“You didn’t come.”
“Butyoudid. And I wanted that more. I wanted to be the reason for you feeling that way.”
When she tugged at him, he pressed a kiss to her lips, hard and sincere. “Do you want me to keep going? With my fingers? My tongue? Whatever you want, just tell me.”
She hugged him, enamored with the feeling of having him tucked inside her, still. What magic. Like a pact. “No. This was what I wanted. Exactly this.”
He sighed. “You’re too fucking perfect, you know that?”
“We’reperfect. Together.”
They lay like that a long time. Once they’d cleaned up and tugged their underwear back on, Nick stretched on his side and nestled her backside against his front, propping himself on an elbow to suckle at her neck.
Aubrey pillowed her head on one arm and stared into the dwindling flames. A moan slipped free every time he hit a sensitive spot.
“This whole setup was evil-genius-level clever,” he murmured.
