“No.”
“Good.”
He lies back because I told him to. I take a second to look — all of him, the morning making no apology for the light, no game clock and no crisis and no one waiting for his next call.
I settle over his hips, slow, in no hurry, and watch him decide not to rush me.
“You are staring,” he says.
“Observing.” I take the word right out of his mouth. “Dangerous habit.”
I kiss him before he can be charming about it. Not soft. My hand slides down his chest, his stomach, lower, and closes around him, and whatever he meant to say leaves him in a breath that is almost a curse.
That sound. Ryan McAllister, captain of everything, coming undone under my hand before I have even started.
“I like you like this,” I tell him.
“Like what?”
“Not in charge.”
He laughs, rough and useless. “Do not get attached.”
“Too late.”
I move down his body and take him in my mouth, and the laugh dies in his throat.
“Fuck.” His head goes back against the pillow.
I hum, because I like what the word costs him — like I pulled it out of him without permission.
He does not grab my hair. Does not push. Does not try to run this the way he runs everything. He lies there and lets me have him, one hand fisted in the sheet, and the restraint it takes is the hottest thing in the room.
I take my time. Too much of it, on purpose, until his breath frays and his hips want to move and don’t.
When I look up, he is already watching me.
“Peyton.” Wrecked. “Come here.”
“Bossy,” I say, and let him go slow.
“Desperate.”
Fuck. That one works on me.
I climb back up and kiss him with the taste of him still on my tongue. He reaches to take over, hands already moving, and I catch both his wrists and put them back against the mattress.
He goes still.
“Let me.”
Two words, and his whole body answers.
I reach for the condom and roll it on, steadier than he would be, and the way he watches me do it almost costs me my composure. I do not let it show.
I could sink down on him here, face to face, and watch him watch me. I have done that. It is good.
I want more than good.
