I turn, onto my hands and knees, my back to him, and feel the second he understands.
“Peyton—”
“I want you watching me.” I look back at him over my shoulder. “All of it.”
He comes up behind me and for one breath just rests there, hands at my hips, giving me the room to change my mind.
I don’t. I push back and take him myself.
The sound I make is not one I would let daylight have. The sound he makes is worse. Better. Both.
“Don’t you dare come first, McAllister.”
I set the pace. Slow, then mean, his hands gripping my hips not to drive but to hold on, to feel the rhythm I choose. He says my name like a warning he has no standing to give.
“Then move,” he manages.
I do. Harder, until his control is one thread and mine is not far ahead of it.
It takes me from the inside out, my arms giving, my face dropping to the sheet, his name breaking out of me with nothing careful left in it. He follows the second I let him, a curse and my name and both arms hauling me back against his chest like the morning is not allowed to end.
After, we go down into the sheets together, slick and wrecked and breathing like we ran here.
“That was new,” I say.
His laugh is rough against my shoulder. “Yeah.”
“You let me.”
“I am learning.”
He is. I can see it on him.
“You need to go skate,” I tell him.
“I need five minutes.”
“You have three.”
“Ruthless.”
“Supportive.”
He laughs and drops back beside me.
His phone starts going off before either of us has moved.
Jennifer. Then Sully. Then Colt, a row of question marks and one entirely unnecessary eggplant.
I read it over his shoulder and laugh before I can stop myself.
“Your team is subtle.”
“My team is a workplace hazard.”
He goes to skate. I go to work.
By afternoon I am in the media room with everyone else, credential clipped on, notebook open, pretending I am here to cover this and not to be covered.
