“Sophia.” My name comes from his mouth like that.
Like I am something.
Like I am everything.
Our kisses become urgent, and I lift myself to straddle his thighs, looking down at him in the morning light. He looks up at me, all that careful containment completely gone, just him, this, and the way a man looks at a woman when he has finally stopped pretending he doesn’t want her. Something moves through me that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with being truly, completely seen.
“Tate,” I say. “I want you. All of you.”
“Fuck, baby, you’re killing me.” Low and rough, his hands slide up my sides and rest on my hips, anchoring me there like he needs something to hold onto.
With confidence, I lift the hem of Tracker’s T-shirt and pull it over my head, dropping it to the side of the bed.
His eyes move over me slowly and unhurriedly. It’s the way he looks at things that he has decided matter, all of it, every inch, and what is in his expression when his eyes come back to mine is so completely without armor that I have to remind myself to breathe.
“You are so beautiful,” he says. Not a reflex or a performance, but the simple, plain truth of it from a man who doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, delivered like something he has beenthinking for a long time and is only now allowing himself to say out loud.
It lands somewhere I didn’t know was still open.
His hands come up and cover me, both of them, warm and certain, and my breath leaves me completely. His thumbs move, and I whimper before I can stop myself.
He looks up at me when I make that sound, those green eyes burning.
“Again,” he says quietly.
His thumbs move, and I oblige him, completely involuntarily, and then his mouth is on me. Warm, urgent, and absolutely without hesitation, his tongue moves, his teeth graze, and I drop my head back. My hands go into his hair and hold on because there is nothing else to hold onto.
He is relentless, slow, then urgent, then slow again, reading every sound I make and using it, as if he has been paying attention to me for months and intends to put every single thing he has noticed to work.
He has.
God, he has.
“Tate…” It is barely a whisper.
He hums against my skin.
“Tate…” His name comes out broken.
“Stay with me,” he says against my skin.
His mouth moves up my throat and jaw, finding mine again, hungrier now, both of us past careful. I rock against him and feel him groan into the kiss, his hands gripping me harder.
“Still sure?” he asks.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I say.
The corner of his mouth moves.
In one smooth movement, he rolls us, my back meeting the mattress, him above me, and his hands find the waistband of mypanties and draw them down slowly, followed by his own, his eyes never once leaving mine.
I look up at him.
All of him.
His body is like something carved, with his broad chest, tattoos mapping his skin from collarbone to hip, and a trail of dark hair leading down from his navel. He is already hard, and the sight of him sends heat moving through me that I feel in every part of my body.
And then I feel it.
