He went back to my throat.
His hand was at the side of my ribs, just under my bra, his thumb running slow back and forth across the skin there. He wasn’t moving up. He wasn’t rushing. He was letting me catch up to him, and the patience of it was almost worse than if he’d gone fast.
I could feel every place he wasn’t touching me. I could feel the warm air on my stomach. I could feel the blanket under my back and the heat of the sun on my shoulder where his head wasn’t blocking it.
I wanted his hand higher. I’d never wanted anything that specifically in my life.
I reached down and put my hand over his and moved it up. He paused and lifted his head again.
“Sunnie?”
“Yes?”
“Are you telling me what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Keep doing that.”
He kissed me. Deep. The kind of kiss that wasn’t asking a question anymore. His hand cupped my breast through the bra, and I arched up into it. He made a low sound against my mouth that did something to me I hadn’t known a sound could do.
I reached behind my back and unhooked the bra. He pulled back. His eyes were dark and his mouth was wet and the expression on his face was something I wanted to savor.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Stop asking.”
“I’m going to keep asking.”
“I know.”
He drew the bra off me and dropped it on the blanket next to my tank top. He looked at me for a long moment. Just looked. His hand was flat on my stomach and he didn’t move it. He looked at me like a man who was memorizing something.
“Ross.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re staring.”
“I know.”
I laughed. A real one this time. He smiled—actually smiled, the first real one I’d gotten out of him—and it transformed his whole face. He looked younger by a decade. He looked like a man who’d been holding still for a long time and was finally allowed to move.
He bent down and kissed me again, and this time, his hand moved up to my breast with nothing between his palm and my skin. I felt the difference like a current. I felt it through my whole body. My toes curled against the canvas of the bedroll. My hand went to the back of his neck and held him there.
He lowered his mouth to my breast, and I lost language for a minute. His hand was on my other breast, his thumb circling, and I had the distant thought that I was going to come before he’d even gotten my shorts off.
“Ross.”
“Mhm.”
“I don’t?—”
He lifted his head. “What?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re doing fine.”
