Page 56 of Cherry Picking

“What about on my stomach?” she finally replies. Then, she pulls her lower lip between her teeth and shakes her head. “No, wait. Do it on my tits.”

That’s what finishes me. Not my own hand, but her saying it like that, so unashamed, eyes on me the whole time. The orgasm rips up my spine, and I groan into her thigh, wrecked, hips jerking as I come across her chest.

When I’m done, Evie’s spread out beneath me, flushed down to her collarbones, hair wild against the pillow. My cum paints her perfect tits in hot stripes of white. She drags a fingertip through them lazily, flushed pink and panting.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better sight in my life.

CHAPTER 16

EVIE

Ahelpless moan slips past my lips as my body unravels for the third time in half an hour.

Briggs is dangerously good with his mouth, and my legs are practically trembling as I wrap them tight around his hips.

He’s already finished once, even taking the time to clean us both up before diving right back between my thighs. He claims he’s just catching his breath before the main event, but my body is already running on overdrive.

“Please,” I gasp, my voice trembling. “I can’t take any more.”

His head pops up, dark eyes searching mine with sudden concern. “You want me to stop?”

“I just want you inside me,” I admit, wincing at how utterly desperate I sound. “And honestly, if you keep making me come like this, I’m going to pass out before we even get to the real thing.”

A low chuckle rumbles in his chest. “I should’ve known you’d be this needy.”

“And I should’ve known you’d be such a greedy asshole,” I counter, rolling my eyes. “Even between the sheets.”

Briggs shifts, stretching out beside me and wrapping a heavy arm beneath my neck to pull me close. “Greedy? I’ll have you know I make monthly donations to a stroke recovery clinic. I give ten percent of my paycheck to youth hockey programs, and I’m a notoriously generous tipper.”

I scoff softly, resting a hand on his chest. “Oh, impressive. What’s next, an overview of your tax returns?”

He snorts, moves one hand to my hip, and flips us around so I’m straddling him again. I don’t waste any time. While he steadies me with both hands, I press my pulsing core to his erection, grinding down in slow circles.

His head drops back with a low, helpless groan.

“Shit,” I mutter. “We didn’t do the whole status exchange.”

“Hmm?” he mumbles, eyes still shut tight, throat bobbing.

“I assume you were tested after your last partner? I’m up to date and negative all around.”

His eyes shoot open, and he clears his throat. I wait as something dark passes through his expression—there and gone, shut down fast. Whatever it was, it wasn’t about test results.

“I’m good to go,” he says. “I can promise you that.”

I kiss him, shifting gears—biting his bottom lip, tugging until he makes a sound low in his chest. When I nip his earlobe, his cock twitches against me.

I file that bit away under things Briggs Maxwell likes in bed. The list is growing. Also on it: going down on me, which he handles like it’s his actual job, and could seemingly continue until sunrise if I let him.

I sit back on my heels to take him in properly. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a man built like this. Historically, my type has leaned toward lanky, intellectual types who smoke far too many cigarettes. Briggs is a different animal entirely.

His shoulders go on for days, with a chest that fills my palms and then some, that hard cut of muscle vanishing into his waistband. There’s a certain economy to all of it, and I catch myself admiring what those muscles can actually do. Both on the rink and off of it.

The dahlia I’ve been staring at since November climbs his throat and spills over his left shoulder, black ink unspooling into shapes I can finally trace with a finger. A geometric band wraps his forearm. Across one rib, small and slightly crooked, there’s a date penned in thin red ink.

His skin is a map of old damage beneath it all—a shiny seam above one eyebrow, a knot of scar tissue on his right shoulder, knuckles that have long since forgotten how to be smooth.

“You’re staring,” he says.