Page 150 of Smoke and Glitter

My hands move over his shoulders and down his back, nails dragging across flexing muscle while he finds a rhythm that feels less like starting over and more like remembering something my body never actually forgot.

His hand slides beneath my knee and lifts. The angle changes, and the next thrust hits exactly where I need it. His name tears out of me.

Sam's eyes lock on mine. "Again?"

"Yes."

He gives me the same angle again, harder, and my heel digs into the back of his thigh. "Fuck."

His mouth comes down against mine, but the kiss doesn't stay controlled for long. His breath catches against my lips. Mine does the same. Every movement drives us farther from anything careful or considered.

I told him not to hold back, and he isn't. There is still attention in every touch. He feels when my body changes, adjusts when I pull him closer, listens when I tell him harder and doesn't decide he knows better than I do.

"Look at me."

I open my eyes.

His curls are damp at his temples now, his jaw tight enough that I can see the muscle working beneath his beard. The man who can command two hundred people without raising his voice is gone. This Sam is breathing hard above me, completely wrecked and making no effort to hide it.

His forehead presses to mine.

"I need you."

My hands stop against his back. The words hit harder than anything else he's done to me.

Sam's eyes stay on mine. "Right here. Stay with me."

I wrap both arms around him. "I'm here."

Something shifts in his face, and I tighten my legs around him.

"I'm right here, Sam."

Then his mouth is on mine and whatever control he has left finally breaks. He drives into me harder, and I hold on while his body moves against mine, every stroke pushing me closer to the edge again. His hand slips between us, and the first pass of his fingers over me makes my breath catch.

"Sam."

"I've got you."

I believe him. At least here. At least now.

My body tightens around him and he feels it immediately. His mouth leaves mine long enough for him to breathe my name, and then I'm coming again, hard enough that my legs lock around his waist. Sam keeps moving through it until his rhythm breaks. He buries his face against my neck, and a few strokes later his entire body goes tight over mine, my name rough against my skin.

Afterward, he stays there, not crushing me but close enough that I can feel every breath. His mouth rests against the side of my neck while our lungs slowly remember how to work, and I don't want him anywhere else. His hand moves across the mattress until it finds mine, our fingers lace together, and neither of us moves for a while.

Eventually Sam shifts enough to take his weight off me and rolls onto his back, bringing me with him. I settle partly over his chest with one leg tangled through his, his hand beginning a slow path along my spine while London hangs pale beyond the windows.

I couldn't tell you which direction I'm looking. My fingers move lazily over Sam's chest until they catch on a line of ink I don't remember, and I stop.

There is a tattoo high on the left side of his chest, separate from the larger work across his shoulder and arm. A handful of dark leaves move across his skin as if caught in wind, sharp and whole at one end before breaking apart into smaller black flecks as they travel inward.

I push myself onto one elbow. "What is that?"

Sam looks down and goes suspiciously quiet.

I stare at it. Leaves. Glitter. My eyes lift slowly to his.

"Sam."