Refusing to be frightened, she shifted, edging closer to straddle his hips. It trapped the hard length of him between their bodies as she curled her fingers around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. She opened her mouth, and he slid his tongue inside, letting out a choked sound of desire as he wrapped his arms around her. God. He felt so good like this, so warm and solid and protective. With one broad palm between her shoulder blades, he folded the other around her hip, sliding it down to cup her backside before gliding it along her thigh. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, the tips tingling as they rubbed against firm flesh.
She got lost in it, melting into him, an ache of need growing soft and hot and wet within her sex. With long, lush kisses that went on and on, he kept her close, and how had she ever doubted that this would be how sex would feel with him? Safe. Like nothing could hurt her—not even him.
She shifted her hips against him, and he moaned into her mouth. He pulled back from her lips, dropping to suck kisses across her neck and jaw.
“How do you want this to go?”
“I don’t know.” She let her head fall to the side, just wanting him to keep doing what he was doing. She gripped his shoulder tighter as he scraped his teeth against her throat. “However you want. Whatever you—”
He shhed her. “I’ll take care of you.”
God, how had he known that was exactly what she needed him to say? The heat building between her legs bloomed anew as he lifted her, twisting them both until she was falling into the mattress. He shoved aside the mound of pillows he had rested on while she had sketched. She grabbed at him when he moved to pull away.
“Just a second,” he promised.
She shivered without his heat, but she didn’t reach for the covers. It felt strange to be lying there nude while she waited for him, except—except this had to have been how it had felt for him. For a couple of hours, he had laid himself out for her, entirely exposed.
The least she could do was wait a couple of minutes and not be afraid.
He’d retreated to the foot of the bed, and she furrowed her brows in confusion for a second before he picked up her sketchbook. How could she have forgotten it was there? With absolute care, he closed it and put it on the desk in the corner, turning back to smirk at her. “Wouldn’t want it to get messed up.”
Then he padded over to his bag and unzipped one of the little pockets on the side. He palmed something, and she frowned, confused until she realized what it had to be.
He set the condom packet on the bedside table before coming to sit on the edge of the mattress beside her. He looked her over, and she tried not to fidget or wilt beneath his gaze. With the softest touch, he ran the backs of his knuckles down the length of her side, tracing the curve of her breast and the dip of her navel. The swell of her hip.
“What I would give to be able to draw right now.”
Her lip wobbled, and she couldn’t take it anymore. “Come here,” she urged, intertwining her fingers with his and tugging him down.
He came willingly enough, rolling to lie beside her, his front flush against her thigh. As he gazed down at her, a warmth overtook her, and for a moment, she could pretend. This wasn’t a brief foray into intimacy, and it wasn’t just her who had gotten attached.
He let her have her moment. His expression still achingly soft, he shifted forward to kiss her again. It was all the soft motion of his mouth on hers and the heat of his body against her skin.
And then it was more. As he licked into her mouth, he danced his fingertips across her abdomen, lower and lower. Each pass had the restless feeling inside her growing, and she shifted, trying to curve into his touch. She ran her hand up and down his arm, wanting to coax him and not wanting to ask.
When he finally slipped his fingers into the swelter of her sex, she whined, and he smiled, and she wanted to smack him or kiss him or . . . or more.
She panted against the soft roll of pleasure he wrung from her. “I thought we were going to . . .”
“We are.” He shifted to kiss the corner of her lips, her chin, her jaw. “But not until you’re dying for it. Gonna make you so wet for it, Kate.” His swallow and his breath against her ear made her pulse. “And then. Only then, when you’re ready to scream. When you’re slick all down your thighs. That’s when I’ll know you’re ready.” He scraped his teeth against her lobe. Pressed the searing flesh of his own desire to her hip, and she shuddered. “Not a moment before that.”
She closed her eyes against the feeling.
No wonder no other man had ever succeeded in making her come. None of them had ever approached it like this. Like a privilege and a job, and something they’d achieve if it were the last thing they ever managed to do.
He was good to his word, too. With careful fingers, he took her apart, two of them inside and pressing just exactly where she needed them, his thumb moving in tight circles against her clit. All the while, he kept his lips on her skin, kissing and sucking and biting, and when he teased her nipple with his teeth, she twisted hard. Trembling with the electricity shooting between her breasts and her sex and the heat that was rising to a boil, she shifted onto her side, reaching for him, wanting him closer before this feeling consumed her and turned her to ash, but he kept her still.
“You’re there, aren’t you?” He pulled his fingers free, and she threw her head back, gritting her teeth. “How does that feel? Does it leave you empty and needy and shaking?”
“Yes, God, yes.”
Before she knew it, he was on top of her, two hands planted on the pillow beside her head, and the soaring crest of oblivion she had been hovering on fell away, leaving her reeling. The tip of his erection dragged, hot against her hip. She reached down to grasp it, to get that silky flesh in her palm, but he tilted away. Put his face right into her vision, and, God. His eyes were so dark, the intensity of it overwhelming, and perfect, and maybe she wasn’t the only one in this.
Maybe it wasn’t just her, feeling like everything had changed.
He put his hand on her face. “Tell me,” he said, voice rough.
And the words almost slipped out. I love you. Don’t leave. Don’t let me go.
She came to her senses just in time. When he didn’t stop her, she curled her hand around his hip. Lifted the other to touch his face.
“I want you.” It felt like it took all of her breath, and it might as well have. The force of his kiss stole anything else she had left in her. He dropped down, rocking the hot, thick length of him through the valley of her thighs in an intimation of what he was going to do, so close but not quite there, torment for them both for an instant.
And then he was in motion. He rose up onto his knees and grabbed the condom, tearing it open and getting it rolled on before she could move to try to help. When he held himself over her again, she spread her legs and braced herself.
But all he did then was kiss her. Kiss her long and slow and wet, until she was dizzy with it, until all she knew was his mouth and his embrace and this gaping need inside of her, just waiting to be filled.
This desperate place in her heart, where he had already managed to fit himself, long before she’d invited him in.
When she slid her hand even lower to grasp the solid curve of his rear, he groaned and repositioned his hips. The blunt head of him nudged against her sex, but she didn’t tense. He’d promised he’d take care of her.
He looked into her eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.
The first breaching felt huge, but it didn’t hurt. Not even close. A long, gentle glide inside, and she closed her eyes at the fullness of it. The completeness when his hips met hers.
And then he did something no one else had ever done. He pressed his lips, soft and gentle and chaste to each cheek, even though he was inside her.
“You okay?”
She fluttered her eyes open to find him so close, mouth hovering just above hers. “Yeah.” Because she was. “More than.”