When he didn’t say more, she opened her eyes and met his. A descriptive sweep of his hand sufficed to clarify his question. He was asking whether she wanted him to dry the last wet parts of her, the trinity her high school friends had once referred to aspits, tits, and naughty bits.
Over the course of the last twenty-four hours, she’d begun to want those strong, capable hands on her bare skin, however she could get them there. All over her. Gripping. Guiding. Teasing. Stroking.
Drying was fine too. Drying wasgreat.
But before she answered honestly, she needed to check with him. “Would that b-be okay for you? Would you mind?”
He actually laughed. It was silent, but the shaking of his shoulders was unmistakable, and mingled humor and heat had turned his eyes incandescent.
“No, sweet Edie,” he murmured, his tone a caress. “I won’t mind.”
She raised her arms. Still kneeling, he dabbed away the moisture underneath. Then, with a roll of her shoulders, she shrugged the fabric draped over those shoulders down to her elbows.
Her breasts were bare to his sight now. Not especially large—most of her softness had settled in her belly and thighs over the years—but round and damp and crowned with chill-stiffened rosy-brown nipples. With a tap under his chin, she brought his eyes back to hers. Holding his stare, she reached down, grasped his hands, and placed them exactly where he’d been looking.
Slowly, deliberately, he cradled her breasts in his fabric-covered palms, his careful thumbs swirling the jacquard under and over the pale swells of flesh, then around her sensitive areolae. Beneath his touch, even through the cotton barrier, her skin bloomed with heat. Her goose bumps vanished as she arched her back slightly, placing herself more fully in his hands.
“Yes,” she said softly. “More.”
When his thumbs swept the smooth fabric over her nipples, her breath caught.
He smiled. “Such pretty breasts.”
The words dragged over her skin like that soft, sweeping cloth, and she shifted her weight as the glow of warmth spread outward and kindled between her legs. Abandoning her breasts, his palms smoothed the cotton down over her generous belly, inch by inch, and blotted beneath.
She held her breath, waiting for him to move lower. Impatientfor him to ease the growing ache there. Instead, he teased the backs of her thighs with fleeting little whisks of cloth and rested his cheek against her stomach. The prickle of his stubble made her shiver, but not from cold.
His nose nuzzled into her navel. She curved her palm over the back of his head, pressing him tighter to her. “Max?”
“Show me.” The words were a quiet rumble, his breath a tickle of air over her belly. “If you want me, open up those thighs, Edie. Let me in.”
Her grasp slid to the back of his neck and tugged him upward. “Kiss me first.”
He didn’t argue. He simply stood in one smooth movement, freeing a hand from the tablecloth to slide into the damp hair at her nape, while the other took firm, possessive hold of her hip. Eyes fierce and hot, he held himself still. Waited for her to come to him, just as he had the last time they’d kissed.
When she urged his head down, he didn’t hesitate. He covered her mouth with his, rubbing his lips unhurriedly over her own. Sipping at her with careful, purposeful gentleness, his fingers closing tight in her hair. She opened to the leisurely slide of his tongue, and he slanted his head, gathered her closer, and licked into her with a low, pleased hum.
His mouth was cool and delicious, his incisors sharp, his kiss increasingly hungry. When he sucked the tip of her tongue, he had to swallow her faint moan.
“Sweet Edie.” His lips wandered to the corner of her mouth, dragged over her cheek, and tasted the downy skin of her earlobe. “Can you stay quiet?”
She nodded, neither knowing nor caring whether she’d just answered truthfully.
“Good.”
Using his grip on her hair, he slowly, painlessly tipped her head back and to the side, exposing her throat. Her jugular. He painted both with his tongue, sucking hard over her pulse, and she trembled and stroked her palms down his leather-covered back. Molded them to the swell of his ass in those dark, soaked jeans and squeezed hard, until he hissed.
He lightly bit the curve of her shoulder. Not with enough force to break her skin, but, oh, she wouldn’t have minded. She’d have gladly offered him her blood as long as he kept setting her alight from the inside out, kept dizzying her with pleasure and need.
Gods and goddesses above, he was dangerous, but not for the reasons she’d once feared. He wouldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t force her into anything she wasn’t willing to do. No, the threat was that she’dwantto give him everything, and he’d make the taking of it pure pleasure.
His grasp on her hip disappeared, and his fist in her hair urged her head upright and her eyes to his. Holding her stare, he slid his fabric-covered hand between her legs and cupped her firmly. Held her in his palm and pressed into her until her mouth fell open on a silent gasp.
“Now that you’re dry,” he murmured, “let’s make you slick again, my Edie.”
His hand, broad and strong and steady,rolled, and she trembled under his touch, under his gaze. The sensation peaked and ebbed as the heel of that talented hand applied pressure in just the right spot, then eased away, only to return a moment later.
The rhythm was maddening, a taste of pleasure from a lover confident in his ability to provide it. His masterful hold fed herache and never quite satisfied it, and she couldn’t believe how close to orgasm she’d been driven when they weren’t even skin-to-skin.
