“Duende.” His brow wrinkles. “I like how that rolls off your tongue.”
“Duende.”I repeat the term of endearment.
He bends his knees, hips tilting just slightly to angle him open to me. A silent invitation accompanied by a sexy tip of his head. I lower my weight, slow, controlled, dominant but hopefully edged with tenderness. I want him to see, to feel that this time is different to the time I plundered him over the couch downstairs.
My chest brushes his, making us both suck in sharp breaths, as our bodies align. As amazing as doggy style can be, there’s something more intimately amazing with missionary. Chest-to-chest. Thighs-to-thighs. Mouths-to-mouths. And hands… everywhere.
He lets his palms caress my biceps, his fingers skim down the planes of my shoulder blades and back as my weight settles beneath his thighs. While he explores my skin with one hand and the other gets tangled in my hair, I pull one of my hands bracing either side of his head and cup his jaw, then I sweep my lips against his.
He grumbles while I reach for the bedside drawer to get a condom and lube, wriggling impatiently beneath me while I glove-up. He glowers at me like he’s two seconds away from doing it himself.
When we’re both ready, he shifts his hips a little. His knees bend and fall open, ankles hooking behind my thighs to pull me deeper to him. My chest heaves with effort, and we haven’t even done anything yet. The intensity pulses around us.
With one hand holding Xavier’s thigh, stabilizing my downward angle, my hips lower as I gain entrance to him. Sliding inside his tightness takes my breath away.
We pause for a pregnant moment, a heartbeat suspended between us. Just… breathing, watching each other, waiting, not daring to hope for more and yet my tense muscles plead for it.
My weight’s supported by my forearms as I drive inside him in a smooth, rolling motion. The slow, deliberate slide stealing every coherent thought I’ve ever had.
Not to be outdone, Xavier meets each thrust with a lift of his own hips as we work up to a filthy rhythm. What starts as languid, tentative strokes quickly burns into something hotter, something deeper, something more demanding.
Our foreheads brush as our heavy breaths are shared, neither of us daring to look away or close our eyes.
“Don’t stop. Artemis, please. Don’t… Don’t stop.” His words raw and breathless, whispered pleas against my lips as his thighs tighten around my waist.
I shift my weight so I can cradle his face with one of my hands, stroking his cheek with my thumb as I thrust so deep inside him, I can’t tell where one of us finishes and the other begins.
“Fuck.” It’s a guttural groan that’s dragged from somewhere inside him. His cock is trapped between us, every thrust stroking him, driving him to absolute wildness the way thrusting my dick into his ass is doing for me.
I’m too close, and refuse to come alone, so I wiggle my hand between us to help stroke him to climax. He opens up under me so fucking well as I claim him.
“Duende.”
His brows quirk in question.
“You take me so fucking well.” My voice breaks on the sentence. I grunt as I hurtle toward the edge. “It’s like you were made just for me.” The way he clenches around my length as I thrust is enough to tease stars at the edge of my vision.
I push deeper, his back bows, bringing his hips toward me.Another thrust tears a sound from both our throats as he detonates between us, his release painting our stomachs.
“More.” His strangled moan as his whole-body shudders is enough to drive me over the edge. The pleasure hits so hard my vision stutters. Our breath tangles as I empty myself into his ass, his name a gentle whisper against my lips.
Something inside my chest doesn’t crack, it rearranges, and I know without question that after tonight, things will never be the same again.
CHAPTER 31
Xavier
Iwake up slowly. Warm everywhere, heavy-limbed. Done in, in the best way. My legs ache. My hips ache. Even mythroataches, which is rude given Artemis’s mouth never touched it.
Okay, maybe it did. Once or twice. His hand a couple times, too. He has a thing for hand necklaces, and there’s a bruised fingerprint or three on my hip that throbs.
I stretch, and a low sound slips out of me because every muscle in my lower back is doing thehi, remember you got railed last night?thing. I should probably be embarrassed, but I am not.
I blink my eyes open and stare at the ceiling for a second. Soft morning light pours through the curtains. The air smells like clean sheets, and Artemis’s cologne—warm spice and citrus.
I breathe it in for just a beat too long. I fully admit to being pathetic. But he smells so freaking good, and he’s still right here, still in bed with me. He’s curled on his side, half the blanket kicked off, hair a disaster, and one hand splayed overmy stomach. His palm is hot, heavy, possessive even in sleep, like he’s subconsciously trying to stake a claim.
His breath skitters over my skin. It’s warm and gentle and even, just like the man who rocked my entire goddamn world a matter of hours ago. Repeatedly.
