“I’m memorizing.”
“Memorize faster.”
“No.”
I lower my head. The first press of my mouth against her slickness draws a sound from her throat that I will remember every time I close my eyes for the rest of my life. Her hips jerk, her hand flies to my hair, and her thighs close around my head like she’s trying to hold me there while simultaneously pushing me away.
I stay. I will always stay.
She tastes like salt and warmth and something I can only describe as mine. I take my time learning her. When my tongue teases her pulsing entrance, she gasps. When it slides deeply through her soft folds, she moans. When I seal my mouth over her clit and pull gently, she shatters.
Not quietly. Not carefully. Jenna Calloway, who has been careful her entire life, comes apart under my mouth with a cry that she doesn’t muffle, doesn’t apologize for, and doesn’t try to take back.
I work her through it, slowing when she shakes, pressing soft kisses against her inner thighs as the aftershocks roll through her. Her hand is still in my hair, her grip loosening, her breathing ragged.
“Oh,” she gasps. “Oh.”
I press one more kiss against her inner thigh, where the skin is softest, and climb back up her body. Her face is flushed, her glasses fogged at the edges, and her expression is the one I’ve been waiting for since the day I carried her from that ditch: a woman who has stopped calculating the risks and is simply, fully, here.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” She laughs, breathless and dazed. “That was?—”
“Step one.”
Her eyes are wide as she removes her glasses. “There are steps? You said there weren’t steps.”
“I lied.”
She pulls me down and kisses me. The low hum of surprise and desire she makes when she tastes herself on my mouth almost finishes me.
I shed the rest of my clothes. She watches, and I let her because she gave me her body without armor, and she deserves the same. Her gaze tracks down my chest and my stomach to my cock. Her lips part.
“You’ve been hiding that behind a toolbox?” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Nothing. Come here.”
I settle between her thighs. The skin-to-skin contact, with nothing between us, punches the breath from both of us. She’s slick and warm, and I’m so hard it hurts. Every cell in my body screams at me to move, to push, to take.
But I don’t move.
“This might hurt,” I say, hating the words even as I say them.
“I know.” She cradles my face, forcing me to look at her. “I trust you.”
Those three words feel more intimate than anything we’ve shared tonight.
I press forward slowly. So slowly that my arms shake with the effort of holding back. She’s tight. I feel the resistance and stop.
“Breathe, Jen.”
She breathes. Her body adjusts. I press deeper, inch by inch, watching her face for any sign of pain. There’s a flicker, a creasebetween her brows, a bitten lip. Then her expression smooths. Her mouth opens, and her eyes widen.
“Oh,” she whispers. “That’s...”
“Yeah.”
