“You awake?” he murmured, voice low and still rough with sleep.
“Yeah.” My voice came out small, but not afraid.
He pulled me closer, so my spine pressed to his chest, his thigh hitching up between mine. I felt the heat of him, the slow, contented pulse of him nestled against the curve of my ass.
The memory of his mouth on me made the room spin a little.
He nuzzled my neck, breathing in deep, his nose in my hair. “You smell like me,” he said, and I could hear the pride in it.
“I know,” I said, but the words came out soft, almost fond.
He made a sound, somewhere between a groan and a laugh, and his fingers drifted lower, skirting the edge of my hip.
For a moment, I thought maybe last night had been a fluke, a fever dream, that he’d pull away and say nothing more about it.
But instead, he dragged his palm slowly over the curve of my belly, until it rested just above the triangle of my thighs.
“Amelia,” he said, and there was a plea in it, almost a tremble, a note of fear that I’d choose to vanish from this moment. His other arm tightened, pinning me more firmly, as if to warn the future against coming to drag us back into ourselves.
I turned in his arms and studied his face. Creased with sleep, lashes stuck together, a faint red line pressed into his cheek from the pillow. His hair was a wild black-brown halo, sticking up in a way that would have horrified him in daylight.
He didn’t look like a monster or an enemy or even a man who’d spent years perfecting the art of self-destruction. He looked impossibly young, softer than I ever remembered. I felt my heart try to crawl up my throat.
“Say it again,” I whispered.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, fingers trembling. “You smell like me.”
I bit my lip, trying to hold back the laugh that threatened to shatter the quiet. “And what do you smell like?”
He didn’t break eye contact, not for a second. “You,” he said. Then, “Everywhere.”
My skin prickled, all over, as if a cold wind had swept through the room. I burrowed deeper into him, needing to feel the press of skin on skin.
He obliged, rolling onto his back and pulling me on top of him, his hands sliding down to grip my thighs, dragging me up until I was straddling his hips.
We stayed like that for a minute, breathing each other in. I felt the slow, insistent hardening of his cock beneath me, and it was almost funny how little time it took for the ache to return.
He didn’t say anything; he just cupped my ass in both hands and held me there, as if the solution to every problem lay in bodies, in skin, in the slow collision of our need.
I bent forward, bracing my hands on either side of his head, and kissed him, soft at first, then harder, until his mouth opened to mine and I could taste myself on his tongue.
He groaned into the kiss, teeth grazing my bottom lip, then broke away to bury his face in my chest.
His mouth was a goddamn sin against my skin. Hot, wet, and relentless.
I arched into him, desperate for more, grinding my hips against his with a deliberate, filthy rhythm that made him gasp like a man on the edge of death.
His hands gripped my hips like he wanted to crush me, to own every inch of me, and I loved it.
The blanket slid away, exposing my back to the cold air, but his body was a furnace, all hard muscle and burning desire.
He rolled us, pinning me beneath him, and I could feel the sheet fall away, leaving me exposed and shivering, but fuck,the way he looked at me, eyes dark with hunger, made me burn hotter than any flame.
“Fuck,” he said in that hot and husky way, his tongue trailing over my nipple, leaving it hard and aching. “I could do this every day. All day.”
He paused, those eyes locking onto mine, and I swear I felt my pulse stutter. “You’re insatiable,” he accused, but there was no way to miss the admiration in his voice, the way it wrapped around me like a promise.
“So are you,” I shot back, but the words melted into a moan as his mouth moved lower, leaving a wet, torturous trail down my stomach.
