Chapter thirty-five
My apartment was warm with late afternoon golden light slanted through the kitchen window, catching on the espresso cups I’d left out from that morning. I made a mental note to deal with them tomorrow. Then Ellis was shoving me back against the refrigerator and none of the practical thoughts mattered anymore.
His hands fisted in my hair. His mouth was desperate and still inexperienced in the way that made my chest ache, because it was three weeks later and his body remembered mine but not enough, not enough. I kissed him back, trying to apologize for the silence. Like my mouth could say what every witty text message had failed to.
“I missed you,” he breathed against my jaw. “I missed you. I missed you.”
“I know, baby. Come here.”
His knee pushed between mine. He was already hard against my thigh. My hands dropped to his waist, under the hem of his shirt, flat against the warm skin of his back. The magnet for the grocery list clattered to the floor.
“Bedroom,” he managed.
“Yeah.”
We didn’t quite make it in a straight line. His jacket came off in the hall. My shirt ended up draped over the back of the couch. By the time his knees hit the edge of the mattress, his fingers were shaking so badly he couldn’t get my belt open, and I covered his hand with mine and did it for him.
The bedroom was dark except for the streetlight through the blinds, silver striping everything. I pushed him gently back onto the bed and followed him down. He pulled me flat against him, skin to skin, his mouth on my throat, and a sound tore out of me I didn’t know I’d been holding.
I put my palm over his heart. He put his hand over mine.
“Slow,” I urged. “Slow this time.”
“Yeah.” He pushed me gently back against the pillow. “My turn first.”
“Your turn?”
“You don’t get to do all the giving tonight. I missed you, too.”
He kissed his way down my chest. Lingered at the Libre tattoo, his mouth pressing to her handwriting like he was apologizing to my mom for leaving when he’d said he wouldn’t, even though she’d never know. His tongue traced the letters. My breath caught at how specifically he was being.
He kept going. Stomach. Hip. The soft place on the inside of my thigh.
I knew before he said anything where he was going.
“Ellis.”
“Let me. Please.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” He looked up at me. His eyes were dark and certain in a way he’d been carrying for three weeks. “I want to. I’ve been wanting to. Three weeks of missing you taught me how much.”
That hit something I wasn’t braced for.
“Yeah.” My voice barely there. “Okay.”
He shifted me fully onto my back. Drew my knees up. Looked at me once for permission, and when I gave it with the smallest nod, he lowered his mouth to me.
The first touch of his tongue made my hips jerk off the bed. Not gentle, not tentative. Direct, the way he did everything when he finally committed to a thing. His hands held my thighs open. His mouth worked me with a focus that was so specifically Ellis, like he was learning a system from the inside out.
“Oh.”
“Tell me how.”
“How?”
“How you want it. Tell me. I want to know.”
