I haven't been kissed before, not the kiss he gives me. His mouth comes down on mine and everything else goes out. His beard is rough where it meets my chin. His mouth is warm and open, tasting of coffee. His hand at the back of my neck doesn't move. The other slides from the small of my back down to my ass, takes hold, and pulls me hard against him.
He kisses me with patience first, then with the hunger I can feel he's been carrying for a week. He licks into my mouth and the heat of it goes straight between my legs. I'm wet inside my jeans on the second pass of his tongue. A moan slips into him.
When I catch his bottom lip with my teeth, light, he growls low in his throat and presses his mouth harder against mine.
He pulls back to look at me. His pupils are wide. His mouth is wet.
"Last chance, Callie. Are you sure."
"I'm sure."
"Bed."
He picks me up. His arms wrap me whole: the small of my back, the back of my head, the curve of my hip, every part of me he can reach. I wrap my legs around him. He carries me the few steps to his bedroom in the dark.
The door is open and the room dark, the bed made up neat in the middle of the wall.
He sets me down on the edge of it and stands between my knees, hands on either side of my face.
"I'm going to take care of you. You tell me if anything is wrong. Anything. You tell me to stop, I stop. Are we clear."
"Clear."
"Say it back."
"You tell me, I stop."
He shakes his head with a small almost-smile. "From your end, baby. I want to hear you say it from your end."
"I tell you, you stop."
"That's it. Good girl."
The two words go to a place I didn't know I had.
He undresses me slow. He pulls my shirt off over my head and his eyes go to my bra. He doesn't pretend not to look. Heunhooks it one-handed, slides it down my arms, and lingers on my breasts the second they're free. He looks at me hungry.
He cups them. He runs his thumbs across both nipples at once and a gasp catches in my throat.
"That's it," he says, low. "That's how you sound. I'm going to keep you making that sound all night."
He lowers his mouth to my left breast and sucks. The heat goes through me in a long wire from there to between my legs. He uses his teeth, careful. I arch into him and grab his hair with both hands. He growls against my skin, switches sides, and does the same to the right. By the time he comes up for air I'm shaking.
He unbuttons my jeans. He strips them and my underwear off in one motion, drops them off the side of the bed. Then he stands back and looks at me.
I'm naked on his bed with his eyes on every inch of me and I don't try to cover myself. He hasn't earned that hiding. I want him to see me.
"Fuck, Callie."
"Touch me."
"I will. Lie back."
I lie back. He puts a knee on the bed between mine, takes his shirt off over his head one-handed, and now I see the tattoos for real. Dark tribal lines covering his whole back, his left shoulder and arm. The muscle moves under them.
He is more beautiful than the picture I had of him in my mind.
I sit up and put both hands flat against his chest. The muscle is warm and hard under my palms. I run my hands down to his stomach, slow, feeling the give and the not-give. He doesn't move. He's letting me have him for a minute.
