She laughs, and the sound in this small room with the storm outside is the warmest thing I've ever heard. I roll her onto her back and pin her beneath me and she gasps, her hands flying to my shoulders.
"I have a question," she says, her eyes bright with challenge. "As a journalist."
"I already gave you your three questions."
"This is a new day. New allocation."
I lower my mouth to her collarbone. "Ask."
"Is this something you do? With women who visit the school?"
I lift my head. Look her dead in the eyes. "No one has been in this bed. No one has been in this room. No woman has been on this mountain in the three years since I built it. You're the first person I've touched since a one-night stand in Anchorage that I barely remember and didn't enjoy."
Her lips part. Something vulnerable and astonished moves through her expression.
"I don't do this, Shelby." My voice is low and rough with a truth I need her to hear. "I don't let people in. I don't tell them about Tyler. I don't cook them dinner and hold their hand by the fire. You walked onto my mountain two days ago and dismantledevery defense I have, and I don't know whether to be furious about that or grateful, but I know one thing with absolute certainty."
"What?"
"You're mine. Whatever this is, wherever it goes, you're mine. And I don't share."
Her breath catches. Her pupils dilate until the blue is just a ring. She hooks her leg around my hip and pulls me down and her mouth finds mine and this kiss is different from last night. Last night was ignition, all heat and urgency and the desperate need to cross the distance between want and have.
This is something deeper. Slower. She kisses me like she's memorizing the shape of my mouth, and I kiss her back like I'm writing promises into her skin.
I take my time. I start at her mouth and work down, kissing her jaw, her throat, the hollow between her collarbones where her pulse flutters fast. Her breasts are full and soft and responsive, and when I take her left nipple into my mouth and suck gently, her back lifts off the mattress.
"Cory." My name in her mouth is a drug I didn't know I was addicted to.
I move to the other breast. Give it the same attention. My hand slides down her body, learning the geography of her. The dip of her waist. The swell of her hip. The softness of her inner thigh.
She opens for me without hesitation, her knees falling apart, and the trust in that gesture levels me. This woman who runs from everything is lying open and bare beneath me, giving me access to the most vulnerable parts of her body and her heart, and she's not flinching.
I kiss down her stomach. Past her navel. Along the crease of her hip where the skin is impossibly soft. She realizes where I'm heading and her hand finds my hair.
"You don't have to..."
"I know I don't have to." I look up at her from between her thighs. "I want to. I've been thinking about this since you sat across from me at dinner last night and licked gravy off your thumb."
Her cheeks flush and I can't tell if it's arousal or embarrassment and I love both options equally.
I lower my mouth to her pussy and she makes a sound that I will replay in my head for the rest of my natural life. A broken, startled moan that dissolves into a whimper as my tongue finds her clit.
She's wet. Swollen. Already sensitive from last night and exquisitely responsive to every stroke. I flatten my tongue and drag it from her entrance to her clit in one slow pass and her hips buck off the bed.
I pin her down with one arm across her lower stomach and settle in. This is the one area of my life where patience isn't a discipline. It's a pleasure. I eat her like she's the best meal I've ever tasted, because she is, and I vary the pressure and rhythm and technique until I've cataloged every response. Circles make her moan. Direct suction makes her scream. A slow, steady pulse with the tip of my tongue while two fingers curl inside her makes her grip the headboard and call me names that would shock her editor.
"Fuck, Cory, right there, don't stop, please don't stop."
I don't stop. I lock in on exactly that rhythm and that pressure and I give her what she needs with the same focus I give to every critical task. Her thighs clamp around my head. Her body arches. And she comes with a cry that echoes off the timber walls, her pussy clenching around my fingers in pulses I can feel all the way through my chest.
I don't wait for her to recover. I kiss my way back up her body, reaching for the nightstand where I left the condoms last night, and she grabs my wrist.
"Wait." She pushes me onto my back with a strength that surprises me. Straddles my hips. Looks down at me with her hair falling around her face and her eyes still hazy from the orgasm and her swollen lips curved in a smile that's pure intention.
"My turn," she says.
She wraps her hand around my cock and strokes, and the pressure is firm and sure and perfect. She knows what she's doing. She reads my body the way she reads a landscape, with attention and respect and the intuition of someone who pays attention to what matters.
