That’s the only signal he needs. His hands move to my waist, and in one fluid motion he pulls me into his lap. I make a small sound of surprise when he lifts me, but when he settles me overhim, warmth rushes up my neck and spreads across my cheeks, and I just know I have the most ridiculous smile plastered on my face.
“So do we have a deal?” he asks, much too close to my mouth, and at this point I’ve nearly forgotten what we were negotiating.
I just nod, and, fully aware of my reaction to how close he is, he smiles. I swear that if this man smiled more often, the entire female population of the campus would lose half their gray matter on the spot.
His lips play slowly with mine, kissing, biting gently, pressing softly.
My fingers move to his face, and tired of the teasing, I lean in and kiss him properly, sending every remaining thought flying instantly out of my head.
Without realizing it, I start moving in his lap, a slow, restless shift of my hips until I feel something firm and unmistakable pressing against me. I go still the moment I understand what that something is, my breath catching in my throat.
The old Amalia is screaming at me to pull back, to be sensible, to remember all the reasons this is complicated. But with his breath warm against my lips and his hands steady at my waist, her voice is nothing but static. There’s an ache building low in my belly, deep and insistent, and before I can think it through, my hips roll into him again, chasing the friction, chasing him.
I hear him mutter a low, roughfuckagainst my jaw, the word more prayer than curse, and then his lips are dragging down the side of my neck, methodically, like he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it. His hands tighten at my waist, fingers pressing into the fabric of my clothes as if he’s trying to keep himself anchored.
I’m lost in it. Lost in him. The only things that exist are the warmth of his mouth against my skin, the pressure of his hands,and the way my body has stopped asking my permission for anything.
I close my eyes and let the rhythm build, hating that it still isn’t enough, when his hands dig deeper into my hips, grounding me even as he says, “Amalia, baby, I’m gonna need you to stop.”
I hear him. The words register somewhere in the back of my mind. But my body has already decided it doesn’t care.
He smells like something clean and faintly minty, and even though he asked me to stop, his lips never leave my skin. If anything, they grow more impatient, moving like he’s determined to cover every inch he hasn’t touched yet. The pressure in my core keeps building, tightening, coiling into something I can’t ignore, and somehow, through the haze, I open my eyes and remember where I am.
I go still.
Ay Diosito Santo! What is wrong with me?He told me to stop. He said stop and I just?—
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was—” I start, my voice already unraveling, when his face lifts from my neck. There’s an expression settled over his features that I can’t quite name, something dark and tightly controlled, and for a breathless second I think I’ve ruined everything.
“Keep going, Amalia.” His voice comes out rough, scraped raw, and the sound of it sends a shiver rolling down my spine.
“But you said?—”
“Fuck what I said.”
And then his mouth is on me again, his tongue tasting me slowly, like he’s made peace with the fact that he will never get enough.
His lips on me are the only thing I need to silence every blaring alarm telling me to stop. He’s hard beneath me, and when his fingers travel underneath my blouse and find my hips, touching bare skin directly, I could cry for how good it feels.
“Never knew torture could feel like this,” he says, and there’s something like reverence in his tone. “What do you need to come, baby?”
My heart does this stupid little stumble at the wordbabyfrom his lips, but I’m so consumed by need that I answer in a slightly breathless whine, “More.”
I feel his lips curve into a smile against my skin, and then he takes control. His hands guide my hips, setting a rhythm that’s slow at first, unhurried, like he has a point to prove. I follow his lead, and the pressure builds in steady, rolling waves, each one cresting a little higher than the last. My fingers curl into his shoulders and I hear myself make a sound I don’t recognize, something small and desperate, and he answers it by pulling me closer, deeper into him, until there’s no space left between us.
And then something snaps loose inside me.
I open my eyes just to see him, this man who makes my entire being catch fire with a single touch. There’s a frown carved into his face, his lips slightly parted, his jaw tight like he’s holding himself together by a thread. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t falter, not until the last wave has ebbed and I’ve found my way back to earth.
After a moment his forehead drops to mine and we stay like that, breathing the same air, saying nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, suddenly shy. “I swear I don’t go around harassing men, and I do understand the meaning of the word stop. I actually think it’s incredibly important to understand each other’s boundaries. It’s just that I look at your hands and, God, why…no, how on earth did you end up with those hands, those veiny, ridiculous?—”
He chuckles and kisses me senseless.
I melt.
“Have a little obsession with my hands, Miss Sanchez?” he asks between gentle bites at my lips.
