His hand slides up my spine to undo my bra clasp, while he presses a kiss to the center of my chest. My stupid heart presses right back.
“I could have prepared for a natural disaster, Gracie,” he murmurs, slipping one strap off my shoulder, then the other. “There was no preparing for you.”
He leans back enough for the bra to fall from my naked chest, and my stomach swoops. His words plant feelings that don’t belong within a ten-mile radius of a casual hookup, but I’m too slow to stop them from taking root.
“Tell me,” I whisper. “Tell me what else you’ve thought about.”
But he’s staring at my bare breasts, and I know he didn’t hear me. His large hands are on my waist again, tugging me forward.
“Jude—” I say, catching myself on the cotton stretched over his thick shoulders. He told me he swims, and I feel it in the shift of heavy muscle beneath my palms. A lock of his dark hair has fallen forward, making a swoopingCover his tense brows. I’m about to touch it when his mouth brushes over my nipple. Once, then twice before sucking me deep. He groans into me, and my breath lodges in my throat, forgetting whether it should be coming or going. All my thoughts are reduced to sensory flashes. His tongue, teasing. My toes, curling. Fingers digging. Back arching.
“Jesus,” he says under his breath as he releases me, sliding his mouth to the underside of the same breast, wet and urgent. The hand that isn’t twisted in the side of my panties comes up to squeeze my other breast, and my hips spasm.
“You want to know what else I’ve thought about?” he asks, moving across my chest with hungry, sucking kisses.
Apparently, hedidregister my request—apparently, he registers every little thing about me, including the way I’m up on my toes when he gets a little rougher with me. I nod fretfully, so turned on I think I could lose it like this. “Yes.”
But he still doesn’t answer me. His teeth close around me, his tongue soothing the sting, and I gasp, the edges of an orgasm already fluttering just out of reach. His grip tightens on me. “So sensitive, aren’t you?” he says with wonder in his voice. Like he can’t believe how badly I’ve needed this. How badly I’ve neededhim. “So fucking perfect.”
“Jude,” I say, my neck going limp when his fingers dip just below the waistline of my panties.
“I know, baby,” he soothes, laying a kiss to my rapid pulse. Butthat sweet endearment in his deep voice only makes the ache worse. “Will you turn around for me?”
My limbs feel too loose, like I might collapse if I move too quickly, but I nod—too needy to be self-conscious anymore. Jude’s hands are on my hips, turning me, and I hear his ragged exhale at whatever he sees.
“Oh, my fucking…fuck,” he says unevenly. Heat blooms low in my belly, and the friction of my own thighs isn’t nearly enough. I want his hands on me—in me—but when they finally land, they’re not where I expect. Instead, he’s tightening my loosened ponytail and fussing with the ribbon, muttering something aboutlittle goddamn bows, and I realize this is part of it for him. Undressing me, arranging my hair just the way he wants it until I feel so precious I need him to break me.
“Gracie,” he says, my name raw as a scrape as his hands glide down my back. He tugs my panties so they ride higher over my ass. Tighter between my thighs. His thumbs glide along the bottom edges of the elastic, and I can’t stop arching into his touch. “Fuck, I need you to bend over. Just—” He huffs a breath. “Would you be a good girl and do that for me?”
His words send a spike of need through me, even as I startle at the request—I’ve never done anything so vulnerable. Never. But I’ve also never felt so safe or so wanted. Without any more hesitation, I drop my hands to the gilded coffee table in front of me. Tonight, more than anything, I want to let go of my fixation on the future and give free rein to what feels goodnow. And what feels good now is letting him seeexactlywhat he does to me.
“God, just look at you,” he rasps. I whimper, rubbing my legs together in a futile attempt to ease the ache, but his hands find my ankles instead of where I need them most.
“Do you have any goddamn clue what these do to me?” he asks, brushing the delicate lines of ink I have, and whoknewankles were so fucking sensitive?
“I-I forget they’re even there sometimes,” I say, looking down to see his big hands wrap completely around each ankle. He squeezes. My vision blurs.
His laugh sounds painful. “Lucky you. They may as well be tattooed on my fucking brain.”
I flush with pleasure all over again as he unknowingly flicks the tiny thorn of shame and regret I’ve carried over them into outer space. But then he’s gently tugging my ankles apart, and I forget to tell him how much I like his ink, too.
“This all right?” he asks, rough and quiet.
If by “all right” he means life-destroying, then sure. Yes. I take two wobbly steps wider. At this point, if he doesn’t touch me, it’s a very reasonable concern that I might cry.
Thankfully, he seems to know it, and his hands start sliding up the backs of my legs. He stops just beneath the curve of my ass, and my thighs begin to shake. He makes a soft, sympathetic sound. “I’m going to take care of you now, okay?”
My breath is just as erratic as my nod. “Please.”
He groans as his hands slide up my cheeks. Squeezing. Parting. The hot press of his mouth lands on the edge of my panties. There’s a muffledfuck. A scrape of bottom teeth, a bite, and then his large thumb, straight down the molten center of me. I gasp at the touch, everything clenching, but his hands only grip my ass harder, spreading me.
“This,” he rasps, pressing his mouth to the soaked fabric. He sucks it away from my skin before releasing it with a wet snap. “This is what I think about, Gracie. All the fucking time.”
I’m on the verge of tears, knuckles white, needing more. “What else?” I beg. Because it’s not enough that his fingers are yanking my panties down with muttered profanities. Not enough when his tongue licks into me, or how he grunts at the taste. I need to be inside his mind, too—to grab hold of that linking thread between us before I completely—
But then his thumb slides beneath his working mouth, circles my clit once, and I’m coming. It’s fast, shallow, and so unexpected that I can’t make a single sound from my open mouth. I’m up on my toes, every muscle in me spasming like they’ve been slapped, and Jude is groaning into my pussy, pulling at my hip to get deeper.
I lose myself to the white-hot feeling of it—the wet, filthy noises he’s making, and the slick pad of his thumb, rubbing me just this side of too hard. A cry tears from my throat at last, and I can’t hold myself up anymore. My knees knock together, and I’m collapsing, until Jude pulls me backward, into his lap.
