When her hand wraps around my cock, my hips lift off the bed. Can't stop it. Won't try.
"There he is," she murmurs. Not mocking. Tender in a way that makes it worse. Her grip tightens, stroking slow, thumb dragging over the head, and the sound that comes out of me is not operational. Not controlled. Not anything I'd allow if I had a choice.
I don't have a choice. She took it. I gave it to her.
Her mouth follows her hand. Lips on my stomach, my hip bone, the trail of hair below my navel. When her tongue drags up the length of my cock I grab a fistful of the yellow bedspread and hold on.
"Kari —"
"Shh." Her mouth closes over me. Wet heat. The slow, devastating rhythm of her tongue working the underside while her hand grips the base. My head drops back. The ceiling fan clicks above me. My hand finds her hair — not directing, just needing to touch her while she takes me apart.
She's thorough. Of course she is. The woman who names her power tools and apologizes to pipes does nothing halfway. Her cheeks hollow around my cock, taking me deeper, and when she hums — a low vibration that I feel in my spine — I pull her off me.
"Stop."
She looks up. Lips swollen. Eyes dark. "Problem?"
"I'll come in your mouth, and that's not where I want to be."
The smile she gives me is slow, knowing, the kind of expression that rearranges a man's priorities. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Climbs back up my body.
I flip her. Fast — the one move I don't let her control. Her back hits the yellow bedspread and her breath comes out in a laugh that turns into a gasp when my mouth finds her breast. My hand slides down her stomach, past the waistband of her underwear, between her thighs.
Soaked. My fingers slide through her pussy, slick, swollen, and the knowledge that she's this wet — from touching me, from having my cock in her mouth — makes my chest tight in a way that has nothing to do with arousal.
Everything to do with it.
My thumb circles her clit while two fingers press inside her. She's tight around my knuckles. Hot. Her hips chase the rhythm I set, and I watch her face — not surveillance this time, just need. The need to see exactly what breaks her open.
"Liam." My name in a voice I've never heard her use. Stripped of humor. Stripped of defense. "More."
I give her more. Deeper. Faster. My thumb pressing harder on her clit, and her back arches, her hand gripping my forearm, her thighs shaking.
"Come for me." The words are out before I know I'm saying them.
She does. Her pussy clenches around my fingers, tight rhythmic pulses, and the sound she makes — my name again, broken into syllables that don't quite fit together — is the best thing I've ever heard. Better than all-clear. Better than the line going quiet after a threat is neutralized. This.
I am not cataloging exits. I am not scanning the room. For the first time since I walked into the Foxglove, I am not the operative. I'm the man.
Her hands find my face. Pull me up to her mouth. She kisses me while her body is still trembling, still coming down, tasting herself on my fingers when I trace her bottom lip.
"Now," she whispers. "I want you inside me."
I push into her. Slow. The stretch of her around my cock — tight, wet, impossibly warm — and my arms tremble with the effort of not driving in hard. Her legs wrap around my waist. Heels digging into the backs of my thighs, pulling me deeper.
"All of you," she says against my mouth. "I want all of you."
I give her all of me.
The rhythm builds — her hips meeting every thrust, my hand gripping the headboard for leverage. Not careful. Not controlled. The bed knocks against the wall. Her nails rake down my back, and the bright sting of it makes me groan against her throat.
"Harder." Not a request. A demand from a woman who renovates Victorian houses with her bare hands. A woman who doesn't ask for things she can take.
I drive into her harder. Deeper. Her pussy grips me with every stroke, and the wet sound of us — skin against skin, the slick heat between her thighs — fills the room alongside the ceiling fan's click.
Her hands find mine. Fingers laced against the bedspread — same as the first time, but different. The first time was discovery. This is decision.
"Look at me," she says.
