She met me with equal force, her hands gripping my shirt and yanking me closer as we stumbled out of the kitchen. Her back hit the hallway wall with a dull thud, and a gasp escaped her, which I promptly swallowed. I pinned her there, one hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back while my other hand went for the buttons of her shorts. They were small, difficult, a maddening delay.
A frustrated growl rumbled in my chest.
“Let me,” she breathed, her fingers a blur as she unfastened them.
While she shoved her shorts and panties down, I went for my own. We were a clumsy, desperate mess of limbsand raw need, kicking away clothes until they formed a pile of denim and cotton on the hardwood floor.
My hands slid from her bare waist to her T-shirt. I hooked my fingers in the collar, intending to pull it over her head, but it wasn’t fast enough. The fabric was a barrier, and I was done with barriers. I ripped it apart, and the sound of tearing cotton was shockingly loud. Her eyes flew open, wide and dark.
“God, Braden,” she gasped, the sound a perfect mixture of shock and arousal.
That look broke the last thread of my restraint. Her hands were on me then, hot and sure, wrapping around my shaft in a grip that sent a jolt through every nerve in my body.
“Tessa,” I groaned, throwing my head back against the wall as she stroked me once in a slow, deliberate motion that was exquisite torture.
“Yes,” she whispered, her mouth finding the pulse point on my neck. “God, I want you.”
That was it. I hooked an arm under her knees and lifted her, her legs automatically wrapping around my waist. She was gloriously, completely naked against me. I could feel the heat of her core pressed against my stomach. Her breasts were crushed against my chest, the nipples hard little points of friction.
I half-walked, half-stumbled the last few feet to my bedroom door, never breaking the seal of our mouths. I shouldered the door open, the momentum carrying us inside. The afternoon sun cut through the blinds in sharp slats, striping the bed, the floor, and our bodies.
I didn’t place her on the bed. I fell with her. We landed in the center of the mattress in a tangle of limbs, a chaotic collision of skin and heat and desperation. She ended up on her back and pulled me down on top of her, her nailsdigging into my shoulders, her hips arching up, seeking mine.
Her breath was a ragged wrenching. “Braden.”
My name on her lips wasn’t a word. An invitation. A plea. And I was more than ready to answer.
My mouth left hers, trailing a line of fire down her jaw, over her throat, to the valley between her breasts. I took one hard peak into my mouth, sucking hard. She cried out, her back arching off the mattress. While my mouth worked her over, my hand slid down her firm stomach and found the hard pearl between her legs.
I pressed down, circling with my thumb, and her hips jerked, a broken moan tumbling from her lips.
“Jesus, yes.”
Her hand found me, closing around my length. She wasn’t gentle. Her grip was tight, demanding, her strokes matching the frantic rhythm of my fingers against her. It was a feedback loop of pure sensation. I studied her every reaction to what I was doing to her. She was unraveling, and her coming apart was driving me wild. My thumb never left her, and her hand on me became a desperate, greedy fist.
The friction built too fast, a firestorm threatening to consume us both. Her eyes snapped open, locking with mine. They were wild, dark with need.
“I can’t wait,” she gasped, her knuckles white where she was gripping me. “I need you inside me.”
I pulled away from her, the loss of contact a physical pain. I rolled off the bed and fumbled in the drawer of my nightstand. My fingers finally closed around a foil packet, and I ripped it open.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her dark-red hair spilling across my pillowcase. The sight of her in my bed,waiting for me, stirred something primal and possessive within me.
I rolled on the condom and moved over her, but before I could settle between her legs, she shifted. In one fluid motion, she twisted, rolling me onto my back and straddling my hips. She took me in her hand, guiding me to her entrance. Then she sank down, taking all of me inside her in one slow, deliberate slide that made us both hiss in a sharp breath.
We both went still for a heartbeat, adjusting to the overwhelming feeling of being joined. Then she began to move.
She rode me with fierce intensity, her head thrown back, her hands braced on my chest. I could only watch as she took control, setting a pace that was both agonizingly pleasurable and utterly unsustainable. I gripped her hips, my thumbs pressing into the soft flesh, trying to anchor myself as she drove us both toward the edge.
It was too much.
With a growl, I flipped us over, reversing our positions without breaking contact. She landed softly on the mattress, a surprised gasp escaping her as I surged up, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, deeper this time.
Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer as we collided. It was a desperate rhythm aimed at a single purpose. I held her gaze as the first tremors of her climax began.
“Tessa,” I demanded, my voice a rough command. “Stay with me.”
“Braden,” she cried out, and that was it.
