Page 11 of Working for Him

I kiss her slower than at the overlook, I take my time to savor her. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, and the small sound she makes against my mouth lights up nerve endings I'd forgotten existed.

"This stays slow," I say, forehead against hers. "We don't lose ourselves."

"You think we have a choice about that?"

"Yeah. Because this matters, Rena. You matter. I'm not going to treat it like it's just physical."

"Bedroom?" she asks, and the directness of it, claiming what she wants without apology, makes something primal stir in my chest.

I take her hand and lead her down the hall. The bed's made, which is a small mercy. She takes in the room, the quilt my grandmother made, and the battered paperback on the nightstand.

"Still feels like you," she says, with warmth in her voice now.

I back her slowly toward the bed, kneeling in front of her when the backs of her knees hit the mattress so we're at eye level. "You're in charge here. Anything that doesn't feel right, you tell me and it stops. No questions."

"You're very serious about consent."

"I'm very serious about you."

She reaches out, her fingers tracing my jaw, with a slight tremor betraying the nerves under the desire. "I want this. I want you. I'm just not used to someone asking what I want instead of assuming they know."

That does something ugly to me on her behalf, but right now isn't about anger. "Then let me show you what you've been missing."

I kiss her again, deeper now, my hands sliding up her thighs to her hips. She gasps against my mouth. I ease her back onto the bed, careful to keep my weight on my forearms, and trail my mouth down her throat until she's making small, desperate sounds. When my hands find the hem of her shirt and slide under to her touch bare skin for the first time, we both go still.

"Okay?" I ask against her throat.

"Yes. God, yes. Keep going."

She helps me pull her shirt over her head, then reaches for my buttons with fumbling fingers. "Let me," I say, catching her hands, and kissing her knuckles before releasing her.

I watch her watch me undress, her teeth catching her bottom lip. "You're allowed to touch."

"I know that."

"Then why aren't you?"

"Because I'm trying to remember how to breathe."

I unhook her bra with practiced ease, sliding the straps down her shoulders, and when I pull back to really look at her, my breath leaves me in a rush. She has real curves, real skin, and a small scar near her ribs that I want the story behind.

"Fell off a scaffold when I was twenty-three," she says, reading the question. "Twelve stitches and a healthy respect for harness protocols."

I press a kiss to the scar and feel her hands grip my shoulders. I take my time after that, in no hurry despite the want coiled tight low in my gut. I learn the way she shivers when my mouth moves along her collarbone, the way her breath catches when I close my lips around one nipple and suck it. I learn that she likes my hand flat and heavy against her stomach before it moves lower, she likes being anchored as much as she likes being touched. She arches into every point of contact, her fingers threading into my hair, and by the time I've worked my way down her body, she's not forming full sentences anymore, just my name and a string of please that undoes something in my chest every time she says it.

"These need to come off," I say at her waistband.

"Yes. Definitely yes."

When she's finally naked beneath me, I have to close my eyes for a second to get myself under control.

"You still with me?" There’s amusement in her voice now.

"Yeah. Just taking a minute to appreciate the view."

I slide my hand between her thighs, feeling the slick heat there, and watch her face as I explore. When I slide one finger inside her, slow and careful, what I see is pleasure, pure and unfiltered.

"More?"