Page 37 of Hex Appeal

The nervousness doesn’t disappear all at once. It melts.

His mouth moves over mine without any of the urgency we had downstairs. He kisses me like we have nowhere else to be. Like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing.

His hands move over my body, and there’s no hesitation in them.

No pause over the places I might have worried about once. No sense that he’s comparing the woman beneath his hands to some imaginary ideal.

He touches me like I’m a goddess. And he can’t stop worshipping me.

And when he pulls back to look at me, the heat in his eyes makes my breath catch.

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

One word. That’s all it takes. I feel like a queen. I kiss him again.

This time, I’m the one who reaches for him. Whatever uncertainty I carried upstairs gets lost somewhere between his mouth and mine.

Clothes disappear. We tumble onto my bed. And for once, I don’t think.

I feel.

His weight over me. The scrape of his stubble against my skin. The warmth of his hands. The softness of his mouth when everything else about him seems so big and solid and strong.

I run my palms over his shoulders, finally getting to touch the body I’ve been trying very hard not to stare at since he walked into my shop.

My fingers trace the tattoo on his arm He catches my hand and kisses my palm.

It’s such a small thing. It nearly undoes me.

“Welles.”

His eyes meet mine. There’s a question in them. I answer by pulling him back down to me.

After that, the world narrows. To him. To me.

To what little space is left between us.

And somewhere beneath it all is the candle.

The one we made together. Before coming upstairs, I’d grabbed and lit another from the same scent profile as the one we made. Now its fragrance fills my bedroom.

Absinthe. Dark cherry wood. Amber. Black honey. Vanilla. Clove.

I’ve smelled the blend dozens of times while developing it. It has never smelled like this.

Tonight, everything seems heightened. The sweetness of honey in the air. The warmth of clove. The dark richness of cherry wood.

The scent mixes with Welles. With us as he finally enters me, claiming my body just as savagely as he’s stolen my heart.

And I know with absolute certainty that I’ll never smell this candle again without remembering tonight.

His mouth finds mine. His hips set a pace. Mine lift to join him. Time becomes meaningless.

There are moments of urgency and moments when he slows everything down until I want to scream at him to hurry.

And when my body comes apart in the final burst of pleasure, I don’t hold back. I cry out his name, triggering his own release.

I’m tucked against his side beneath the blankets, my head resting on his chest.