Page 54 of Legacy Ascended

"Your friends are remarkable."

"They're a nightmare."

He cups my jaw and kisses me, one hand spread at my waist, and every plan I had about being clever goes out of my head.

We get as far as my room and the door shuts behind us and he's still kissing me.

"Is this comfortable?" he says, when my back meets the wall.

"Yes."

He adjusts anyway — turns us slightly so my left side isn't against anything, one hand sliding round to take my weight at the small of my back — and then he's on me again and I stop thinking.

I get his coat off and drop it. He eases my sweater over my head, careful with the left sleeve, and then just stops and looks at me for long enough that I nearly say something stupid.

"Ander."

"You're extremely distracting," he says, rough, "and I'd like a moment to be distracted."

"Take it."

He takes it. Then I've got my hands inside his shirt, and his breath catches and his hands tighten on me.

We end up on the bed. His mouth goes down my throat and along my collarbone and lower. When he finds something that makes me arch, he does it again, watching my face.

"You're doing that deliberately."

"Obviously."

His mouth returns to the spot beneath my breast that made me arch.

"Here?" he asks.

"You know it is."

"I want to hear you say it."

I tell him. His hand shakes against my thigh.

"You're shaking."

"I'm aware." His forehead comes down against my sternum. "I've been in a gun fight. That was easier."

I get a leg over his hip and pull him down, and the noise he makes goes straight through me.

"Come here." I put my hand flat on his chest. "Lie down with me for a bit."

He moves back up and lies beside me. The kisses grow slower, his hand resting at my waist.

After a while, he looks toward the ceiling. "That is going to affect my work."

"Good."

"It isn't good. I have a seminar tomorrow, and now I'm going to spend it thinking about this."

"Sounds like a you problem."

He finds my left hand and turns it over. His thumb continues tracing the arcs on my wrist, and he doesn't say anything about them.