Page 73 of Legacy Ascended

"Since you opened your mouth," I say. "I'm a simple man."

She laughs, and I ease her onto her back, one hand behind her shoulders the whole way down so nothing takes her weight but me, and then I take the hour.

I get her jeans off slowly. I put my mouth on the inside of her knee and work up, and when she tries to hurry me I lay my forearm across her hips and hold her down and she swears at me in a way that is frankly a compliment.

"Torres—"

"Mm-mm."

"You're doing this on purpose—"

"Obviously I'm doing it on purpose."

I stop for a second to look at her from down here, because I'm never getting this view anywhere else — flat on her back in my bed, chestnut hair spread out all over my pillow, her chest going like she's run somewhere, one hand already gripping the sheet.

She's already soaked through when I get there, and the sound I make against her is not a dignified one. I get an arm under her ass and settle in and take my time, and she's hot and slick under my tongue and getting wetter, and every time I find the right spot I feel her thighs jump either side of my head.

I come back up her body and she pulls me down and kisses me, messy, still shaking, still tasting herself on my mouth.

"You're pleased with yourself."

"I'm delighted with myself."

"Get up here—"

I push into her and she feels incredible.

God. She's tight and wet and so hot, and for a second I can't move at all, just hold there inside her with my forehead against her temple and breathe.

"Okay," I manage. "Okay, hold on—"

"Don't you dare hold on."

"Give me a second or this is going to be a very short story."

She laughs, and I feel it — I feel her laugh around me, the whole length of me, and that nearly finishes it right there.

She wraps a leg around me and I get an arm under her lower back and hold her exactly where I want her, and it's slow at first because I want it slow, because I want to look at her face while it happens.

So I look. Hair everywhere, stuck to her temple on one side. Her mouth open, that crease between her eyebrows she gets when something's good and she's concentrating on it. And her eyes — half shut, then not, then open on mine. Her face gives her away.

Every stroke is better than the last. She's gripping me all the way in and all the way out, and every time she tightens up I lose a piece of whatever brain cells I had left.

"You feel—" I have to stop. "Jess, you feel so good, I can't—"

“Tell me.”

So I tell her, with my mouth at her ear: how wet she is, how she grips me, what it does to me when she clenches like that, what I've been thinking about doing to her since a corridor at four in the afternoon. And every single thing I say makes her tighten around me.

Her hand comes up and cups my jaw. I turn my head and kiss the palm of it.

"I feel you," she says.

And that does something to me I wasn't ready for.

"Hey." Her hand moves on my face. "Hey. I'm here."

"I know."