Page 253 of ClickBack

I open her door. She gets halfway in and turns back to kiss me again. I have to brace a hand on the roof to keep from following her into the passenger seat.

“Home,” I remind her.

“I’m getting in.”

“Slow as hell.”

She laughs all the way into the seat. I close the door and take a moment beside the car with my hand on the roof. Then I go around to my side.

Graves falls in behind us as we leave. At the first light, she turns her hand beneath the passing headlights. I don’t tease her. I am looking, too.

At her house, the television has gone to its sleep screen. She leaves her bag in the kitchen and stands beneath the light, studying the ring. I put my arms around her from behind.

“I’m going to marry you,” she says.

“Yeah, you are.”

She turns in my arms. “You could sound a little less pleased about getting your way.”

“No.”

She laughs, and I kiss her. The kiss lasts until her fingers have found the hem of my shirt and I’m thinking about how far away the stairs are.

“We’re going upstairs,” I tell her.

“I thought you’d forgotten where they were.”

I let her go first, with my hand at her back. On the landing she looks over her shoulder and catches me looking exactly where I want to look.

“You’ve been engaged less than an hour.”

“Making the most of it.”

In the bedroom, she switches on the bedside lamp and turns toward me. I take her hand, kiss the inside of her wrist, and draw her close enough to feel her breathing.

“I want to look at you,” I say.

“You have been.”

“Not since you said yes.”

I walk her backward toward the bed with my hands at her waist and my mouth already on the curve of her neck. The wine-colored top comes off slow, while she works at the fastening on my jeans. My palms go flat against her stomach first, then higher, my thumbs grazing the undersides of her breasts through her bra until she catches my wrist and draws me closer.

“Take off your shirt.”

I pull it over my head, and she has her hands on me before it hits the floor, fingertips dragging down the middle of my chest and her nails scraping back up the same path hard enough that my whole body answers her. Her left hand comes to my jaw. The new ring grazes my cheekbone, cool where the rest of her is warm. Whatever sound I make has her smiling against my mouth.

“That is going to be a problem for you.”

“Every damn day.”

She lies back, drawing me with her. I get the bra off her and put my mouth where my thumbs were, closing my lips around one nipple, unhurried, until it draws up pebbled and tight and her back comes off the mattress. When I graze it with my teeth her hand lands on the back of my head to keep me right there.

“Don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

I take my time with her tits because they deserve it, then work down her stomach with my mouth, getting her jeans open on the way. She lifts her hips without being asked. I take everything with them, put my hands on the inside of her thighs and hold them open, because she likes the hold a lot more than she admits, and she is slick before I ever get my mouth on her. When I put my tongue to her clit, she curses and grips the sheet.