Page 168

“Locke.”

I kiss him because I need somewhere to put the sound building in my throat. His mouth opens under mine, and then his grip shifts. My back leaves the wall so suddenly that my stomach drops, and I tighten my arms around his neck while he turns us. A second later his shoulders meet the wall, and I’m still wrapped around him, still full, still securely in his arms.

I pull back enough to stare at him.

“Your back,” he says.

It takes me a second.

Then I understand. He moved me because he worried I was uncomfortable. While holding me. While inside me.

Even now, with him buried inside me, the care in that small gesture gets to me. I kiss him again, and the words are against his mouth before I decide to say them.

“I love you.”

It isn’t the first time today. It hits harder anyway. The rhythm in his chest kicks against my breasts, and he barely lifts his mouth from mine to say it back.

“I love you.”

Locke lifts me, and the new angle takes him deeper. The ridges drag over a place that makes a gasp catch in my throat.

He repeats it.

“Oh, fuck, Locke.”

A deep vibration rolls through his chest against mine. I laugh once, breathless, and the next stroke turns it into a gasp.

With his back braced against the wall, he has even more leverage. Every time he lifts me, my body slides nearly off him, and every time he lowers me again, he fills me all the way to the place that makes my thighs tighten around his waist.

For several strokes, it’s enough. Then I start missing the friction against my clit. I shift, trying to find it.

Locke slows immediately. I loosen one arm from around his neck and reach between us. He watches my hand.

My fingertips find my clit, already so sensitive that the first circle makes me clamp tighter around him.

Locke’s next thrust falters. When I look at him, his gaze is fixed on my hand.

“You really like watching me.”

“I like seeing your hand there while I’m inside you.”

I keep circling. A deep vibration ripples through his chest, down through his body, and into the part of him buried inside me. My fingers pause.

I feel it deep inside me, a trembling pressure layered over the pleasure I’m already giving myself. Locke adjusts his hold and eases me a few inches away from his chest without letting me slip.

Then I realize why.

“You wanted a better view.”

“Yes. I wanted to see more.”

My face goes hot, and my clit pulses beneath my fingers.

I keep touching myself, and he watches every movement.

Being watched this closely should make me self-conscious. It doesn’t. Not with him. Locke isn’t judging how I look or whether I’m doing anything correctly. He watches with the same concentration he gives everything he wants to understand, except there’s nothing detached about the way he’s looking at me now.

That makes me want to show him more. I circle slowly, then increase the pressure. His fingers press into the backs of my thighs.