Page 39

He didn’t. He rolled onto his back and pulled me with him.

I ended up straddling his hips with my hands braced on his chest, staring down at him. My hair had come loose from my braid and fell all around us.

“I want to watch you,” he said. “I’ve thought about it every night since the first time.”

My face went hot. I’d been on top of him for a few minutes, that first night, and he’d taken over almost right away. This was different. He was letting me have all of it.

I reached between us and guided him into place. Then I sank down onto him slowly, an inch at a time, watching his face.

He was so big. It stretched me, full and deep and almost too much, and I had to stop halfway and breathe. He held my hips and didn’t rush me. His eyes were dark and locked on mine. His jaw was tight.

I took the rest of him in one long, slow slide, and we both groaned.

“Hazel.” His fingers dug into my hips. “Hazel, you feel⁠—”

“I know.” I braced my hands on his chest and rocked my hips once, testing. Pleasure shot through me, so sharp it made me gasp. “Oh.”

I did it again. And again. Slow at first, rolling my hips, finding what felt good. He let me. He lay back on the pillow and watched me with his hands on my hips, and the way he looked at me made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

I sped up. I found an angle that made me cry out every time I came down on him, and I chased it, riding him harder, my hands braced on his chest and my head thrown back. The bed creaked under us. My breasts bounced. I didn’t care. I’d never felt so free or so wild or so wanted.

He sat up.

He did it all at once, with me still on top of him, his arms wrapping around me. Suddenly we were chest to chest, my legs wrapped around his waist, his face right there. He was so deep inside me like this. He put one hand on the small of my back and pressed me down onto him and rocked up into me, and I sobbed out his name.

“I’ve got you,” he said against my mouth. “I’ve got you.”

He kissed me, deep and slow, while we moved together. His tongue slid against mine in the same rhythm as his hips. Our bodies were slick with sweat. I could feel his heartbeat against my breasts, and his breath on my lips, and every inch of him inside me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on.

He slid one hand between us and found my clit with his thumb.

“Shepherd,” I gasped. “I can’t—again—I don’t think I can⁠—”

“Yes, you can.” He circled slowly, steadily, and kept rocking into me.

It built again, faster this time. Deeper. It came from somewhere I didn’t know I had, and it swallowed me whole. I came with my face pressed into his neck and his name on my lips, clenching around him so hard I felt him groan. Wave after wave after wave. He held me through all of it with his arms locked tight around me, murmuring things against my hair I couldn’t even hear.

I was still shaking when he laid me back down on the quilt.

He followed me down. He settled between my thighs and slid back inside me, and the feeling of him filling me again, so slowly, made me whimper.

“Okay?” he asked.

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

He moved slowly. Long, deep strokes, all the way in, all the way out, unhurried. He laced his fingers through mine and pressed my hands into the pillow on either side of my head. His eyes held mine. The lamplight was soft on his face. He looked at me the way he’d looked at me across his kitchen table the first night I sat there, like I belonged here.

“I love you,” he said.

My eyes filled. “I love you too.”

“Stay,” he said. His voice cracked on it. “After you graduate. Stay here with me.”

“I already said I would.”

“I know. I want to hear it again.”

“I’m staying,” I whispered. “I’m coming home to you. I’m not going anywhere.”