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Love. Somehow he loved me, even still.
Long after Carly and Giovanni’s voices faded away, Tray’s remained. He spoke to my hair, to my cheeks, right next to my ear so that his messages flowed through me like honey injected straight into my veins. His hands never left my skin.
When I finally opened my eyes again, the pale rose gold light of morning had broken over the room. I wasn’t in my bed, but on Carly’s couch, stretched out fully dressed with a blanket tucked carefully around my legs. A pressure on my stomach had me lifting my head. Tray was asleep sitting on the floor, his head on my belly, his fingers loosely entwined with mine.
Tentatively, I touched the silken gold of his hair, marveling that this prince from a fairy tale had picked me. Me, the scrappy, scrawny girl who bore scars inside and out, and chose them willingly over silk and lace. I rubbed my thumb over the crease in his forehead, traced the sharp lines of his brow. Such a serious face he was making in sleep. His mouth was pulled tight, his eyes squeezed shut, long gold-tipped lashes still.
My fingers drifted downward to the slope of his nose. Patrician, I think it was called. Aristocratic. Then those full lips, normally stretched in a smile. He grinned as easily as he breathed.
At least until he’d met me.
My hand hovered over his mouth. Those lush, sensual lips didn’t belong on a fighter. The pads of my fingers grazed the lower, then the upper, learning him in a way I’d never fully allowed myself before. It wasn’t enough to see. I need to absorb each molecule of him into my skin.
I’d just reached his stubbled chin when his eyes finally opened. Slowly, sleepy at first before full wakefulness snapped him all the way back. He stared up at me incredulously, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but I gently closed his lips before he could speak. It wasn’t the time for that.
I wasn’t sure what it was the time for. I just knew words weren’t the answer.
He rose
up on his knees and stroked my hair, his touch reverent. The blunt tip of his thumb skimmed my lower lip and I bit it, more to watch the flare of surprise in his aquamarine eyes than out of any sexual appetite. I only had one speed when it came to sex. Hard and harder.
This wasn’t even close.
But my mouth closed around his thumb just the same, and sucking on his flesh pulled the slowly growing ache from my core into my belly. Heat spread, flames flickering where there had only been scorched earth before.
Lost in his eyes, I kissed my way down his hand, nipping the scars, licking the salt, tasting the flavor of who he was. I’d never bothered before. All I’d ever wanted was below his waist. A quick release, a fast hit of connection. Anything more would kill me. I didn’t know how to take pleasure that wasn’t laced with pain. Life, woven with death.
Once I reached the base of his hand, I shifted until he was cupping my cheek. Until my hand covered his, holding him in place. He lowered his head and I lifted mine, needing to see him when our mouths touched. The barest of contacts, an exchange of breath.
This was the point where we’d jump at each other like animals, dragging off clothes, tearing flesh and sanity.
Not this time.
His teeth grazed my lower lip, a sweet pinch. I curled my tongue and invited him inside, my free hand trailing over the bones and sinew that made up his shoulder to the strong column of his neck. Then upward, to buzz over his scalp and tug lightly on his hair. He gasped into my mouth and I fed on that burst of breath, swallowing it down and seeking more. I sucked on his tongue and then he sucked on mine, our kisses slippery, wet, unhurried. The pressure built, growing more intense with each second. I squirmed against the couch, my clothes already an annoyance against my oversensitized skin, but he made no move to ease my discomfort.
One of his hands finally closed around my breast, and by then I was on the verge. I didn’t know how I’d gotten there, only that the heavy drumbeat between my legs was nearly unbearable. His long fingers plucked at my nipple, circling as slowly as a bee picking the perfect petal to drink from. My breasts felt heavy, full. Like all the want in my body had centered there, and at the apex of my thighs.
His fingers wandered to my other nipple, and he moved even slower, turning time into molasses that he dripped drop by drop on my parched skin. I leaned up into him, opening up, greedy for every sensation.
I’d never felt this much before. Never allowed myself.
I’d closed myself off to so much. Afraid that blows wouldn’t kill me, but being loved like this surely would.
He slanted his head and licked a path from my collarbone up my throat, pushing my head back into the cushion. His teeth scraped my pulsepoint and all I could do was breathe faster, knowing he’d read my arousal in the primitive throb beneath my skin. His breath shuddered out, cooling the trail he’d left behind, and I shivered beneath him, exposed completely though I still wore every stitch of clothes.
Finally, he could see me.
The more sinister meaning of that phrase tried to hammer through the cotton clouds of lust, but I refused to let it. There was only Tray, and me, and a lumpy couch with a spring that hovered beneath the threadbare fabric. If I shifted, I could have that intrusive bolt of pain that would keep this pleasure from being too drugging and deep, and he would never even know.
I stayed still.
My fingers wound tighter in his hair, pulling his mouth back to mine. Our lips brushed. Once, twice. A hundred times. Each moment lasting longer than the one that came before. His hands spanned my cheeks as he explored me thoroughly, every lick of his tongue resonating far inside me.
This couldn’t last forever, but God, I didn’t want it to stop.
I gasped when he picked me up and settled me across his lap. He draped the blanket over us, then drew my head against his shoulder. Holding me there, he rocked, just rocked until the storm of desire grew into an ache so powerful that I panted against the side of his neck.
He flicked open the button of my jeans and dragged down the zipper. I was squirming again, incapable of remaining motionless. He eased his hand into my panties to skim over my mound. So close to what I needed that I trembled. He brushed the thin strip of hair before delving lower and separating my swollen lips. The tip of one finger slipped inside and I threw my head back, so grateful to have even that slight pressure on my clit.
