Chapter Twenty-Five
Riley
Our kiss starts soft. Tender. A whisper of lips against lips, a gentle question that I answer with everything I have.
His mouth moves over mine like he's savoring me, like I'm something precious he's afraid to break.
My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, holding on, anchoring myself to this moment that feels too perfect to be real.
But it is real. He is real. And the love swelling in my chest is the most real thing I've ever felt.
His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair, tilting my head to deepen the kiss. I sigh against his mouth, and he swallows the sound as if it belongs to him. Maybe it does. Maybe all of me belongs to him now.
The thought should scare me. It doesn't.
I press closer, needing to feel him, needing the solid warmth of his body against mine. His other arm wraps around my waist, pulling me flush against him until there's no space left between us. I can feel his heartbeat through his chest, strong and steady, matching the wild rhythm of my own.
"Breaker," I breathe against his lips, and his name tastes like a prayer.
He groans, rough, and the sound vibrates through me, settling somewhere deep in my belly.
The kiss shifts, transforms. What was tender becomes hungry.
What was gentle becomes urgent. His tongue sweeps against the seam of my lips, and I open for him without hesitation, welcoming him in, wanting more, needing everything.
The taste of him floods my senses — whiskey and something darker, something that's purely him. I chase it with my tongue, exploring, claiming, giving as good as I get. My fingers find the buttons of his shirt, fumbling in my desperation to touch skin.
His hand catches mine, stilling my movements.
"Slow," he murmurs against my mouth. "We have all night, Sparrow."
The words send a shiver down my spine. All night. With him. The promise of it makes my head spin.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, and what I see in his eyes steals my breath. There's desire there, burning and undeniable, but beneath it is something softer. Something that looks like reverence. Like I'm not just a woman in his bed, but something sacred he never expected to find.
"You're so beautiful," he says, voice rough as gravel. "Every damn time I look at you, I forget how to breathe."
Emotion clogs my throat. I reach up, tracing the hard line of his jaw, the stubble rough against my fingertips. "Then stop looking and kiss me again."
A smile curves his lips. It is slow, devastating, and makes my insides flutter. "Yes, ma'am."
This time when his mouth finds mine, there's no hesitation. He kisses me like he's drowning and I'm air. Like he's been waiting his whole life to taste me.
My hands resume their mission, working his buttons free one by one, revealing the planes of his chest inch by devastating inch. Scars map his skin like constellations, stories of survival and sacrifice. I trace each one with my fingertips, learning the geography of his pain.
"These don't scare me," I whisper against his collarbone, pressing a kiss to a jagged line near his shoulder. "Nothing about you scares me."
His breath catches, and I feel the tremor that runs through him. "Riley..."
"Shh." I push the shirt from his shoulders, watching it fall away. "Let me."
I press my palms flat against his chest, feeling the thunder of his heart beneath my hands.
He's warm, so warm, and solid in a way that makes me feel anchored.
Safe. His muscles tense and release under my touch as I explore — the ridges of his abs, the curve of his ribs, the dip of his hip bones where they disappear beneath his waistband.
His hands find the zipper at my back, and he pauses, waiting.
"Yes," I breathe before he can ask.
The sound of the zipper sliding down is impossibly loud in the quiet room. Cool air kisses my spine as the dress loosens, and then his hands are there, warm and rough, tracing the newly exposed skin. I shiver, not from cold, but from the electric current that runs through me at his touch.
He eases the straps from my shoulders, letting the emerald silk pool at my waist. For a moment, he just looks at me, and the intensity of his gaze makes my skin flush.
"Christ, Sparrow." His voice is wrecked. "You're perfect."
I shake my head, suddenly shy despite everything we've already shared. "I'm not—"
"You are." He cups my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes. "To me, you're fucking perfect."
Then his mouth is on my neck, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down to my collarbone, and I lose the ability to argue. My head falls back, giving him access, and a moan escapes me as his lips find that sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder.
His hands slide the dress the rest of the way down, and I kick it free, left in nothing but lace and trembling anticipation. He lays me back against the pillows, hovering over me, and the weight of his gaze is almost as tangible as his touch.
"I want to memorize every inch of you," he says, voice low and reverent. "Want to know what makes you gasp, what makes you moan, what makes you scream my name."
"Then stop talking and start learning."
His grin is wicked as he dips his head, pressing a kiss to the hollow of my throat. Then lower, to the spot above my heart, then lower still, between my breasts.
His mouth finds the swell of my breast, and I arch into him, desperate for more contact.
His lips are soft against my skin, a contrast to the rough scrape of his stubble that leaves trails of fire in its wake.
He traces the curve of my breast with his tongue, circling closer and closer to the peak but never quite reaching it.
"Breaker," I gasp, fingers threading through his dark hair. "Please."
He chuckles against my skin, the vibration sending shivers cascading through me. "Patience, Sparrow."
But patience is the last thing I have. Not when his breath is hot against my nipple, not when every nerve ending in my body is screaming for his touch. I tug at his hair, trying to guide him where I need him most, and he finally closes his lips around the aching peak.
The sensation is electric. My back bows off the bed as he sucks gently, his tongue flicking against the hardened bud. A moan tears from my throat, raw and needy, and I feel him smile against my breast before he increases the pressure.
He worships me with his mouth, alternating between soft licks and firm sucks, teasing me until I'm writhing beneath him. His hand comes up to cup my other breast, thumb brushing over the neglected nipple, and the dual stimulation sends sparks shooting straight to my core.
"So responsive," he murmurs, switching his attention to the other breast. "So fucking beautiful when you fall apart."
I can't form words. Can only feel. His mouth is hot and wet and perfect, his tongue tracing patterns against my sensitive flesh that make my vision blur at the edges. He scrapes his teeth lightly over my nipple, and I cry out, hips bucking involuntarily against him.
The ache between my thighs has become unbearable, a hollow emptiness that demands to be filled. I'm so wet I can feel it slicking my inner thighs, and every pull of his mouth on my breast sends another wave of arousal crashing through me.
"More," I beg, the word barely coherent. "I need… Breaker, please…"
He lifts his head, eyes dark with desire, lips swollen and glistening. The sight of this powerful, dangerous man looking at me like I'm the only thing in his universe undoes something inside me.
I don't think. I just act.
My hands find his head, fingers tangling in his hair, and I push. Guide him down my body with a desperation I've never felt before. He goes willingly, pressing kisses to my ribs, my stomach, the dip of my navel, each one stoking the fire burning in my veins.
When he reaches the edge of my lace underwear, he pauses, looking up at me through dark lashes. The question in his eyes is clear, even without words.
"Yes," I breathe. “Yes. I want it. I need your mouth. I need your tongue.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs.
Then he gives me what I need.
His fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear, dragging them down my legs with agonizing slowness.
The lace catches on my ankles, and he tosses it somewhere into the shadows without looking, his eyes never leaving mine.
Then he settles between my thighs, shoulders spreading them wide, and the first brush of his breath against my center makes my whole body clench in anticipation.
"So wet," he rasps, and the raw hunger in his voice makes me throb. "All this for me?"
"All for you," I manage, voice breaking. "Only you."
He groans, the sound vibrating against my sensitive flesh, and then his tongue sweeps through my folds in one long, devastating stroke.
I shatter.
Not an orgasm. No, not yet, but something inside me breaks open at the intimacy of it, at the way he's looking at me like I'm worth savoring. My hands fist in his hair, holding on as he explores me with slow, deliberate licks that map every inch of my arousal.
"You taste like heaven," he murmurs against me, and I feel the words more than hear them. "Could spend hours here. Days."
"Breaker. Oh fuck, Breaker…" His name comes out strangled as his tongue circles my clit, teasing but never quite giving me what I need. "Please, I can't…"
"You can," he says, and there's steel beneath the gentleness. "You will."
He seals his lips around my clit and sucks, and the world whites out.
My hips buck against his face, but his hands are there, pinning me down, holding me exactly where he wants me as his tongue works in relentless circles.
The pressure builds impossibly fast, coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine until I'm trembling, teetering on the edge of something enormous.
"That's it," he coaxes between strokes. "Let go for me, Sparrow. I've got you."