Chapter 23 Mattie #2
"I absolutely need to control the variables. That's how we get optimal results."
She laughed into the kiss, and he swallowed the sound, the laughter melting away as heat and urgency replaced levity. He continued his slow exploration with his free hand, learning her body even though he knew it already. Tonight, though, he was mapping it with new intent.
As his fingers pinched the hem of her T-shirt and he began to lift it, Mattie raised her arms, extending her left fully and lifting her right carefully.
The air hit her skin, and she shivered from the exposure. She was naked, and his eyes moved over her with an expression that made her feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet, scars and splint and all.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, and whatever clever response she'd been preparing dissolved into a sound that was decidedly not verbal.
His mouth traced a path from her throat to her collarbone, and lower, and the deliberate slowness of it was killing her.
Every kiss was deliberately placed, every touch gauged to produce maximum effect with minimum risk to her hand, and she understood now what he'd meant by mechanics. He had planned this.
Between clans and smoke signals and Petrov's sarcasm, Dimitri had spent the day working out exactly how to do this, step by step, angle by angle, mapping the path from clothed to undone with the same meticulous attention he applied to everything he did.
She found it so incredibly sexy.
It might not be every woman's cup of tea, but it was definitely hers. To Mattie, every time Dimitri flexed his beautiful brain it was the equivalent of what flexing well-defined biceps might be to another.
The realization made her want to laugh and cry and grab him with both hands, which she couldn't do, which was the entire point of his careful engineering.
"You planned this out," she accused him breathlessly.
He paused his downward trajectory and looked up at her. "Of course I did. I promised that I would. I'm a meticulous planner, and I don't improvise."
"Liar. You're improvising right now."
"I'm executing a flexible protocol with room for adaptive responses based on real-time feedback."
She looked at him from under lowered lashes. "That's the most arousing thing anyone has ever said to me."
He laughed, and the vibration of it against her skin made her squirm, which in turn made him tighten his grip on her hip, which made her gasp, which made his eyes darken in a way that told her the analytical scientist was losing ground to the savage within.
It was a little scary because she knew firsthand how brutal immortals could get, but she knew that even in the throes of passion, Dimitri would never hurt her.
"Mattie." His voice had dropped so low that it was a register she'd never heard from him before. It was rough, stripped of the careful control he usually maintained. "I need you to keep your hand on that pillow."
"It's on the pillow."
"Keep it there."
"I will."
"No matter what."
"Dimitri, if you don't stop talking and start—"
So, he started.
His mouth moved lower, and as he settled between her thighs, he looked up at her.
"Tell me if anything hurts," he said.
"The only thing that hurts is how long you're taking, and that you are not giving me what I want. This is not sixty-nine."
"Patience, my love. Your turn will come."
So that was how he wanted to do this. She should have known that he would go for the safest possible position, and she had no problem with that as long as he didn't renege on his promise.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
The last thing she saw before her eyes closed was his smile, and then there were no more words, no more teasing, no more safety protocols. There was just his mouth and his hands and the devastating, unhurried thoroughness with which he applied himself to the task.
Mattie's left hand fisted in the sheets while her right hand stayed obediently on the pillow, and her mind went beautifully, blissfully blank.
It was hard to believe that he hadn't done this before because he was masterful at it.
Every sound she made, every shift of her hips, every catch in her breath was registered and responded to with adjustments so precise that she might have found it clinical if the results weren't so spectacular.
He observed, analyzed, and refined in real time, and the effect was cumulative, building in layers, the pressure in her core cresting and pulling back and cresting higher with each pass.
"Dimitri…" she breathed his name, and it came out as half plea and half warning. His response was to increase the pressure and slow the pace, which was exactly right and exactly wrong and exactly everything, and she was going to…Oh, God, she was going to…
The climax hit her like a tsunami, total and overwhelming, and she heard herself make a sound that would have been embarrassing if there was anyone else in the building apart from her and Dimitri.
Every nerve in her body was singing, and Dimitri's hands were on her hips, holding her steady, and his mouth was gentle now, easing her through the aftershocks with soft, almost reverent kisses that made her eyes sting because she was wrung out and emotional.
When her breathing slowed, and the room reassembled itself around her, she opened her eyes and found him propped on his elbow, watching her with an expression that was equal parts pride and wonder and naked, aching want.
He was still in his pajama bottoms.
"Come up here," she said, and her voice was rough and unsteady, and she didn't care about that either.
He moved up the bed until they were face to face, and she kissed him, tasting herself on his lips, and the intimacy of that was so total that she understood why he'd never done this with anyone else.
This was not casual. This was not recreational.
This was two people trusting each other with the most vulnerable parts of themselves, and it took courage.
"Your turn," she whispered against his mouth. "You promised."
He opened his mouth to argue, but she put a finger on his lips. "That was the deal. Lie on your back."
His expression revealed the war between his need pulling one way and the instinct to protect her pulling the other. She put her good hand on his chest and pushed, and he let himself be pushed, rolling onto his back with a groan.
"Stubborn woman."
"I am, but you love me anyway."
"I love you, period, but you were supposed to be the one lying on your back. I was the one who was supposed to be on top. How else are you going to rest your hand on the pillow?"
"I have an idea."
She sat up carefully, keeping her right hand elevated, and looked down at him. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling with the effort of restraint, and the evidence of his arousal was impressive even through the loose fabric of his pajama bottoms.
"Put the pillow next to your hip," he said. "For your hand."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know. I might be slow, but even I get it after twelve times."
"You are anything but slow, and it was thirteen. I just needed to reiterate so you won't forget."
Of course he did.
She positioned the pillow, rested her splinted hand on it, and then shifted on the bed until she was oriented in the reverse direction, her knees on either side of his chest, her left hand braced on the mattress beside his hip.
He might have wanted to take turns, but she was adamant about showing him the wonders of a sixty-nine.
"This is the part where you tell me if anything hurts," she said.
He chuckled. "I don't think pain is going to be the issue."
She lowered her head, and he made a sound that was worth every moment of waiting, every morning of frustrated showers, every night of careful restraint. It was a sound of surrender from a man who didn't know the meaning of surrender, and it was beautiful.