23. Kael #2
“Okay, I’ll… move in.” What am I saying? “If you’re sure—”
Ash’s mouth is on mine before I can finish. I melt into the kiss, his hand sliding up my back, pulling me half into his lap. Okay, yes. This part I know: parting his lips with my tongue, brushing my cheek against his stubble, wrapping his strong arms tighter around me.
Fine. This is fine. This is great.
“I’ll tell Alistair tomorrow. At the party,” I murmur against his lips. “I mean. I want to be here. With you.”
His answer is another patient kiss making my skin burn. He draws me in until we’re chest to chest, my leg hooked over his hip. He’s already half hard under me, his breath catching when I roll my hips to make sure he feels every inch of me too.
Ash lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a sigh and a groan, like I’ve just lifted something heavy off his chest.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Thank you? I tilt my head and nip his bottom lip. “Not sure ‘thank you’ is my sexiest line.”
“Oh, I think it’s pretty sexy.” His hands slide under my thighs, and before I can answer, he flips us.
My back hits the mattress. His body settles over mine, heavy and warm and suddenly a lot less patient than he was a second ago.
“But you can always try again,” he says.
The shift knocks the breath out of me. Ash, who usually thinks his way through every touch like he’s trying to solve me, catches my wrists and presses them into the pillow above my head. His mouth finds the place under my jaw that wrecks me, and he sucks there just hard enough to make my hips jerk.
Oh.
He knows that place now.
My laugh comes out thin and startled. “Look at you.”
He lifts his head, eyes darker than I expect. “You like when I stop asking so many questions.”
The words go straight through me.
“I like when you ask some questions,” I manage.
His mouth curves. “Here’s one.” He rolls his hips, pinning me harder to the bed. “Do you want me?”
I should make a joke. Instead, my body answers first, arching up against him like it has no loyalty to my survival instincts whatsoever. “Yes.”
His grip tightens around my wrists, and he drags his mouth down my throat, over my chest, and bites gently at my hip, exactly where he’s learned I’ll fall apart fastest. “Try again.”
Heat punches through me so hard I almost miss the laugh tangled in my own breath. This is Ash. My spreadsheet man. My protein-shaker-at-seven-fifteen man. And somehow he’s here in the dark, using everything he knows about me like he’s been taking notes.
“I want you,” I say.
He releases one wrist to reach for the lube and condom. The small practical motions should break the spell, but they make this feel suddenly, unmistakably real. He knows I still want them. Somehow, he even knows how to make the pause feel like part of it instead of an interruption.
When his slick fingers slide between my legs, he starts like he remembers. One slow circle, then pressure right where I need it, and my knees fall wider before I decide to let them.
His fingers press inside, and my head drops back. He takes his time, but there’s nothing hesitant about it now. His free hand braces on my thigh, holding me open while he works me with steady, confident strokes that make my whole body go loose and hungry.
“Jesus, Ash.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth. “You always say that when you want more.”
He pulls his fingers free, rolls on the condom, and pushes my thigh higher against his side. He presses in with one firm, careful thrust.
My vision blurs.
He stops only long enough for my breath to come back, forehead pressed to mine, jaw tight with the effort of holding himself in check. I feel every inch of that restraint. All that strength, all that want, aimed at me and still somehow careful enough to make my chest ache.
“You okay?” he asks, voice rough.
“Yeah.” I hook my heel against his lower back and pull. “God, yeah. Move.”
The first stroke is slow enough to make me feel every inch leaving and returning. The next is harder. The one after that knocks a sound out of me I couldn’t recreate with a script.
Ash hears it, and shifts his angle until colors burst behind my eyelids.
I grab at his shoulders, nails dragging down his back as he finds the rhythm I didn’t know I’d taught him. Harder than before. More certain. Still Ash beneath it all, watching me closely enough to know when my breath catches from pleasure and when it catches because I’m overwhelmed.
I can’t believe he knows the difference.
“Say my name.” The words escape before I can cage them.
“Kael.” His voice cracks, and he drives into me again. “Kael.”
The way he says it snaps my hand to my cock between us, stroking in time with him.
He doesn’t let me hide there for long. His hand covers mine, taking over, matching the rhythm of his hips until there’s no separate part of me left to manage.
There’s only our heat, friction, and my name breaking out of him like he can’t keep it in.
“Tell me what you want,” I murmur.
His rhythm falters, like he knows what I’m really asking, and it might be too much. Then his forehead drops to mine, and his answer comes out rough enough to ruin me.
“I just want… you.”
My own question turns on me, and I realize I have exactly what I want. That’s never happened.
“You have me,” I say, or try to.
He understands. His rhythm picks back up, his hand tightening around me as his mouth finds mine again, messier and more desperate now.