Chapter 19 #3
“Do you want this?” I ask, and my voice is hoarse with not just lust but something heavier, something close to reverence. “All of it?”
Her lips part, almost in surprise, but then she’s nodding even before the words tumble out. “Yes,” she says, the syllable fracturing on her tongue. “Jesus, yes.”
And then she’s pulling me down so our mouths collide, so her hands can tug at my hair and drag me further into her. I let her lead, let her show me how much she wants it just as much as I do, and the permission of it turns me inside out.
I kiss a path down her neck and collarbone, pausing at the hollow of her throat to feel the flutter of her pulse with my lips.
Every inch I travel, her breath stutters, her hands flex against my shoulders, urging me onward and deeper.
I find the seam of her jeans, pop the button with careful fingers, and slide them down her legs, my knuckles grazing the soft curve of her calf, the pale line of scar she wears like a secret.
She helps, kicking them off with a gracelessness that is somehow more intimate than anything else I’ve seen her do.
It makes me want to laugh, a low rumble in my chest, but I bite it down because she’s already reaching for me, already greedy for more.
I slide a hand between her thighs, slow at first, wanting to catalog every twitch and gasp, every moan she doesn’t try to muffle.
She’s soft and hot and wet, her hips arching into my hand, her head thrown back against the pillow.
I draw it out, not because I want to torture her—god, the opposite.
I want to give her the space to feel everything at her own pace, to build pleasure like a slow-burning fire, none of the hurry or desperation I once thought was required.
Her thighs tremble and then clamp around my wrist, trapping my hand where she wants it most, and when I circle my thumb over her clit, her whole body studders, a sharp electric current running through her.
“Lenzin,” she gasps, and the sound of her saying my name like that—urgent, pleading, equal parts command and surrender—nearly undoes me. “Please, don’t stop.”
The rest is lost in a strangled moan as I do exactly as she asks, never letting up, pressing her higher and higher, until her nails are digging crescents into my biceps and her breath is coming out in ragged, desperate bursts.
I want her so badly, I think I might split open.
But I let her finish first—let her take what she needs, let her tremble and break against my hand, and only after she’s boneless and dazed do I lean over her, pressing my lips to her temple in silent awe.
She turns into me, arms winding around my neck, and kisses me with a gratitude that feels like absolution.
After a moment, she flips us, rolling me beneath her, and straddles my hips with a confidence I remember from that first night.
She rakes her hands over my chest, more exploratory than seductive, like she’s memorizing the feel of my body beneath hers.
Then she leans down and bites my lower lip, not hard but with enough intent to make me smile against her mouth.
I let her grind against me, let her take control, let her show me what she wants.
She teases me then, lining me up and sinking down inch by inch, slow and ruthless, and it completely undoes me.
I let her ride me, let her pace it, let her decide when, how, and where. It’s a revelation. And when she finally lets herself go again, clenching tight around me, I follow her over—blind, wordless, wrecked.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, sweat-damp and grinning. I stroke her hair, her back, her thigh, unable to stop touching her, needing the physical proof that this is going to be my life, that this is finally fucking real.
I realize, I’m not done.
I press my mouth to the sharp line of her hip, feeling the muscle twitch beneath my lips, then follow the pale line of her scar, one that I want to learn all about, with my tongue.
She makes a sound, a tiny exhale mixed with laughter and disbelief, and her hand finds the back of my head, fingers flexing as if to anchor me in place.
I savor the taste of her skin, salt and warmth, and the faint metallic trace of sweat, each inch a new territory she lets me claim.
I let my teeth scrape gently over bone, then dip lower, nosing into the crease of her thigh, inhaling her impatience.
There’s something primal in the way her legs part for me, unapologetic and hungry.
“You came inside of —”
“I don’t give a damn.”
“Lenzin, I—”
She stops when I grab my shirt and wipe between her legs, “Good enough.”
She’s wet already from need and us, heat radiating against my cheek as I kiss the inside of her thigh.
She’s trembling, not from nerves but from the anticipation she tries so hard to mask, and when I finally put my mouth on her, she cries out, a bright, unguarded sound that makes my whole body clench with need.
I close my lips over her, slow at first, mapping what she likes by the way her fingers tangle in my hair, by every stuttered gasp she tries and fails to suppress.
She tastes like salt and electricity and something sweeter underneath, and I lose myself in the careful ruin of her, tongue and lips and teeth until she’s arching so hard her heels dig into my shoulders.
I want to make her come again, to see how many times she’ll let me do this to her before she begs me to stop, but mostly I want her to know—prove to her in every way I can—that wanting is not something she has to ration or justify.
I hold her open, gentle but insistent, and when I slide a finger inside, her hips buck and she chokes out my name, shattering on the syllables.
I keep my mouth on her, relentless, licking through her pleasure as she climbs higher. She spasms around my finger.
I don’t let up until she’s limp, boneless, laughing helplessly in disbelief at how wrecked she is, or how I didn’t give a shit, I just came in her. Only then do I crawl up her body, kissing every inch of the way, until I’m braced above her and she’s blinking up at me, dazed and gloriously ruined.
“You are insane,” she says, eyes wide.
“Insane, no, crazy about you, about us, about our future? Yeah.” I lay beside her and pull her into my arms. “Fuck yeah.”