12. Chapter 12 #2
“I find Voss tomorrow and ask what it takes.”
“Good.”
“That's it?”
“What else is there? You want it. You're good at it. Go do it.”
That gets me.
“That's a hell of a thing to say—”
“Mateo.”
“What?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
So I do.
She's across the bed and in my lap before I've finished sitting up, and I get both hands on her hips and pull.
"Careful," I say, against her jaw. "Shoulder."
"Then stay off it."
"I'm always off it. I'm extremely—" she bites my bottom lip "—I'm extremely responsible—"
"You're really not."
I get her shirt off, which is a two-hand operation with the left sleeve and which I have got good at, and I take my time with it deliberately just to hear her complain, and she does, and I grin at her the whole way through.
Her hair's still damp at the ends. There's a dark line across her collarbone where it's been soaking into her shirt all evening, and I put my mouth on it, and she tastes like her soap and underneath that like her.
"You're enjoying this."
"I'm enjoying all of it." I put my mouth at her collarbone. "That's my whole thing. You've met me."
She gets my shirt over my head and then stops with both hands flat on my chest, looking at me, and I let her, which I'm not always good at.
I get to look back. Sitting up in my lap with her chestnut hair pushed over one shoulder, damp and starting to curl at the ends, her mouth already swollen from the kissing and the color coming up her throat.
And those hazel eyes on me. She's never been as hard to read as she thinks she is, but this close she doesn't even try. It's all right there.
"What," I say.
"Nothing. You."
"That's a look—"
"You've got a bruise here." Her thumb moves over my ribs. "Declan?"
"Declan," I admit. "Eleven times. He's very patient about being hit and then extremely not."
She leans down and puts her mouth on it, and then lower, and I stop talking.
She takes my belt off and I lift up so she can get the rest, and then her hand's on me and my head goes back against the wall and whatever I was going to say leaves the building.
"Jess—"
"Shh."
"That's — okay, that's—"
She works me slow, like she's got nowhere to be, watching my face the whole time. That's her, that is. Everyone thinks I'm the one who pays attention. She's ruthless about it.
"Tell me," she says.
"Harder."
She does it harder. I get a fistful of the blanket.
"Tell me what you want."
"I want—" I have to stop and breathe. "I want you on your back, and I want to take about an hour, and I want you to be really loud about it, because I've been thinking about this since the corridor."
"Since the corridor?"
"Since you opened your mouth," I say. "I'm a simple man."
She laughs, and I ease her onto her back, one hand behind her shoulders the whole way down so nothing takes her weight but me, and then I take the hour.
I get her jeans off slowly. I put my mouth on the inside of her knee and work up, and when she tries to hurry me I lay my forearm across her hips and hold her down and she swears at me in a way that is frankly a compliment.
"Torres—"
"Mm-mm."
"You're doing this on purpose—"
"Obviously I'm doing it on purpose."
I stop for a second to look at her from down here, because I'm never getting this view anywhere else — flat on her back in my bed, chestnut hair spread out all over my pillow, her chest going like she's run somewhere, one hand already gripping the sheet.
She's already soaked through when I get there, and the sound I make against her is not a dignified one.
I get an arm under her ass and settle in and take my time, and she's hot and slick under my tongue and getting wetter, and every time I find the right spot I feel her thighs jump either side of my head.
I come back up her body and she pulls me down and kisses me, messy, still shaking, still tasting herself on my mouth.
"You're pleased with yourself."
"I'm delighted with myself."
"Get up here—"
I push into her and she feels incredible.
God. She's tight and wet and so hot, and for a second I can't move at all, just hold there inside her with my forehead against her temple and breathe.
"Okay," I manage. "Okay, hold on—"
"Don't you dare hold on."
"Give me a second or this is going to be a very short story."
She laughs, and I feel it — I feel her laugh around me, the whole length of me, and that nearly finishes it right there.
She wraps a leg around me and I get an arm under her lower back and hold her exactly where I want her, and it's slow at first because I want it slow, because I want to look at her face while it happens.
So I look. Hair everywhere, stuck to her temple on one side. Her mouth open, that crease between her eyebrows she gets when something's good and she's concentrating on it. And her eyes — half shut, then not, then open on mine. Her face gives her away.
Every stroke is better than the last. She's gripping me all the way in and all the way out, and every time she tightens up I lose a piece of whatever brain cells I had left.
"You feel—" I have to stop. "Jess, you feel so good, I can't—"
“Tell me.”
So I tell her, with my mouth at her ear: how wet she is, how she grips me, what it does to me when she clenches like that, what I've been thinking about doing to her since a corridor at four in the afternoon. And every single thing I say makes her tighten around me.
Her hand comes up and cups my jaw. I turn my head and kiss the palm of it.
"I feel you," she says.
And that does something to me I wasn't ready for.
"Hey." Her hand moves on my face. "Hey. I'm here."
"I know."
"Say it."
"You're here," I say, and it comes out wrecked, and she pulls me down until my face is in her neck and holds the back of my head, and I move in her and keep saying it, over and over, and she takes every one of them.
It gets hard and fast at the end and she asks for that too, and I give her everything I've got.
I get a hand between us and find her with my thumb and she goes over a second time with her heel digging into the back of my thigh and my name coming out of her in pieces, and the way she clamps down on me when she does it takes me with her.
I follow a few strokes later with my mouth on her shoulder — the right one, the good one, even then.
Afterwards she won't let me get up.
"I'm getting a cloth."
"In a minute."
"You'll be cold—"
"In a minute, Mateo." She's got my arm across her and both hands on it. "Stay."
So I stay, and then I get the cloth, and then I come back and she's already got the blankets rearranged into the shape she likes and my pillow annexed.
"That's mine."
"It was."
We eat the last of our dinner in bed and she tells me about an argument Freya had with a Council recorder about a definition. It’s stupid but hearing her tell it makes me smile.
"I'm finding Voss tomorrow," I tell her, at some point. "Before he has to ask me. I'm going to tell him I want it and ask him what it takes."
"Good."
"If it turns out there's paperwork, you can fix my commas."
She turns over and puts her chin on my chest.
"Tell Leo yes," she says. "Properly. From me.
Whenever they can come — all seven of them.
We'll ask about guest rooms, and Declan will cook for that many people and enjoy every second of it, and Renzo will lose his mind about the size of the group.
" She grins. "I want to meet the people who knew you when you were a menace. "
"I'm currently a menace."
"You're currently a man with a career plan," Jessica says, and I laugh so hard I have to sit up.
She settles back against me.
“Arena tomorrow?” she asks. “I want to shift and go for another run.”
“What time?”
“After your session.”
“I'll be there.”
A few minutes later she falls asleep on my arm, one hand still closed around my wrist, chestnut hair everywhere.
I check the bond once, out of habit, and she's right there.
I stop checking.