Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
He doesn't. His fingers keep the same rhythm while his mouth closes over me again, and everything inside me begins pulling tight. I can't keep still now. My hips chase his hand, one heel digging into his back while the other leg trembles against his shoulder.
"I'm going to come."
Sam lifts his mouth just enough to answer. "Then come."
His fingers curl again, and that does it. My back arches and his name comes out of me broken. Sam keeps his hand exactly where I asked for it while my thighs tighten around him, riding out every shudder until I finally collapse back against the mattress.
For several seconds I can only breathe. Then Sam rises, his mouth finding mine while I'm still trying to recover. I taste myself on his tongue and something inside me twists painfully with how much I've missed this. How much I've missed him.
The second thought is more dangerous than the first, so I put both hands against his chest and push. Sam rolls onto his back without resistance and I climb over him.
His eyebrows lift. "Hi."
"Shut up."
"My mistake."
I settle across his hips and close my hand around him. The muscles in his stomach contract immediately, and Sam's hands close around my thighs.
"Autumn."
There is enough warning in my name to make me smile.
"My turn."
I catch his mouth again, then kiss my way down his throat while my hand moves slowly between us. His fingers flex against my legs. By the time I reach his chest, Sam's head is pressed into the pillow and every breath has gone rough.
I kiss his stomach, feel it tighten beneath my mouth, then take him between my lips.
"Fuck."
His hand slides into my hair, fingers spreading over my scalp without pushing. I look up and find him watching me.
Good.
I take him deeper and his head drops back on a groan, his hips jerking once before he catches himself. I put my palm against him.
"No."
Sam looks down at me. I take him into my mouth again before he can answer, and this time when his body tries to move, he keeps still. The knowledge sends a thrill through me.
I stay there until his stomach is taut beneath my hand and every breath comes through clenched teeth. His fingers tighten in my hair.
"Autumn."
I don't stop.
He says my name again, lower this time, then closes one hand around my arm and pulls me upward. I let him.
"Enough."
I kiss the corner of his mouth. "Giving up?"
Sam's hand slides behind my thigh, and one second I'm above him, the next my back hits the mattress and he's between my legs.
"Not remotely."
His mouth takes mine. I hook one leg around his hip as he settles against me, hard and hot, one hand moving between our bodies. He drags himself against me once, and my nails bite into his shoulder.
"Need inside you."
Every smart response disappears.
His eyes stay on mine. "Tell me."
"Fuck me."
Sam's jaw tightens.
"Don't hold back."
He pushes inside me in one hard stroke, and my breath catches. Sam immediately goes still, his forehead dropping to mine while my body adjusts around him. I can feel exactly what staying motionless is costing him.
I drag my heel down the back of his thigh. "Move."
He does.
Sam pulls almost all the way out before driving back into me. The force shifts me higher on the mattress, and the next thrust knocks the headboard lightly against the wall. Then again. Neither of us gives a shit.
My hands move over his shoulders and down his back, nails dragging across flexing muscle while he finds a rhythm that feels less like starting over and more like remembering something my body never actually forgot.
His hand slides beneath my knee and lifts. The angle changes, and the next thrust hits exactly where I need it. His name tears out of me.
Sam's eyes lock on mine. "Again?"
"Yes."
He gives me the same angle again, harder, and my heel digs into the back of his thigh. "Fuck."
His mouth comes down against mine, but the kiss doesn't stay controlled for long. His breath catches against my lips. Mine does the same. Every movement drives us farther from anything careful or considered.
I told him not to hold back, and he isn't. There is still attention in every touch. He feels when my body changes, adjusts when I pull him closer, listens when I tell him harder and doesn't decide he knows better than I do.
"Look at me."
I open my eyes.
His curls are damp at his temples now, his jaw tight enough that I can see the muscle working beneath his beard. The man who can command two hundred people without raising his voice is gone. This Sam is breathing hard above me, completely wrecked and making no effort to hide it.
His forehead presses to mine.
"I need you."
My hands stop against his back. The words hit harder than anything else he's done to me.
Sam's eyes stay on mine. "Right here. Stay with me."
I wrap both arms around him. "I'm here."
Something shifts in his face, and I tighten my legs around him.
"I'm right here, Sam."
Then his mouth is on mine and whatever control he has left finally breaks. He drives into me harder, and I hold on while his body moves against mine, every stroke pushing me closer to the edge again. His hand slips between us, and the first pass of his fingers over me makes my breath catch.
"Sam."
"I've got you."
I believe him. At least here. At least now.
My body tightens around him and he feels it immediately.
His mouth leaves mine long enough for him to breathe my name, and then I'm coming again, hard enough that my legs lock around his waist. Sam keeps moving through it until his rhythm breaks.
He buries his face against my neck, and a few strokes later his entire body goes tight over mine, my name rough against my skin.
Afterward, he stays there, not crushing me but close enough that I can feel every breath.
His mouth rests against the side of my neck while our lungs slowly remember how to work, and I don't want him anywhere else.
His hand moves across the mattress until it finds mine, our fingers lace together, and neither of us moves for a while.
Eventually Sam shifts enough to take his weight off me and rolls onto his back, bringing me with him. I settle partly over his chest with one leg tangled through his, his hand beginning a slow path along my spine while London hangs pale beyond the windows.
I couldn't tell you which direction I'm looking. My fingers move lazily over Sam's chest until they catch on a line of ink I don't remember, and I stop.
There is a tattoo high on the left side of his chest, separate from the larger work across his shoulder and arm. A handful of dark leaves move across his skin as if caught in wind, sharp and whole at one end before breaking apart into smaller black flecks as they travel inward.
I push myself onto one elbow. "What is that?"
Sam looks down and goes suspiciously quiet.
I stare at it. Leaves. Glitter. My eyes lift slowly to his.
"Sam."
His hand rests against my bare back. "Yeah."
"When did you get this?"
"A while ago."
"A while ago."
He has the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. I trace one of the leaves with my fingertip. The skin is completely healed, but the ink is newer than everything around it.
"You flew all the way here with this on your chest and didn't mention it."