Unsuitable

“I want you. I’m sure. But this can’t be anything more than tonight.”

He beckoned. “Come here, and tell me that, cause all I heard was how you didn’t come in here by accident.”

She went to the side of the bed and he held out his hand. She took it and climbed over his legs, kneeling across his thighs. He was definitely naked under the bedclothes. He ran a finger over her thigh where the nightdress had ridden up, only just covering her. His mouth opened and his breath eased out slowly, unsteady. That same finger travelled up the silk over her hip, her waist, he flattened his palm on her rib cage. His fingers spanned her whole side. She jerked, inhaled sharply when his thumb found her nipple in the lace.

He sat upright, his hand now behind her head, holding her for this first kiss not to end in frustration and dreams. He almost spoiled it by smiling, she got teeth before he sobered up and softened, before she got his lips and tongue and he hauled her into his chest. It took him two seconds to work out she was totally naked under the silk. The hand not holding her head went to her butt and his thigh muscles jumped. He inhaled and his hips flexed and his fingers dug in and she lost the condom somewhere in the bed because she needed to touch him, get her hands on him, slide her fingers into the muscular grooves of him, wrap them around the thick column of his neck where she felt his pulse hammering, hammering, echoing the knocking in her own chest.

He groaned through the kiss, when she shifted closer still, when she sat across his erection and her own hips flexed. His hands were so big they were everywhere, covering whole limbs, whole days and nights of wanting. He bit her neck, enough to make her gasp and twist, to lose one of the nightgown’s straps. He took that hint and rolled the other one off her shoulder, breaking the kiss, lifting his head to watch her breasts revealed.

“Oh fuck, yeah.” He only just said that aloud, his voice hushed to reverence.

She couldn’t catch her breath. “Don’t.” It came out harshly. She meant don’t expect too much, don’t compare me, don’t be disappointed.

He wasn’t listening. He was doing. Lips on her neck, open mouth sliding over her throat, tongue soothing, hands thrilling. She tipped her head up and he laid her down so he could put his face between her breasts. The first touch of his tongue to her nipple burned like ice. She cried out. She must’ve felt these things before, but it was like it was the first time. He suckled and she struggled to breathe. She lay in the cradle of his arms and detached from everything except the clean water and soap smell of him, the risk and the reward of him.

She could smell her perfume, smell her own arousal. Reece’s noisy breathing and murmured groans were a wanton rhythm, primitive and pure. She shed scales, fur, her illness, the skin of her buttoned down corporate self, the shell of her single-mother status. She rocked against Reece’s body and clung hard to him for deliverance. In his arms, in his mouth, in his joining, she’d be made into something more.

She had no fear but he did. “Slow down, baby. Slow down.”

She put her teeth to his bottom lip. Mia was right, his eyes could go black, like the deepest regions of ocean where evolution began. She didn’t want his kindness now, she wanted the hulking scare of him from those depths. She got it. He lifted her at the same time as he slid flat on the bed, the movement so quick she had no time to make her own.

She sat across his narrow waist briefly as he got rid of the pillow and her nightdress before he lifted her again. Her knees rammed up under his armpits, her feet still folded under her. She knew where he wanted her and had a second to fear it. She filled her hands with his hair, dryer in places, wet anew from the heat he was generating. She’d feel that hair on her inner thighs. He urged her to kneel up, her hands slapped the wall in front to stop herself pitching forward, to hold onto the earth while he spun it.

He braced her with his forearms, with his hands, and then he took her safety and made danger with it. Made her twitch and shock and moan. She was the primitive now, unable to see for starbursts in her eyes, unable to speak for lack of meaningful language. She was conquered by his tongue, enslaved by the suction of his mouth, punished by the rasp of his jaw and his bruising grip. He opened her soul, with his fingers as he opened her body, made her shudder and gasp and strain to feel more, to feel everything born of the world. And when the rain came, the storm rippled passed, she was drenched in the power of him.

And he’d only begun to show her what he could make her want.

And she wanted like belonging, like creativity.

He didn’t let her find a normal breathing pattern. He dragged her down his body, till she was folded into his chest. He turned his face when she tried to kiss him. She scored his cheek with her nail when she fought him on that, and the taste of his lips when he brought them back was a wholly erotic flavour, timeless and new, and making her hungry to feel him again.

“I want you on top. You’ll have more control. I’ll have more.” He repositioned her over his length, hissing when she ground on him. “Fuck, maybe not. Audrey, take it easy.” He laughed, but it became a groan when she licked his nipple.

He’d watched her, eyes glittering bright, abandoned in her pleasure and he’d do it again, but this time she’d watch him too. She never wanted to stop watching him, the unexpected economy and grace of him. He was titanium core and diamond hard surface, every part of him longer, thicker, wider, heavier than anyone else she knew.

He should’ve made her feel dainty, delicate, concerned about being crushed, split, and joked about it in warning. She might’ve been scared of this, his bulk, her slightness and how long it had been since she’d taken a man inside her body. That only dawned on her now, when nothing of him was hidden, but she felt only keening need, a hollow of expectation. He wasn’t too much, she wasn’t too little, they were right-sized for each other, they would fit and she was impatient for it, her whole body trembling.

“We need.”

“I’ve got it.” He had the condom in his hand. “I’ve got you.”

She was desperate to touch him. “I want to do that.”

“Oh Jesus, be gentle, baby.”

She scooted down his legs, trailing her hands. Kissing his hipbone, making him twist and suck in a shuddering breath. He palmed his face and held the condom out to her. He didn’t trust her with gentle—clever, gorgeous, surprising man. She didn’t deserve his faith, but his body was her new religion, a reason for the sun to rise and set, the weather to change, the earth to green.

She licked the length of him, more surprised at her own courage than what it did to him. He made the kind of sound a man makes when he hits his hand with a hammer. A strangled cry, part pain, part frustration. She knew he’d be that way; unguarded and honest. He curled his torso off the bed to watch her roll the latex on him, to catch her face and hold her to his lips, then he lay back and offered his hands and she took them like she took his heart, because it was held out to her too. She saw it in his eyes. Nothing held back, nothing not hers to touch and lick and suck and kiss and squeeze; to hurt as she needed; to pleasure as she pleased.

She pushed against the ache, the tightness of resistance in her body. He helped her balance, kept her steady and eased her way with slow tilts of his pelvis, with unhurried breaths. She was full, so full of him, it was almost too much, too intense. He saw it and captured her face in his hands, slowed her pulse with careful kisses, touched her so she’d soften aroun

d him, take his length and girth.

His eyes were wide and fixed on her. “You’re beautiful.”

She felt it. Saw it reflected in his reactions. She felt connected and wanted to go deeper. So long, so very long since she’d lived in the bliss of her body. Her brain was melting.

“You’re so easy.”