Bring Down the Stars

“Well, that’s crude,” I managed. “You’re trying to pick a fight with me? Right now?”

“Nah, just being honest,” Weston said. “If I had a girl like you and I passed out the night before we’d be separated for months? Maybe longer? I’d curse myself every night while jerking off in my bunk or the latrine. Thinking of what I could’ve had one last time.”

“Why are you saying this…?”

My words trailed away as an image filled my mind: Weston with his eyes closed, his fist curled around himself. Stroking hard to thoughts of me. My face in his head. My name in his mouth. Coming for me.

Slowly, like a cat, he walked over to the couch. He planted his hands on the cushions on either side of me. His gaze moved over my face and lingered on my mouth.

“I’m drunk,” Weston said, though his eyes were clear and sharp as always, a fire burning behind the blue-green ocean that no one could see…unless they got as close to him as I was.

I nodded, my lips parted. “Me too,” I said. “You should go.”

“I will,” he said. “Say goodbye to me, Autumn.”

“Goodbye, Weston.”

For half a heartbeat, we lingered in that moment, then broke it at the same time. I gripped him by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him to me. His hand snaked behind my head and into my hair.

And we kissed.

Hard. Unrelenting.

I kissed Weston.

Something I’d never felt before ripped through me. A heat heavy with words, thoughts and emotions. All unspoken. All of it in Weston’s mouth. I could taste him. I bit his lower lip. Licked his upper lip. Sucked on his tongue. Taking and taking, but I couldn’t get enough. All the while he fed on me, crazed like a lion at the kill.

What’s happening…?

I was falling sideways and backward on the couch, and Weston was sliding onto me, all of his lean, hard weight against me. His mouth crashed into mine, opening and taking my kiss—taking it from my mouth in a delicious sweep of his tongue. Demanding. Almost cruel. Yet beneath that savage kiss, my body loosened like water. I melted in his arms while he lay over me, hard and unyielding.

God, what are we doing…?

The answer broke through the onslaught of Weston’s kiss, rose between our rasping breaths and whispered: Finally

This.

Now.

Finally.

His arms slid under me, holding me so close—as close as he could—while his mouth worked over mine with relentless desire. Never breaking for breath, as if he were running the race of his life.

Finally.

My arms snaked around his neck, my fingers sliding into his hair, then down his back. His muscles lean and

hard under his shirt. I wanted skin. I wanted heat. I wanted all of him.

Finally.

Kissing him was the completion of something I didn’t know had started.

Weston’s hands skimmed up my sides, exploring me, touching me intimately for the first time. His thumbs brushed the curves of my breasts and he groaned. He broke away to breathe and pressed his forehead to mine.

“Weston,” I whispered against his lips.

He kissed me again, as if he could erase our hesitation with every sweep of his tongue, every bite of his teeth. My eyes fell shut as another wave of heated desire swept through me, leaving me too weak to protest, to find my voice or my conscience.