and closing her hand over his chest when he pressed his hand over hers. “Molly.”
Need melted the stiffness in her limbs so that she sank to her knees in front of him. Wrapping her arms around his thighs, she held him there and he let her.
She had never understood the tyranny of physical passion before, how the need for another person could drive someone to disregard every sensible instinct they owned, until now.
He was going to hurt her, maybe even badly. The light of real life would be pitiless on them both, and if he made one more attempt to manipulate her, she knew she would take a wrecking ball to every bridge they had managed to build between them.
They probably wouldn’t make it past the second or third date.
Once you accepted the inevitability of impending disaster, things usually got a bit easier. This time they grew crystal clear. Resting her cheek against the zipper of his jeans, she savored the thick bulge of his erection through the material. He couldn’t hide his need for her either.
He bent over her kneeling form, stroking her hair, her jaw, running his hands over the curve of her shoulders. “What do you need?”
“I don’t understand how we got to this place,” she murmured, almost dreamily. “I didn’t even like you when I first met you.”
Laughter shuddered through him. “As I recall, I wasn’t being very likable, but I loved everything about you. I knew you were going to be a colossal inconvenience.”
“You were right. I was, wasn’t I?” She unbuttoned his jeans and drew the zipper down.
“You don’t even know the half of it, but I wouldn’t trade away a minute with you for anything.” Long gentle fingers hooked underneath her chin. He lifted her face until she looked at him. His amber gaze was intent. “You still haven’t told me what you need.”
“I need to take what I want.”
Reaching inside the opening of his pants, she pulled his cock out. She knew his body just as he knew hers. She knew the pattern of veins along the side of his shaft, the velvety, sensitive skin over the hardened muscle, his scent, the way his sac tightened underneath when she cupped him.
He hissed as she stroked and fisted him, spreading his legs apart to brace himself, the muscles of his thighs rigid. She had grown obsessed with him too. The way his skin tasted. The sounds he made when he lost control.
When he wasn’t saying sexy things to her, he liked to make love quietly, in near silence. It made her zero in on every moment, like a series of flash photographs. This. This. This. Until he couldn’t stay silent any longer. God, she loved when that happened.
She took him in her mouth, widening her lips to fit around the broad head, for a while content to simply hold the tip inside her, she stroked her tongue in a gentle pulse against the most sensitive part of him. The tension in his body grew tighter until it fractured in micro tremors. He started to pump gently, and she took him in farther, opening her throat until she encompassed all of him.
She took and he moved, silently intent until the very end. Then a sound broke out of him, harsh like a hawk’s cry. He shuddered, spilling into her, and she closed her eyes and swallowed every drop down.
Because we know this dance, don’t we, my friend? We’ve been here before in this private place.
You push harder, and I give in. You fall into your animal while I rise up to meet you.
And we might break our hearts, but we’ll say it will have been worth it.
To bathe in this fire one more time.
Just to spark the fire.
One more time.
* * *
Afterward, he knelt and held her. She rested her head on his shoulder and drifted until he picked her up to lay her on the bed. As he stretched out beside her, she rolled away and looked out the window at the wild array of lights. Eighteen weeks.
Lifting aside the heavy fall of her hair, he said against the nape of her neck, “I would love to return the favor, but suddenly you feel like you’re a million miles away.”