pecs, then his collar, then his neck. I inch toward his lips, my hips moving with me and dragging my aching seam along his thick length. By the time my hair falls around us both, my mouth greedily sucking his lower lip, the promise wedged between us is nudging me open.
“Fuck, you’re so gorgeous,” he growls, the corners of a smile tugging against my mouth.
“You can’t even see me,” I tease, planting a kiss on his brow.
“I’ve got every inch of you memorized,” he says, chuckling and kissing the hollow under my jaw, driving words from my lips. “I don’t need to see.”
His fingers knead my ass, and I slide my hips further up his torso, inviting more of him—but he tucks his arms against his sides and his hands grab my hips. He yanks my body up until his mouth is between my thighs.
He pauses and my body takes over, my hips bucking closer impatiently. His soft chuckle sends a soft stream of air brushing over me.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he teases, lightly drawing his stubble across me. “Because I’m exactly where I want to be, and I plan to be here a while.”
A whimper escapes me, and I lock my hips before they mutiny and take control. Finally, his mouth covers my cleft, the warm heat of his tongue licking across my seam. He urges my traitorous hips forward, adding just enough friction to make me light-headed.
I’ve never felt anything like it before. At first—in the brief flashes of coherent thought, anyway—it’s almost better than normal sex, the sensation warmer and gentler. Within a few moments, it feels like he’s connecting me to some deeper part of myself, and each time I exhale, it’s not just air coming out of me, it’s tension and stress and fear.
How does he always know what I need? Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, what I see looking back is something written in another language. But Sterling always knows how to read me, like he was born knowing my language.
My hands find his hair, tangling there in some desperate, subconscious attempt to tether myself to this man, who has so much power over my body and soul. Each second winds me around him, until there’s only his skin against mine, the caress of his mouth, the scratch of his jawline. I coil and wrap but there’s only one way to completely bind myself to him. “I need you inside me. Now.”
Sterling doesn’t object. He simply scoots my hips toward his, as his soft, warm sigh floats up to me like a summer breeze. What we did yesterday left me sore, but his attention so far has dulled that particular ache, and when he enters me, it feels like something I’ve only glimpsed and never known: the easy rightness of coming home.
“I love you so much, Adair,” he says with wonder bordering on reverence.
We’ve made love with me on top before, but even then I always let him be in charge. But I take the reins now, riding him slowly as I work up and down, savoring every sensation as I guide us toward the edge. I watch his face, moving my pace to his, urging us on to the same path, and when he goes rigid, I let myself shatter, melt, dissolve.
I know he will catch me and put me back together—always.
And I won’t forget.
“I’ll be right back,” he promises, slipping from the bed.
I watch covetously as he grabs a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and tugs them on. They hang loosely at his hips, and he disappears out of the bedroom.
Panic seizes me instantly, and I scramble out of the bed. Picking up his abandoned shirt, I slip it over my shoulders and button it as I go to find him.
He glances over from the refrigerator, the light from the ice machine silhouetting his form. Sterling holds up a glass as I join him. “I was just getting you some water.”
I fall in love with him all over again
“I wish you’d never left,” I blurt out, feeling another crying jag coming on—all over a stupid glass of water.
But it’s more than that. It’s being taken care of by someone who loves me more than himself. It’s loving him so much it physically hurts. It’s feeling my breath hitch every time I see him again for the first time.
Sterling’s eyes close and he places the glass on the counter, reaching out to take my hand. He kisses my