only through feathered lips to fevered skin.
It was, Gavin realized with a shuddered inhale, the most important moment of his life.
Gavin lifted his face enough to look in her eyes. Her chest shuddered with an inhale.
“Talk to me,” he whispered.
She smiled through tears. “Will you stay and read?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thea woke up naked.
They hadn’t made love—or tried to—again, but Gavin spent the night in her bed, and they’d made the unspoken agreement that clothing was optional.
Gavin made a sleepy sound behind her. “I can hear you thinking.” His arm tightened and tugged her closer. “Sleep OK?”
“Mmm.”
“Tell me wh-wh-what you’re thinking about,” Gavin said, burrowing his face deeper into the crook of her neck and murmuring against her ear.
Oh, you know. Nothing much. Just sex.
Hot sex.
Sloppy sex.
Scrape my fingernails down your back sex.
I can’t believe it’s not an orgasm sex.
Ugh.
He teased her earlobe with his lips. “Know wh-what I’m thinking about?”
“Sex?” she blurted.
His bark of laughter jiggled her boobs. “That goes without saying.” He slid his hand up her body and captured her hand with his. “But I was actually going to say bacon.”
Thea turned her head to look over her shoulder. “Is that a euphemism?”
“You have no idea.” Gavin rose up on an elbow and gazed down at her in that sexy, tired way of his. “Morning.”
Thea rolled onto her back so she could see him better. “Good morning.”
“Want me to make the pancakes?”
Oh, yeah. It was Saturday.
“Sure. Not yet, though. It’s early. The girls aren’t even up yet.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What shall we do with our stolen time in the d-dark?”
She laughed, and it became a shriek when he whipped the comforter over both their heads, hiding them in a dark cocoon. They stilled at the same time. Soaked in the moment. Catalogued all the places where the hard parts of him pressed against the soft parts of her.
Thea captured his bottom lip in both of hers and tugged.
That’s all it took. Gavin made a noise low in his throat and slanted his mouth over hers. He pressed her into the mattress as his lips nibbled and massaged, cherished and explored. He kissed her like they had all the time in the world, but when she slid one of her legs up along his, dragging her toes across his calf, something changed. He changed. He curled his free hand along the curve of her jaw and changed the angle of his kiss, taking it deeper, harder, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth.
Thea wrapped her arms around him. Her fingers explored the finely honed muscles of his torso, every ripple, every ridge, every swell of sinew. Her exploration seemed to fuel his fire, because a groan came from deep in his chest and he shifted his hips to grind into the parts of her that now throbbed with need. She wanted to crawl inside his skin. She wanted to kiss every inch of him.
She just wanted.
Wanted to feel his sweaty weight on top of her. Wanted to pump her hips beneath him. Wanted to moan and writhe and gasp.
She wanted his hands on her skin, his lips on her breasts. She wanted to feel him hard and long and thick thrusting deep inside her. She wanted to find that place again where heat and sparks and tornados lived. And then she wanted to curl against his side, trail her fingers down his damp chest, and place hot, sloppy kisses on his stomach.
She wanted.
She wanted him.
“Gavin,” she rasped. “Can I ask you something?”
He licked a spot beneath her ear. She sucked in a gasp. Oh, she liked that. She fought for air. “How did you know that night?”
“Know what?” He sucked on her earlobe.
“That I had an orgasm.”
“At first, it was the noises you made.” He sucked on the tender place where her pulse pounded in her throat. “I’d never heard you make a noise like that, like a wh-whine or a whimper.”
Thea shifted beneath him. The growing pressure between her legs sought the hard length between his.
“And you started moving against me.” Gavin tilted his hips into her. Thea gripped his shoulders.
“You started saying my name,” he rasped, his breath hot against her neck. “Over and over. Until you couldn’t actually say it.”
Thea moaned and ground into him again.
“You became frantic,” he panted, sliding his erection against her cleft. She gasped and rocked back and forth against his length.
“And then your whole body tensed.” His fingers dug into her hips. “You called my name, and inside you. Christ, Thea, inside