of stroking himself while looking at the beauty of her trembling body. Then he lifted himself on one arm and maneuvered over her so he could brace and lower himself between her spread thighs.
He’d practiced it, and in this moment where it seemed everything was going their way, the shift on top of her was as smooth as he could wish. He did manage to plant his palm on that thick mane of hair. It held her head in place, pulled on her scalp. From the way her breath shortened at the hint of restraint, he thought she didn’t mind it. But he didn’t want to rip her hair out of her scalp as things became more insistent. So when he murmured the quiet command to her, she freed her hand from his shirt and swept her hair away and above her, him adjusting his palm briefly to make that easier.
“Put your hands on my forearms,” he told her, and watched them settle on his braced arms. “Bring your knees up so they’re brushing my ribs.”
It would open her further. Even more importantly, he could feel her legs against his body. She did it, her hazel eyes luminous. “You’re on top of me,” she whispered.
“I am.” A faint smile curved his lips but he knew the gaze he had on her was serious, intent. “I’ve wanted you under me like this for a long time.”
She touched his face, a tentative, needy gesture. “It feels…wonderful.”
“I hope it’s about to feel even better to you. Guide me in, Daralyn.”
He watched her move her hand between them, close her fingers around his erection. As she put him into her body, her lips parted. When he saw the flex of her stomach muscles, he knew she’d clenched those inner muscles on him, to keep stroking him. Fuck, he would love to feel it the way he once had, but there was nothing about this moment he would trade. Every live nerve ending he had was feeling this, ten times more acutely than before he’d been paralyzed.
His knees had stayed at the angle he’d planted them, also something he’d experimented with. He didn’t want them slipping and taking him out of her at the wrong moment. As he started moving, using his upper body strength to thrust into her, he kept it slow and easy, also to make sure he held his position where it needed to be.
Slow and easy worked for her, because her eyes had already started to burn with need, her breath coming more rapidly as he moved. She was stroking his arms, sometimes curling in so he felt the bite of her nails.
When he whispered his permission, she moved her hands to his sides and down to clasp his hips, her thumbs pressing high enough he felt their pressure. Her grip on his ass would help him drive deeper into her. She was helping him stay with her, give her this. Give them both this.
She knew to be careful with her nails below his waist, but right now he didn’t care if she forgot. He could check later. He didn’t want anything to inhibit or distract her from where this was going.
“Mine,” he whispered, gazing down at her. He’d feared saying that to her too often, or in the wrong moment. He hadn’t wanted her to think she had no choice except him. But now he knew she understood choice. It still wouldn’t come easy for her, maybe not for a long time, but she’d proven she could decide what she wanted, and make it known to him in the ways she trusted him to understand. So he had no more fear of telling her what he wanted.
“Yours,” she said, matching his fierceness with her own. Her body was lifting to his, the two of them moving the way water moved, with no conscious thought. Nature simply existed, flowed, went the direction intended.
He was going to give Red a lifetime supply of mulch for his yard, because though he felt the burn in his arms, back and shoulders, it wasn’t a strain. Every part of him he needed to make this work was a hundred percent on board.
Watching the climax build in her face, in the eagerness of her body, that burn faded, replaced by something else.
He would always remember how it felt to run across the football field, to soar, and have his body give him everything he needed, willing to give him even more. He’d never thought he’d feel