He canted up onto one elbow and reached for the side of her face. Dipping his head, he covered her mouth with his, drawing her back into the compelling heat that made her heart thrash within her chest.
She curled toward him, her outside knee drawing up along his outer thigh. She marveled at the differences between before and now. Before she’d loved him they’d made love with wild abandon, two healthy adults in their prime, eager to experiment and explore. Now he touched her with reverence, his fingertips drifting over her skin as if she were a precious work of art too valuable to treat with anything but the utmost care.
It made it easier to pretend he loved her.
Closing her eyes, she surrendered to the sensations he wrought. He drew faint circles down her hip and thigh, slowly working his way down to the sensitive back of her knee. Shifting back onto his own knees, he continued his way south with his mouth, depositing butterfly touches and soft, glancing kisses on her sternum, her ribs, the tender cove of her stomach.
She hummed and arched beneath him, wanting more than just his mouth against her flesh. She wanted the weight of him against her, the hot, slick union of their most intimate flesh. “Hurry,” she murmured, reaching for his head.
He smiled up at her with glittering eyes before settling his face against the inner curve of her thigh. He moved his head slowly from side to side, skimming her flesh with an alternating press of lip and whisker. “You always were impatient,” he teased, tickling her.
“I just know what I like,” she said, flexing her toes as his mouth inched incrementally higher.
“As do I.” His hands expertly slid her underwear off her legs and then pressed her knees wide enough that his shoulders fit between them. “I remember everything that pleases you.”
He bent over her, his clever fingers opening her before him. She felt the startling slick press of his tongue, its wet, insistent stroke right at the apex of her thighs, and her body jerked in response. She whimpered, a terrified pleasure arrowing through her as he settled heavily over her, pinning her beneath him. He stroked her center again, his sinuous tongue paralyzing all thoughts of protest.
She gasped incoherently and he lifted his head. “You still like this, don’t you?” he asked with husky confidence.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s been a long time.”
“Good.” Stephen widened her legs even more, his mouth dragging heat and moisture in its wake while his hands soothed her second thoughts. She felt him everywhere: her ribs, her stomach, her thighs. He exhaled against her intimate flesh, cooling her before he dipped to taste and toy and tease. She surged up against his mouth, lost in a blaze of pleasure so sharp it brought tears to her eyes. All too soon, the steady, constricting circles he drew upon her had her bucking and shaking and pleading aloud for mercy.
And still he plied her flesh, his tongue invading her with devastating softness. The savage sensation of losing control, of quivering atop a chasm of release so acute, had Colette fighting for control at the same time as he urged her surrender. Her heart thrashed within her ribs, she could no longer keep her eyes open, and her knees pulled high as she rocked and rocked and rocked against his mouth. Exquisite pleasure twisted high as he consumed her, until the steady slide of tongue and lip and heat became too much, too intense, too … too everything. She catapulted into careening spasms of rapture, contractions cresting in wave after wave as she shuddered and groaned.
After the last ripple of release faded, Stephen raised his head to peer into Colette’s flushed face. Her eyes, wet with tears, were too blurred to see clearly. She felt his thumbs wipe the tears from her cheeks and she blinked, reaching to brush her fingers against his mouth. He moved up her body, bracing his weight on his elbows as he settled against her.
She parted for him without hesitation. She knew, down to her last cell, that he wouldn’t hurt her. Not now, at least. Not yet. And then he dipped his head to kiss her.
“Help me,” he murmured, shifting his weight as they worked to free him from his pants.
She heard the snick of a condom wrapper, watched as he rolled it down his jutting length, and then felt the heavy nudging pressure of his arousal. He rocked gently