Page 89 of Ruthless Edge

I get the room key out of my clutch on the first try, which feels like a miracle. The door opens, and Knox follows me in, the door is still swinging closed behind us when he turns me around and pins me gently against it.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," I say.

He kisses me again, slower this time, with the full weight of the evening behind it, and I stop thinking about anything.

What follows is a long and thoroughly absorbing process of getting each other out of formal wear, which is more complicated than it sounds, because there's his jacket, my zipper, his shirt buttons, my dress, his belt, and at some point in all of it, we're both breathing hard. I'm fairly certain I've lost a hairpin somewhere in his collar, then there's nothing left between us and Knox steps back and looks at me.

And the way he looks at me…

I've had people look at me before. I've had people appreciate how I look and make it known after I lost the weight, but I was always self-conscious. But, I don’t feel that way right now with him. Knox looks at me the way you look at something you've been waiting for, patient and certain and like he has absolutely nowhere else to be, and it makes my heart ache.

"Emma," he says. Just my name. Like it's enough.

He pulls me to him and kisses me again, deep and unhurried, and his hands are everywhere, on my waist, my hips, sliding up my ribs until his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts, and I arch into him because I can’t help it. He walks me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed, and he lowers me down and follows, his mouth on my neck, my collarbone, lower. He kisses the swell of each breast and then his tongue flicks over my nipple, and I make a sound I don't recognize, my fingers tangling in his hair. He sucks, and the pull of it goes straight between my legs, and I'm already wet, already desperate, already three years past patient.

"Knox," I breathe, and he hums against my skin like my saying his name is exactly what he wanted.

He moves lower. His mouth traces a path down my stomach, my hip, the inside of my thigh, and I know what he's going to do and I still can't believe it's happening. He spreads my legs and looks at me for a second. Looks at me like he's memorizing this moment, then his tongue is on me, licking up the length of my pussy, and my hips buck off the bed. He does it again, slower, then his mouth closes over me and he sucks. I cry out, my hands fisting in the sheets. He is devastatingly thorough. He licks and sucks and finds a rhythm that makes my whole body tighten. I can feel it building, this pressure coiling deep in my belly, and I am making sounds I won’t be able to identify later, and I don’t care.

"You're so fucking wet," he murmurs against me, and the vibration of his voice nearly finishes me.

He slides a finger inside me, then two, curling them, and his tongue is still working me, and the combination is too much, it's perfect, it's everything. The pressure builds and builds, higher and tighter, and I'm panting his name, my hips rolling against his mouth. He doesn't stop, he doesn't slow down, he just keeps doing exactly what he's doing until I break. My orgasm crashes over me in waves, deep and shuddering. I come so hard I see white behind my eyelids, my whole body arching off the bed, and I say his name like a prayer or a curse or both.

He kisses the inside of my thigh and crawls up my body, and I can feel his cock hard against my hip, and I want him inside me but I also want to do this to him first. I push at his shoulder until he rolls onto his back, and I climb over him and kiss him, tasting myself in his mouth, and he groans like that alone is enough to undo him.

I move down his body, kissing his chest, his stomach, the sharp line of his hip, then I take his cock in my hand and he sucks in a breath. I look up at him and his eyes are dark and fixed on me, and as I lick the length of him, base to tip, his head falls back. I take him into my mouth and suck, and he makes a rough, broken sound, his hand finding my hair, not guiding, just holding on, caressing me. I use my hand and my mouth together, and he is thick and hard and I can feel him twitching against my tongue, and it is the hottest thing I have ever done, knowing I’m making him feel this.

"Emma," he says, strained, "you have to stop, I'm going to⁠—"

I don't stop. I want this. I want to feel him come apart because of me. I suck harder, take him deeper, and his hips lift off the bed as he groans my name. Then he's coming, pulsing in my mouth as I swallow him down and keep sucking gently until he's shaking and pulling at my shoulders.

"Come here," he says, voice wrecked. I crawl up and he kisses me, deep and messy and unhurried, and I can feel his heart hammering against my chest.

"You're not done," I inform him, because he very clearly isn't, which should not be possible but is.

"I could go all night," he says, looking up at me with an expression that I'm adding to my permanent record of memories.

He rolls me beneath him and kisses me again. When he presses into me it’s slow and deliberate and I feel every inch of him filling me, stretching me, and my breath goes entirely. He watches my face, his eyes dark and intent. I say something incoherent that amounts to I have never had someone this big, and that I’m so glad he doesn’t have a micro-penis, and he says good, in a voice I have never heard Knox Carter use before, low and deliberate. I decide I want to hear it again.

He gives me every reason to.

He moves inside me, and every thrust is considered and thorough, and I understand that Knox Carter has been paying attention to everything I might like all semester. Paying attention to what makes me laugh, what makes me go quiet, what I need before I know I need it, and he applies the same attention here, reading every response I give him. I am completely undone by it. The tension that has been building since March, since the concert and the obstacle course and the restaurant hallway and the elevator ten minutes ago, since three years ago in a classroom where he dropped into the seat beside me and said but I'm here, aren't I? All of it concentrates into something that winds tighter and tighter, coiling deep in my belly, and I am panting, my nails digging into his back. He shifts his angle and suddenly he is hitting exactly the right spot, again and again, and the pressure is unbearable, it’s perfect, it is too much.

"Knox," I gasp, "I'm going to, I'm going to come⁠—"

"Let go," he says against my ear, his voice rough. "I've got you. Come for me, Emma."

And I do. My orgasm explodes through me, wave after wave of blinding, shattering pleasure, and I cry out, my body clenching around him. I hear myself say his name, then I don't hear much of anything for a while as the world fades to silence, and every nerve in my body sings.

Knox follows me over the edge seconds later, his face pressed into my hair, my name on his breath, and then he's still, and we're both holding on to each other and breathing like we've run something.

But he’s still not done.

The next time is different. It’s less desperate, more thorough. I end up with my hands wrapped around the headboard and Knox with a grip on my hips, pounding into me from behind. When I go over the edge this time it's deeper and longer. Knox is right behind me, and we're both wrecked, breathing hard, and I am staring at the comforter on the bed wondering if I’m going to be this satisfied for the rest of my life. I think I’d like that.

He rolls behind me and gathers me against his chest and his mouth finds my shoulder, warm and unhurried.