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My fingers aren't steady. The first button fights me. The second slips free. By the third he's watching my hands instead of my face, his chest rising harder beneath my knuckles. I twist toward him on the cushion, one knee bent against his thigh, and work every button loose until the shirt hangs open. I push it off his shoulders. He shrugs out of the sleeves without taking his eyes off me.

Firelight moves over him. The broad chest, the dark hair trailing down his stomach, the ridges of muscle I remember and the ones I don't. Seven years have only made him harder.

I flatten my palm over his heart. It pounds against my hand.

Ross catches my wrist and holds it there for a second. Then he drags my hand lower, over his stomach, down to his belt.

"Open it."

The buckle is cold under my fingers. I pull the leather through, pop the button, and ease the zipper down. The thick length of him strains against his briefs beneath my knuckles. He hisses through his teeth.

Then he's on his feet.

He reaches down and flicks open my trousers. I lift my hips, and he peels them down my legs and tosses them onto the armchair.

He doesn't sit back down.

He stands over me, his trousers open and hanging low on his hips, the fire outlining him in gold, and he looks. From my bare feet to my thighs, to the black lace between them, to my bra, my throat, my mouth. He takes his time with every inch, and my skin burns everywhere his eyes land.

"Christ, Blaire."

I press my knees together. His jaw flexes. He noticed.

He sits, hooks an arm around my waist, and hauls me across the cushion onto his lap. My knees sink into the sofa on either side of his hips. The hard ridge of him presses right between my thighs, with nothing but lace and cotton between us.

He kisses me like he's starving.

His hands spread across my back, crushing me against his chest, and his tongue sweeps into my mouth, deep and possessive. I roll my hips before I can stop myself. He groans into me, grips my waist, and grinds me down harder.

His fingers climb my spine to the clasp of my bra. One twist. The straps go slack. He peels it down my arms and drops it on the floor.

He leans back just enough to look.

Then his mouth closes over my nipple.

He sucks hard, pulling it deep, his tongue circling the tightening bud before his teeth graze it. A sharp sound escapes my throat. I bury both hands in the hair at the back of his head and hold him there while he moves to my other breast. He licks and sucks and bites down until I arch against his mouth and my hips rock on their own over the thick length trapped beneath me.

He comes back to my mouth. The kiss turns messy, all teeth and tongue and ragged breath. I fist his hair, and he lets me.

His hands slide down my back, over the curve of my ass, and settle on my thighs. He squeezes, fingers digging into the flesh, spreading my legs wider across his lap. Then his thumbs travel inward. Higher. They slip beneath the edge of my panties and find me.

I'm soaked. I know it before he does, and then he knows it too. He drags one finger through my folds, slowly, from my entrance up to my clit and back down. My breath breaks against his lips. He brings the finger to his mouth and sucks it clean, eyes locked on mine. Then he pulls me in by the back of my neck and puts his lips against my ear.

"Sit on my face."

It's barely louder than a breath. Rough. Not a request.

My stomach drops.

He's already moving, sliding lower until his head rests against the arm of the sofa and his body stretches out beneath me. He hooks his fingers in the lace at my hips and yanks. The fabric rips. He flings the ruined scrap aside.

"Up."

His hands on my ass guide me forward, over his chest, until my knees sink into the cushions on either side of his head and I'm bare and dripping above his mouth. I grab the back of the sofa. Shadows from the fire jump across the wall in front of me. I look down. His blue eyes stare up at me from between my thighs.

He pulls me down.

The first stroke of his tongue is flat and slow, dragged along the full length of me, and my whole body jolts. He does it again. And again. He laps me from my entrance to my clit, tasting every part of me like he's relearning a map he used to know by heart. My knuckles go white on the back of the sofa.