Page 447
“The one where I told you I wouldn’t hold back when I finally had you again.”
Milwaukee throws pale light through the blinds, striping my bed and the woman I have spent seven months imagining inside it. Her hair is tangled from my hands, her lips are swollen from my mouth, and the flush across her chest follows every place I touched in the kitchen.
I lower her onto the mattress.
Her body reluctantly releases mine, and a broken sound leaves both of us as I pull free. She reaches for me immediately, but I catch her wrists and press them against the bed above her head.
“That wasn’t it,” I tell her.
Charm stares up at me while her breathing remains uneven. “What wasn’t?”
“The kitchen.”
“You fucked me hard enough to rearrange your mail.”
“That was me losing my fucking mind because you were standing inside my apartment.” I settle one knee between her thighs and keep her wrists pinned beneath my hand. “I needed to get inside you before one of us started explaining what this means and ruined the explosion with emotional maturity.”
Her mouth twitches. “No-filter Charm approves.”
“The kitchen proved you’re real.” I lower myself until my chest brushes hers and our mouths remain separated by a breath. “This is where I give you everything I promised when all you had was my voice.”
Heat replaces the humor in her eyes.
“What did you promise?”
“You remember.”
“I want to hear you say it without a phone line between us.”
My mouth moves across hers without giving her the kiss she expects. “I told you I would take my time once I had you in my bed.”
“You did.”
“I told you I would put my mouth everywhere you wished your hands could reach through the phone.”
Her thighs shift around the knee between them.
“I told you I would take you apart so slowly that you forgot your own name, then put you back together while I whispered mine.”
Her breath catches.
I give the promise to her again in the language that has always carried the truths English makes too easy to weaken.
Quiero que esto dure toda la noche. Quiero deshacerte tan despacio que olvides hasta tu propio nombre. Quiero volver a armarte mientras te susurro el mío.
“I understood you the first time,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“Then why say it again?”
“Because the first time you had to imagine my mouth against you.”
I kiss her.
There is nothing frantic inside it. The violence of our reunion remains scattered across my kitchen floor. In this bed, I control the pace, and Charm gives it to me without fighting.
My tongue moves against hers while I hold her wrists above her head. She arches beneath me, trying to deepen the kiss, but I retreat every time she becomes impatient.
