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When I kissed her again, I took my time, pouring everything I wasn't quite ready to say—and she wasn’t ready to hear—into the gentle press of my lips against hers. She melted into me, her fingers curling against my chest, and I held her a little closer, wishing I could somehow make this moment last forever.

Whatever tomorrow brought, whatever fears or uncertainties waited beyond these walls, I would never let her wonder if she was enough. If she was what I wanted. If she mattered.

Because she did. More than she could possibly know.

23

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE MATTRESS

Mikayla

Damon’s hands framed my face, thumbs tracing my cheekbones, with a deliberate slowness that made my breath catch. His calloused pads dragged heat across my skin as his palms slid down to the slope of my neck, fingers splaying against the vulnerable hollow of my throat. His palms pressed just hard enough that I felt my own pulse buck against them, rapid and erratic. His eyes darkened, the intensity in his stare caused my body to flood with tingles.

He continued his exploratory descent, down my collarbone, skimming over the cage of my ribs. I shivered as his fingertips grazed the sensitive curve beneath each breast, skimming without stopping, denying me what I suddenly wanted with desperate urgency. Lower still to my hips, where his broad palms settled and gripped, released, gripped again, fingers digging into soft flesh before letting go only to return harder. His hands moved with a maddening patience, discovering every place that made my breath catch. He was learning the give of my body inch by inch with methodical and deliberate attention, as if there was going to be a test later and he intended to ace it.

Needing to feel him, all of him, I tugged at his waistband, and he grinned, slow and wicked, and let me work the sweats down to his thighs. His cock curved up toward his stomach, already fully hard. As he kicked off his sweats, I wrapped my fingers around the base and felt the heat of him pulse against my palm—a slow, steady throb that matched the one building between my own legs.

He growled at the contact, low in his chest, not protesting but warning: the sound of a man calculating exactly how much longer he intended to be patient.

Not long, as it turned out.

He yanked my T-shirt up, bunching the fabric above my breasts and leaving them bare to the cool air of the room. Then his mouth closed over my left nipple, and I stopped thinking entirely. My spine arched off the mattress, shoulders pressing down while my chest pushed up into him, chasing the pressure of his lips.

My hands found his shoulders and gripped, fingernails leaving crescent imprints in his skin. He sucked harder in response, tongue flicking across the stiffened peak, and I felt the sensation travel in a direct line downward, a hot wire pulled taut from my breast to the base of my pelvis.

His free hand traced a slow path down my stomach, fingers spread wide, heel of his palm dragging across my navel. He took his time. He always took his time, even when I was already shaking. His fingers dipped beneath the waistband of my panties and cupped me, not moving yet, just holding—feeling how wet I was, how ready. I heard him exhale through his nose.

Then he moved. Two fingers traced the full length of my opening, barely parting me, exploring the slick folds with a light, maddeningly deliberate touch. He worked the sensitive outer edges first, tracing slow circles that never quite reached where I needed them most. He alternated the smooth pads of his fingertips with the rougher drag of his palm until my hips were rolling against his hand, seeking friction he kept just out of reach.

“Damon—” His name came out broken.

He answered by pressing two fingers inside me, knuckle-deep, and grinding the heel of his hand flat against my clit. I bit down on the curve of his shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark, muffling the sound that tore out of me. He worked his fingers in a slow, curling stroke, finding the spot that made my thighs clamp around his wrist, and ground his palm against the knot of nerves at the top of my sex at the same time.

The dual pressure was almost too much. My heels dug into the mattress. My whole body was shaking.

“You are so fucking tight,” he said, voice stripped raw, and I loved the sound of him when his composure slipped.

“And wet,” I managed, breathlessly. “For you.”

I tightened my grip on his shaft in answer, stroking from base to tip, and ran my thumb across the bead of fluid gathered at his slit. He shuddered—full-body, shoulders to hips—and when I twisted my wrist on the upstroke, his hips jerked forward.

He grinned against my breast and sucked my nipple harder, then bit it—just a nip, just enough sting. I moved my hips, grinding my sex against the heel of his palm. His tongue flattened and licked my puckered tip. When he began to flick it, my orgasm crested so fast I had no warning. One second, I was chasing it, and the next, it was everywhere, a white-hot contraction that started deep where his fingers were still curling against that tender inner spot and radiated outward in concentric waves.

My thighs trembled. My back lifted completely off the mattress. I heard myself make a sound that wasn’t a word, just pure vowel. My whole body clenched in rhythmic pulses around his fingers as I rode out my orgasm on his hand and shattered into a thousand pieces.

He felt it, too, the way I clenched around his fingers, the sounds I made when I came. He kissed my throat, my collarbone, the hollow at the base of my neck that felt like it was made for him alone.

As I drifted back to myself, a surge of desperation roared through me. I pushed his chest so he was flat on his back, and he let me, watching with the hint of a dare in his eyes. I knew how much he loved being in control in the bedroom and what it cost him to give that up.

I kissed down his chest, tasting soap and sweat and something underneath that was just him. I traced my tongue along the defined cut of his abs, following the line of dark hair below his navel until I reached the base of his steel-hard shaft. I took him in my hand first, pumping slowly, watching him swell in my palm, the veins standing out in sharp relief under thin skin. A fresh bead of fluid gathered at his tip, and I pressed my thumb across it, spreading it in a slow circle. His stomach contracted.

He was gorgeous. I said so, and he just hummed, low in his throat. I pressed my lips to his tip first, just a closed-mouth kiss, feeling the heat of him against my mouth. Then I parted my lips and took just the head inside, sealing around the ridge and sucking gently, working my tongue in a slow circle underneath where the skin was softest. He made a sound above me—something between a curse and a groan—and his hand came down to rest at the back of my head, not pushing, just resting. Feeling.

I took more of him, inch by inch, keeping my lips tight and my tongue flat against the underside, moving down until he hit the back of my throat and I had to breathe through my nose and relax the muscles there to take the rest. His thighs flexed. His hips twitched upward once, involuntarily, then stilled—deliberate restraint, barely held. I pulled back slow, dragging my lips up the full length of him, then sank back down, setting a rhythm. My hand worked the base where my mouth couldn’t reach, twisting slightly on each upstroke.

He was close. His breathing had gone ragged. His free hand was fisted in the sheets. I could feel the tension in his thighs against my shoulders, the effort it was costing him to stay still, to let me do this at my own pace, in my own way.

I pulled off him with a slow drag of my lips and moved up his body, straddling his hips, feeling the hard length of him press hot against the crease where my thigh met my core. His hands came to my hips automatically, steadying, not steering. His jaw was tight. His eyes were dark and fixed on my face with an intensity that made my breath catch.