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“In a hurry?” he teased, his voice rough.

“Shut up,” I breathed.

He grinned and kissed me again, harder, pressing me into the mattress. His weight settled over me, and I stopped thinking about anything at all. He kissed my jaw, then my throat, his lips dragging slow and deliberate down the column of my neck. I felt the graze of his teeth at my pulse point and sucked in a breath, gasping, “Damon.”

His mouth moved lower. He kissed the hollow of my throat, then the top of my sternum, his hands sliding up my sides as he worked his way down. His lips pressed to the curve of my breast above the fabric of my bra, soft and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.

“You have no idea,” he murmured against my skin, “how long I’ve thought about this.”

His fingers found the clasp of my bra and unhooked it in one smooth motion. He drew the straps down my arms and tossed it aside, and then he just looked at me for a moment, his chest rising and falling, his eyes moving over me in a way that made heat crawl up my neck.

Then he lowered his head and sucked my nipple between his lips. My back arched, pressing my flesh into his mouth. His tongue circled slowly, deliberately, and I felt the pull of it low in my belly, a deep ache that spread outward. He cupped the weight of my breast in his palm, his thumb brushing the other nipple while his mouth worked, and I pressed the back of my hand against my lips to muffle the sound that came out of me.

He lifted his head just enough to look up at me. His expression was devastatingly calm.

“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“Muffle yourself.” His thumb traced a slow circle. “I want to hear you.”

Then he lowered his mouth to the other side and did it again.

By the time he kissed his way down my stomach, I was trembling. His lips pressed to my navel, then to the soft skin just below it, his hands sliding down my sides to my hips. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my sweats and underwear together and drew them slowly down my legs, his mouth following the path—a kiss to my hip, one to the inside of my thigh, one to my knee—until the fabric cleared my ankles and he dropped it to the floor.

He straightened and looked at me.

I was completely bare. He was still half-dressed. The imbalance should have made me self-conscious. Instead, the way he was looking at me made me feel like the most wanted thing in the world.

He placed both hands on my inner thighs and spread them gently apart.

I exhaled in a rush.

He lowered himself between my legs and pressed his lips to the inside of my right thigh, close, so close, and then moved away, kissing a slow trail toward my knee. I made a frustrated sound, and he huffed a quiet laugh against my skin.

“Patience,” he murmured.

“I hate you,” I breathed.

He kissed back up the inside of my left thigh, achingly slow, and when he finally, finally, pressed his mouth against my sex, my hips lifted off the mattress without my permission.

His hands gripped my waist, holding me down, and he kissed my sex the way he’d kissed my mouth, warm and certain, like he’d been thinking about exactly this. His tongue moved in a slow, deliberate stroke, and I grabbed a fistful of the sheets.

“Oh god⁠—”

He did it again. And again. Finding a rhythm that made my thighs tremble against his shoulders, my breath coming in short, broken pulls. Every time I tensed toward something, he felt it. I was certain he felt it, because he would ease back just slightly, change the pressure, slow down, and drag me back from the edge without letting me fall.

“Damon—” His name came out fractured.

He hummed against me, the vibration radiating through every nerve ending I had, and my fingers found his hair, gripping, holding him there.

He pulled me right to the precipice. I was right there, my whole body coiled and shaking, and then his mouth gentled, slowed, and softened to nothing.

I let out a sound that was almost a sob.

He pressed one last, unhurried kiss to my inner thigh and then raised his head to look at me. His lips were flushed, his eyes dark, his expression somewhere between wrecked and deeply, infuriatingly pleased with himself.

“Not yet,” he said quietly.