Page 24

I don't hold back. He doesn't let me. When his tongue finds the rhythm I need, he stays there. Steady. Relentless. My hands knot in his hair. He makes a low sound against me that I feel all the way through my body.

"Ben," I say. Then louder. "Ben."

My thighs shake. The pleasure builds and builds. It coils tight and hot and then it breaks, and I cry out, loud, in the lamplit room. I slap a hand over my mouth.

He lifts his head. His beard is damp. His eyes are black. He's smiling.

"The wall," I gasp.

"There's nobody on the other side," he says.

"Right."

"Only a very empty house."

"Then I'm not going to be quiet," I say, and I take my hand away from my mouth.

He comes up over me and kisses me. I taste myself on him. It's the most erotic thing that has ever happened to me.

I push at his belt. He helps. His trousers go. I push him onto his back, and he lets me. I look at him. All of him. Long and hard and flushed dark. Real.

I swing a leg over his hips. My thighs settle wide on either side of him, the full soft weight of me pressing him into the mattress.

I wait for the old flinch.

It doesn't come. His hands slide up my thighs and close on my hips. Firm. Big enough to span the width of them. He holds on.

"Look at me," he says.

I look. His eyes are on my face, steady and unguarded.

"God," he says. "Hollis..."

I take him in my hand. He's hot and heavy in my palm. I guide him, and I sink down.

Slow.

He's big. I feel the stretch. The fullness. I go slow, an inch at a time, and his hands tighten on my hips.

"Hollis," he groans.

I sink all the way down. I'm full and shaking. He groans again, a deep, ragged sound, his head going back against my pillow. For a moment neither of us moves. His hands tighten. I feel every pulse in him.

"I could hold on to these for the rest of the night," he says, roughly.

"Then do."

I move.

I lift up, slow, and sink back down. Again. Again. I find my own pace, slow and rolling. My belly soft against him. My breasts swaying. My hair falling over my shoulders. His hands guide me without demanding, learning the rhythm of my hips.

I lean down and kiss him. I feel his hand slide up my spine and cradle the back of my head.

Then he moves.

He sits up, wrapping one arm around my waist, and turns us. He rolls me under him on the quilt without ever leaving my body. He braces over me on his forearms. I wrap my legs around his hips and pull.

"I won't break," I tell him.