Burn It Up(81)

So many times, he’d asked her what she needed, here in this bed. Tonight he wouldn’t have to ask. She’d show him with her body, tell him with her words, unbidden.

She stroked his hair, his face, his arms. “You feel good.”

He moaned, hips speeding.

“I like that,” she whispered. “When you go faster.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled, nodded. “I like seeing what I do to you.” And someday she wanted to hear it, too, just like he’d said. The two of them, alone, and that voice she loved so much, unbridled.

So tell him so. “I want to know how you’d sound, if we were alone.”

“And I wish I could let you hear it.”

“Give me a taste. Just quiet, in my ear.”

He shifted lower, weight on his forearms, and put his mouth to her temple. His breath alone was enough to tighten her sex around his.

“Wouldn’t be quiet at all, if I had my way.” He was so close, she could hear his lips and tongue shaping each word.

“Just a taste.”

His hips slowed, and that voice dropped as low as she’d ever known it. A dark moan rose and peaked each time he drove deep. Her fingers curled against his back, nails digging, and she hugged her legs tight to his waist.

“You like it fast, though,” he whispered, and nipped at her ear, took her a little quicker. He gave her the sound of his breaths, raw and tight, until she was pawing, panting, squirming beneath him.

“You ever touch yourself, honey?”

“Sometimes.” She felt that familiar trickle of shame cool her body, melted in a beat by the fire raging between them.

“Do that now,” he said. “Let me see. Let me feel you come, with me inside you, just like this.”

She’d never done that—never dared to, never imagined it was an option. She’d have thought such a measure would hurt a man’s ego, though once again, she’d not counted on Casey Grossier.

“I’ll let you see, if you let me watch you,” she told him. “Lean back a little.”

He gave more than that, planting his knees wide, sitting upright, holding her hips. He let her see everything happening between them, and she feasted her eyes. When her hand slid down her belly to tease her sex, she felt no shame, no embarrassment. Watching his hips roll, his muscles clench, watching his skin, flushed and gleaming in the lamplight . . . she was too full up with lust to leave room for anything else. Too full up with lust to just lie there, in fact.

“I want to be on top.”

His parted lips curved to a smile. “Oh, do you?”

“Yeah.”

He gathered her in his arms, hauled her up so she was in his lap, then lowered himself, head at the foot of the bed. He bent his knees, seating her tight against him. His hands urged her hips, his gaze locked to her breasts, and she found that same sweet spot as the last time, that friction that made her feel like an animal. She took her pleasure with no self-consciousness, only naked aggression. When she came, she let him see it—whatever was written across her face—let him hear. Hell, let the whole damn town hear it, and the heavens above. Nothing that felt this good could possibly be wrong.

He came mere moments after she did, holding her hips still, pumping his own until his back arched and his eyes shut, his teeth clenched. She watched with wonder, drunk off him. When his pleasure finally let him go, he urged her to lie with him, pulling her tight to his panting body, back to chest.

“Jesus,” he huffed into her hair.

She grinned, giggled, clasped his wrist at her waist and sighed.

“Good?” he asked, and kissed her shoulder.

“Better than just good. Fun.” Not an adjective she was used to assigning to sex.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was. And different. Every time, you’re different.”

“You make me different,” she whispered. “I like it.”

They fell silent, and she felt his breath grow slow and steady against her nape, felt his heaving ribs settle into a lulling pulse against her back.

He’s right. That was different. Different, even, than it had felt yesterday.

A lot’s changed since yesterday. He’d shared something big with her, and his whole life was opened up wide before him.

And there was more, of course. She was falling for him, undeniably. She wanted more than he’d been prepared to offer, and more than she even knew if she was prepared to admit. Not without knowing the darker details of the past he seemed ready to leave behind.

And I have to tell him, before my heart wanders too far off to ever call back. Before Mercy, none of it would have mattered. But before Mercy, Abilene’s own best interests had never much mattered to her.

“I have something I need to say to you,” she said as their bodies cooled. Neither had spoken in ten minutes or more, and already her voice had gone a little shaky.

He must have noticed, as he moved immediately, sitting up cross-legged beside her. Abilene did the same, pulling the blanket over their laps.

“What is it?”

“I’m nervous,” she admitted.

He smiled. “So am I now, but that’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

She looked to her hands, took a final, deep breath, and leapt. “Well, I, um . . . I like you. You have to know that by now, the way things have been. But what we both decided before, about how it can’t be anything serious . . .”