Page 83 of Snake

Finally Autumn was checked in, her luggage was on its way, and Cox grabbed her hand and dragged her upstairs. He’d expected her to have the same room as before, but at the top of the stairs she pulled him down the corridor in the other direction, to a smaller room with a view of the rose garden and gazebo behind the inn.

When Autumn keyed the lock and they finally got into the room, Cox kicked the door closed and gave up all pretense of patience or restraint. Whatever was happening with this woman, whyever it was happening with her in particular, he was sick and fucking tired of thinking about it. He wanted to fucking feel her.

He grabbed her, yanked her to him, and slammed his mouth over hers. Surprise drew her taut, but only for a second, and then she jumped headfirst with him. Their mouths clashing wildly, their tongues seeking and meeting, they started tearing clothes off—each other’s and their own.

When he was out of his boots and everything but his now-open jeans, when she was down to a pair of lacy panties and nothing else, their mouths still dancing, their hands still painting sensation across each other’s skin, Cox walked her backward to the brass bed with its puffy, rose-patterned comforter. He lifted her and took her down to that soft landing, immediately moving on top of her.

Before he could go for her mouth again, or explore anywhere else, he felt a small hand on his shoulder, its arm wedged between them, holding him back.

“Cox ...” she gasped.

Gathering himself for a moment, he looked down at her. He wanted to tell her to hush; too much talk would get his brain asking questions again, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to savor her, only that. Completely that.

But he also didn’t want to overwhelm her.

So he said, “Unless you’re stoppin’ me, don’t talk.”

She perused his face for the span of two breaths. “Okay.” With that, the hand holding his shoulder slipped up to his hair, and she drew him down to her.

When he thought about this evening in the ink-dark days that followed—and he thought about it frequently, in desire, in regret, in sorrow, in need, in virtually every emotion he was capable of feeling—Cox would remember every detail of every second, but without photorealistic specificity. The afternoon, the whole night, would become like a raincloud in his mind, holding every atom of memory, but each softened in a misty haze.

He would remember the feel of her, her small, lithe body, the way it arched high when he sucked her tits, the way she squirmed when he tucked his face between her thighs and fed; the way she always twisted her legs around him, around his legs, his hips, his neck; the way her hands were never still, constantly seeking, stroking, pulling his hair, plowing bloody furrows up his back, flinging backward to grab the headboard when he threw her legs over his shoulders.

He would remember the sound of her, the soft sighs and bright cries, the whispered pleading and gasping encouragements, her sobbing scream when he made her come the fourth and final time that night.

He would remember the scent and taste of her, wildflowers and honey at her hair, her chest, mingling with musk between her thighs, the salty-sweet taste of her sweat.

And god in heaven, he would remember the sight of her, lying beneath him, sitting atop him, kneeling before him. He would remember her flashing metallic eyes, the thick velvet of her auburn hair, the deep flush across her chest and up her throat each time she came down from a climax.

He would remember his dumbstruck awe at how deeply he felt, how tightly he clung, how powerfully he came. Like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life. He would remember wondering if he’d been wrong that he didn’t want a partner. He would remember the way a powerful notion, as exciting as it was terrifying, had skittered through his head, disappearing through a crack in his mental baseboards before he could chase it down.

He would remember it all, the recollections at once keen and hazy, every day.

And he would remember exactly how he fucked it all up.

Chapter Twenty

Dawn streamed softly through the sweeps of lacy curtain at the windows, dropping golden kisses along all the edges in the room.

Autumn lay in a nest of fluffy pillows and bedding, spent and sore but somehow also rested and replete. What a night. Like nothing she’d experienced before. Crazily intense thoughts and feelings caromed in her head, but her limbs were languid. She could never move again in her life, and be perfectly content.

Cox lay on his side beside her, half over her, staring down at her with eyes sparking with shock. His blond hair, usually worn brushed back from his face, was a tousled mop around his head; she could detect trenches from the paths of her fingers through his loose waves. The shoulder of the arm he rested on was bunched with flexed muscle, the bicep swollen with bearing his weight.

He was so ... virile. Strong and fit and just ... powerful, in a way that was more than the strength in his muscles. There was a power in his person she’d never known in anyone else.

Fresh morning light caught a bead of sweat as it meandered down his temple to his cheek, making it sparkle. Autumn caught it on her fingertip and watched the light play through until it slipped along the side of her finger. Instinct made her bring her finger to her mouth and taste it.

After last night, she knew all the ways he tasted.

He watched her finger move into and from her mouth, licking his lips as he bent to claim a kiss. Her mouth was sore, her cheeks abraded from his beard, but it was a delightful pang, the way a sunburn carried memories of a perfect beach day.

They had to talk. Didn’t they? Something had changed in the hours since they’d left the groundbreaking—maybe it had changed before that, in the clubhouse, in his dorm room. For Autumn it felt significant, important, and she could look into Cox’s denim-blue eyes and see a similar shift happening for him as well. What else could that stunned expression stuck on his face mean?

Her certainty that nothing could be real between them was crumbling. Why couldn’t it be real? She was an intelligent, educated woman. He was an intelligent, experienced man. If they talked, surely they could figure out a way ... right? Cox wasn’t a big talker, okay, but he’d talk about this, right?

She brushed her fingers through his beard. When they passed over his lips, he caught her hand in his and pressed it to his mouth as his eyes fluttered closed.

Yes, he felt it, too.

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