“Wanna come upstairs?”
“Yeah.”
I grab the bag containing the two books I picked up at Powell’s in Portland so I can toss them on top of the already precarious pile on my night table and follow her up the stairs. We lock the bedroom door behind us and turn to each other at the same time. She rises onto tiptoes and I lean down, and our mouths meet, and just like that, so fast, it’s like the first time—okay, the first two first times—all over again, like we can’t slow down, can’t get enough. Like it’s been a year instead of just a handful of hours. The hungry way she kisses, the noises she makes, and the press of her body against mine make me so hot. She plucks at my clothes, ineffectually trying to get them out of her way, then her own, struggling to get herself naked, and I help her strip us both. She leans her head against my chest and I play between her wet folds, my fingers toying and circling and caressing, slipping and sliding in her liquid heat. When she’s panting and trying to fuck my hand, I pull her down on the bed with me. I draw her on top of me and start in on her breasts—I am positive that if I am patient I will be able to make her come just by teasing her nipples, and I’ve gotten her most of the way there when she jerks back and says, “Now, Sawyer, now,” and lunges toward the night table to retrieve a condom.
She topples the whole pile of books onto the floor, but neither of us can stop to pick them up. I grab for the condom, because all I can think about is getting it on and getting inside her.
Once I’m sheathed she climbs over me, and as soon as I penetrate her, she comes, crying out, a flush washing up her chest, like she’d been teetering on the edge and that extra pressure and stimulation was all she needed. Well, that and the fact that my mouth is full of her breast. I roll us over so I’m on top and begin fucking her as gently and slowly as I can—as slowly as I can stand to, really, because what I want to do is push and pound and thrust and—but it’s good, it’s so good, because this way I can watch the effects of each thrust, each inch, on her. The little sounds, the color changes, the closed eyes, the open, startled eyes, the bitten lip, her hands clutching the sheets. There’s a wild confusion in my chest again—lust and something fiercer and needier and way more complicated. Our gazes lock, and there’s no way I can look away. She’s asking me something with her eyes, and I try to answer. Yes. Yes, I’m here with you. I’ve got you.
You’re mine.
I’m not sure where the thought comes from, but almost as if she heard me she wraps her arms tight around me, pulling me closer, pressing her soft cheek against mine. “Sawyer,” she whispers, her breath against my ear. My chest constricts, but it’s not a bad feeling—it’s a sweet, half-forgotten sensation that makes me feel like we’re connected everywhere, not just where our bodies join. Like we’re one person, not two. “Oh, God, Sawyer—” She tips her hips, changes the angle on me, her breath warm in my ear, and damn it, I can’t hold back—we both come, clutching each other.
Dimly through the spasms of pleasure wracking me, I know I can’t let go of her.
I’m holding on in the vain hope of somehow not getting lost in the tumult inside.