Page 27 of Sweet and Salty

Maybe she’s in the space between sleeping and awake?—

The leg slung over my hips moves, a subtle rocking that has every single one of my senses waking up and standing at attention.

I remain quiet, anticipation slicing through me.

Her hand travels over the T-shirt I wear, down to the hem before she slides her fingers beneath it to touch my abdomen. She explores there, languid touches that have a smile shaping my lips.

The little vixen is awake and needy.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Kitten,” I whisper.

“Not like I haven’t played it before,” she whispers right back, her eyes fluttering open to look up at me. It’s dark in her room, not even close to dawn yet, but the silver moonlight from her window illuminates the space enough for me to see that she’s smiling.

“What if I’d stayed asleep?” I tease.

“I knew you were awake,” she says, her touch more intentional now along my abdomen. “You slept in your clothes?” she tugs at my pants.

“You were mostly asleep when you asked me to stay in bed with you,” I say. “Did you expect me to strip down?”

“You could’ve,” she says.

My eyebrows raise at that.

“You could now,” she adds before I can respond.

I swallow hard, the playfulness shifting to something more serious. “You want me to?”

“I just want you,” she says so mater-of-factly it takes me a second to register her words.

I study the lines of her face and smooth my hand along the thigh draped over me. “You sure you want to do this?”

“More than anything,” she says. “I know I’m safe with you, Owen. I knew it that night on the rooftop, and I know it more than ever now. I want you. I wantmoreof you.”

My heart does this weird thing in my chest at her declaration, and fire courses through my veins at the need in her voice.

“But,” she adds quickly. “I don’t want you to feel obligated,” she continues, nerves coating her tone. “Just because we’ve been intimate once…twice, doesn’t mean we have to keep it up.”

“You’re all I’ve wanted since the second you left me on that rooftop, Kitten,” I say. “But I wanted to make sure you were ready to take that step again.” I won’t take chances. I need her clear consent before taking things one step further.

“I want you,” she says again, eyes clear as her intentions. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone. The rooftop, the stairwell, and more than that…lunches at the office, morning coffees, tonight watching that ridiculous show. I like it all.”

I smile down at her, sliding my hand on her thigh toward the globe of her ass and back again. “I like you too, Kitten,” I say, shifting toward her to bring our mouths closer together. I span the distance, brushing my lips over hers. “You have no idea the things I’ve imagined doing to you since that first night on the roof. All the ways I want to take care of you.”

She grins against my kiss, pulling away enough to look at me. “Show me.”

Heat bolts down my spine at her demand, and I kiss her quickly before rolling atop her, shifting her easily beneath me. Her fingers go for my shirt, and I help her needy hands and pull it off, tossing it on the floor.

I bend down, pushing up her shirt to kiss her stomach, taking my time as I work my way up. She lifts up just enough for me to tug the shirt over her head, throwing it to join mine on the floor.

She’s bare beneath it, her nipples pert against the exposure of air. I dip to kiss one breast, massaging the other. I take a nipple in my mouth, sucking it hard before soothing the sting with my tongue, moving to repeat the motion on the other one. Zoe arches beneath me, gasping with every touch of my lips to her skin.

I grin at her, kissing my way down her stomach, and over her hips, until I hook my fingers in her pajama bottoms. She lifts her ass, and I tug the fabric down and off her legs, tossing it to the floor and growling at the sight of her bare beneath me.

“Fuck, Zoe,” I say, drinking her in. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

She exceeds every fantasy I could’ve ever dreamed up. That first night had been fast, only dropping and shifting what we needed to for me to sink inside her. Tonight? She’s laid herself bare and I can’t get enough.

“You’re turn,” she says, eying my pants.

---