Page 141 of Promise Me Sunshine

I freeze and melt at the same time. There’s a quick flipbook of moments that skim past. Miles with his eyes closed on this very couch, on the tattoo table, beside the swimming hole, on the floor at his mother’s house. Never sleeping, just savoring. Committing it all to memory. Committingmeto memory.

I still haven’t replied and his eyes come open. He tries to lift his head to better see me but I stop him with an open mouth at his neck. I kiss his throat slowly, letting heat bloom against his skin, tasting him.

I make it to his shoulder and test his rounded muscle with my teeth. He grunts and when I check, his eyes are closed again. Now that I know he’s burning me into his brain, I couldn’t love it more. I scoot up and kiss one of his closed eyes and he pounces. Landing his mouth on mine.

It’s gotta be a bad angle for him so I slide off his back and land my knees on the floor, next to the couch, kissing him with all I’m worth. He’s draping an arm over me, leaning off the couch to get closer to me, and I’m drawing him backward, down to the floor. He comes willingly, immediately. I lie out on my back and he crawls over top of me. One glance down shows me that his pal is poking out of the top band of his underwear, desperate to get to me.

Desperate is a wonderful thing.

I touch his hips, his stomach, lock my legs around his back, and to my utter delight, I note that his hands have turned into fists on either side of my head.

I take one of those fists and put it on my chest and it immediately transforms into a warm, open palm, an attentive thumb. He tests and presses and has to stop everything to watch his own hand touch me.

“Bed, take two,” I request on a gasp.

He looks up, takes a long pull at my mouth, and then shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

“What?”

“Remember the panicking like ten minutes ago? Let’s go slow.”

I’m not sure what his definition of slow is, considering he’s kissing his way down my throat and sucking my nipple into his mouth. I arch off the floor and an idea occurs to me.

I sit up and he goes immediately backward, giving me space.

I want, very badly, to see him crawl toward me again. I scoot back, spread my legs, bite my lip. It has the intended effect. Miles is all shoulders, collarbone, and pecs, crawling toward me and then there’s stubble at my neck. Wet heat on my breasts, firm hands at my ass, yanking me toward him. Again, I pull back from him, scooting backward. Again, he crawls toward me. This time, a glint in his eye.

He finally gets my intention when we get to the doorframe of the bedroom. He looks up from where he’s been tongue-kissing my rib cage and realizes where I’ve dragged us. He saidno bed,I saidwhy not.

I go for the kill stroke, sitting on my heels—the picture of obedience. “Please.”

He’s a strong man, maybe the strongest I’ve ever met. But he’s not strong enough to withstand that.

I’m lifted up and tossed bodily onto the bed, laughing and turned on and delighted.

He joins me there, crawling over me again, his eyes are horny as hell and everywhere, he likes what he sees and he can’t kiss me as many places as he’d like to all at once. There are teeth at my hip. He tongues my thigh, then he’s back up to my mouth, my neck. A big hand draws a map from my sternum down to my belly button and down to the waistband of my underwear. I take initiative and do the same to the beautiful body in front of me.

We read each other’s eyes and cross each other’s waistbands at the same moment, breaking eye contact when sensation takes the wheel. Miles is smooth and firm in my hand. He’s got teeth against my collarbone and two fingers between my legs.

We’re banded together by his arm at my back, holding me in place. He’s breathing through his teeth and suffering against pleasure. All at once, I have to stop my explorations of him and grab the bed behind my head. Because he’s pressing those fingers inside. I say his name and see nothing but his dark, promising smile. He watches my face and patiently pushes me closer and closer. I think I’m giving instructions, I think I’m asking for something, I think I’m begging. He takes it all and turns it into magic. I cling to him and go stiff as lightning, arching toward the afterlife, held to earth by Miles, brought all the way there and all the way back by the man saying my name into my hair.

I fall back to the bed, laughing into my hands, curling onto my side, dimly aware that the world still turns. Miles is sitting on his heels, breathing like he’s been running and studying me. The second I start working my underwear downmy legs, he strips them off me. He’s pulling my knees open, situating his shoulders.

“Look at me.”

I follow directions immediately, up on my elbows.

“I’ll always take care of you, Lenny.” He kisses my thigh. “Tell me you know that.”

“I know it. I swear I know it.”

He open-mouth kisses me between my legs and I’m a goner. I writhe and plead and tell him everything I want. He’s got me so close again, with that persistent, patient mouth. But this time…

“Miles.”

He lifts up. He looks heavily drugged.

“I wantthat,” I say, pointing between his legs. “Here or here.” I point to my top half and then my bottom half. “Take your pick.”

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