Page 154 of One Last Encore

Her hair spilled across the rumpled sheets, a wild, golden halo, and her caramel eyes burned up at him, dark with desireand something deeper. Something that threatened to destroy him from the inside out.

She was a dream. A fucking prayer. How many nights had he spent tormenting himself with thoughts of her? How many times had he closed his eyes and ached to have her like this, only to wake up with nothing but memory? But this wasn’t a dream. She was here, beneath him. Real. Flesh and warmth and longing.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful," he breathed, the words torn from him.

She peeled the soft pink sweater over her head and let it fall from her hands, leaving her completely bare from the waist up. No bra. Just smooth, flushed skin, pert nipples already tightening under his ravenous gaze, curves he ached to worship with his hands, his mouth, his entire body.

She leaned back on her elbows, legs slightly parted, her little wool skirt riding high on her thighs, he could see the barest glimpse of lace under her tights.

"Fuck," he groaned, utterly broken, before he crashed back down to her.

Her hands were still clutching the crumpled five-dollar bill from earlier, the little scrap of the life they were already rebuilding together. He gently pried it from her grip, pressing a kiss to her trembling knuckles, and set it on the nightstand.

His mouth found her throat, dragging slow, wet kisses along the frantic beat of her pulse. She gasped and arched into him, her fingers tunneling into his hair, tugging him closer.

"The first thing I fell in love with was your loyalty," he murmured, voice thick with desire as his mouth brushed lower, teasing over the swell of her breast.

"The way you fight for the people you love..." His tongue flicked over her nipple, slow and firm, pulling a broken gasp from her lips. She arched against him helplessly, her backbowing, thighs tightening around his hips, trying to drag him closer.

His hands traced the soft curve of her ribs, grazing the sensitive underside of her breasts, just barely brushing her skin.

"Then it was your strength," he whispered against her ear, sending a shiver straight down her spine. He kissed the spot beneath her ear, his scruff rasping over her skin as he let the words sink deep into her trembling body.

His fingers drifted lower, skimming the softness of her stomach, making her gasp and rock into him instinctively, silently pleading for more.

"Your grace," he rasped, drinking in the way her lashes fluttered, the way her body trembled with the force of her need. He hadn't even truly touched her yet, and she was already coming apart for him, beautiful and desperate.

His thumbs hooked into the waistband of her skirt and tights together, dragging them down in one slow, merciless motion. He peeled her bare inch by inch, savoring every fucking second, until she lay before him in nothing but the sheer lace stretched taut between her thighs.

He threw the skirt and tights to the floor without looking, too consumed by the sight of her trembling. For him. Only for him.

Déjà vu slammed into him, memories of the first time he'd seen her like this, years ago, the way she'd clung to him then, the way she was looking at him now. Changed, but somehow still the same. Still his.

He dragged his mouth up her thighs, pressing bruising kisses against the quivering muscles until he reached the slick, lacy barrier between them. With a guttural groan, he mouthed against the soaked fabric, the heat of her making his cock throb painfully. She keened, hips lifting off the bed, chasing his mouth.

"Your determination," he said raggedly, kissing her just above the lace, just below her belly button, making her wholebody shudder. He tugged down the ruined scrap of lace down her thighs and tossed it aside, exposing her fully to his starving eyes. Her pussy was dripping for him, pink and glistening, her clit swollen and begging for his mouth, his fingers, his cock–everything he had.

"Your beauty," he murmured roughly, as his hands roamed over her like a man lost in worship. "Just the cherry on top."

Her eyes locked with his, wide and dark and burning with the same desperate, soul-deep need ripping him apart from the inside out.

He shifted lower, trailing hot kisses down her stomach, lingering at the faded marks at her hips, kissing them. His hands cradled her hips like she was something sacred, a gift he'd been searching for his whole damn life.

"I love you," he whispered, the words branding into her skin. A shudder tore through her, her fingers weaving tightly into his hair.

When his mouth finally found the slick, needy heat between her thighs, she cried out, her hips jerking violently against his face. He groaned, the raw, addictive taste of her flooding his mouth, sending a jolt of hunger straight to his cock.

He licked a slow, deliberate stripe up her soaked slit, his tongue swirling around her swollen clit, teasing it. She bucked under him, grinding her pussy against his mouth, desperate for more friction, more pressure.

He devoured her like a man starved, flattening his tongue and dragging it over her again and again, then closing his lips around her clit and sucking hard, wringing ragged, broken moans from her lips. He slipped two fingers inside her tight, fluttering heat, and she gasped, her body clenching greedily around him, so wet, so ready for him.

He fucked her slow and deep with his fingers, curling them inside her, stroking that sweet spot, while his mouth never letup. Every broken whimper, every desperate cry she gave him, he drank down like it was the first sip after a drought.

When she shattered, she screamed his name, her entire body convulsing, locking around his fingers and tongue. But he didn’t stop. He kept working her through it, licking her, coaxing more desperate cries from her until she was trembling violently, sobbing from the force of her release.

Only when she collapsed against the mattress, spent and twitching, did he finally lift his mouth from her, his lips and chin slick with her release, his heart hammering so hard it hurt.

"I want you inside me," she breathed, her voice rough and pleading.

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