Page 68 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
Every part.
And he reached out, both hands this time, and cupped her waist like she was something sacred.
She stepped closer, until their bodies met in the space between breath and burn.
And she tilted her head, slowly, achingly, until her mouth was just a breath away from his.
She waited.
And he closed the distance.
Their lips met with no rush. No violence. Just slow, unfolding gravity.
The kiss wasn’t sweet. It was full.
A beginning written in language older than sound.
The kiss unraveled her.
Not with hunger. Not with teeth or heat or desperation. But with something far more dangerous. Patience.
It was the kind of kiss that rewrote breath, that moved slowly enough to feel sacred. Their mouths moved in unison, with the strange, aching sync of two people who had never done this and somehow still remembered how. She felt the ridging on his tongue and shivered, remembering how he had used it before.
Nora’s fingers curled into his skin, his chest, his shoulders, his sides, and he let her. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull back, didn’t try to take more than what she gave. He just breathed her in like she was air after too long underwater.
Her body pressed into his without hesitation now. The moment for doubt had passed somewhere between her nightshirt hitting the floor and her palm resting above the place where his heart should be. If he even had one. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that something beat there, and it echoed in her.
When she gasped into his mouth, his hands found her waist again, and one slid up the curve of her side, his fingers brushing the underside of her breast like he was testing the edge of a dream he wasn’t sure he’d earned.
She guided him higher.
He exhaled hard when she did.
Nora’s lips left his just long enough to breathe his name. Her forehead touched his. Their noses grazed.
“Touch me,” she whispered again. “Really.”
He made a low sound. Almost a growl, but not rough. It was full of something else. Restraint and worship and something cracked open.
His hand cradled her breast now, his thumb brushing lightly over her nipple, and she pressed into him. It wasn’t because she needed more, but because she needed exactly this. To be here. With him. With someone who didn’t try to own her but still saw all of her.
The contact set off a reaction deep inside her, low and slow and rising. Her back arched, her breath caught, and her hips tilted forward until her bare stomach brushed the ridges of his.
He made another sound, deeper this time, more shaken, and his arms wrapped around her fully, pulling her in.
Their skin met.
Chest to chest. Belly to belly.
Her thighs touched the curve of his, and god, the size of him.
He was hard already. But not moving. Just there.
Heavy. Wanting. Held back like a wave with nowhere to crash.
Nora let out a soft, startled breath that turned into a quiet laugh. She tilted her chin up, looked at him, and saw that he was trembling.
His eyes were half-closed. His jaw tight. His body vibrating like he was holding back the ocean with the palms of his hands.
