Page 38 of Riggs
Sometimes home isn’t a place… it’s a person. A feeling.
Right now, with Riggs at my side, I feel like I’m home.
“You have such a pretty smile,” he whispers close to my ear as we cross over the threshold of our room.
The man is a pure charmer. Not in the showy way where every woman on the planet gets a piece of it, but in a private way. Only for me.
And that thought turns me on more than anything.
“You have a great smile too,” I say back, “when you do smile.”
And there it is in all his glory.The smile.The Riggs-being-happy smile. It starts slowly, and then explodes over his face like a sunrise. I can’t help staring at him, and he makes the view even better by lifting his t-shirt and tossing it onto the bed.
“I’ve smiled more since I met you than I have any other time in my life.”
“I’ll send you a bill.” I laugh, and he inches closer.
“I’ll gladly pay it.” His arms wrap around my waist and I suck in a deep breath.
His mouth captures mine and the whole room tilts. He kisses like he does everything else—present, patient, sure—and I feel that smile curve against my lips before it deepens, before it turns into something I can taste.
Pine. Heat. A low sound in his chest that answers the one I didn’t mean to make.
His hands bracket my waist, thumbs kneading once at the dip of my spine like he’s reminding my body where it loves to live. The world shrinks to the path his palms trace—up my ribs, over my shoulder blades, down again to my hips—mapping me like muscle memory he’s determined to get perfect.
“Vanessa,” he says against my mouth, voice rough as velvet. “Tell me if?—”
“I’ll tell you,” I promise, tugging him closer by the belt loop because I like the way that pulls a breath from him. “I’ll tell you to keep going.”
That wrecks him a little. I feel it in the way his control flares, then settles into a steadier burn. He kisses me again, slower, and I rise to meet it, fingers slipping under the waistband at his back, palms skimming heat and hard lines. There’s a scar on his left side I haven’t traced in this light; I follow it with the tip of my finger. He inhales and catches my hand, pressing his mouth to my knuckles like thanks.
He walks me backward, step by careful step, until the back of my knees meet the mattress. We tumble and laugh, and then thelaugh dissolves into a sigh when he settles over me, propped on his forearm so his weight is a comfort, not a question.
“Hi,” I whisper, ridiculously.
“Hi,” he echoes, just as ridiculous. His eyes are dark and bright all at once, that sunrise smile still ghosting his mouth like it refuses to leave. “You good?”
“Better than.” I pull him down for another kiss to prove it.
Clothes become a negotiation we both win—fabric lifting, sliding, pooling warm at our hips. He’s unhurried even when every part of me begs him not to be. It makes me greedier for him, makes the air around us thrum. He kisses along my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear, the place at my collarbone that turns my breath jagged. I thread my fingers into his hair and tug, and he answers with a quiet curse like prayer and mouths lower, painting reverence across my skin until my thoughts blur.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs, the words gliding against my throat.
“You,” I say a bit shamelessly. “All of you. Here.” I guide him with a palm and he follows, meeting me exactly where I need, exactly how I need, as if we’ve practiced this a lifetime in dreams.
He pauses, fisting his dick with one hand, pressing it at my entrance. I nod, ready for more. He slides into me, one delicious inch at a time. I moan out long and hard, ready for more. We move together. Slow at first, learning each other again in this heat, then finding a rhythm that feels inevitable. My hands slide over his shoulders, down the long line of his back as his thumb draws circles at my hip that make electricity skitter up my spine. Every time my breath stutters he chases it, steadies it. And everytime his control frays I anchor him with a kiss, a whisper, his name.
“Just us,” I remind him, because the words make something inside me open. “Right now.”
“Just us,” he answers, voice rough, mouth crashing softly to mine like he needs to taste the reminder.
When the world tips, it’s like tide over warm sand—inevitable, consuming, sweet. I break on a gasp and he follows with a groan that sounds like my name. We hold on. We ride it out. The room blurs to a light pulse and then settles back into shape around us.
He doesn’t roll away. He gathers me in, chest to chest, our foreheads touching, breath mingling in a small, quiet storm. I feel his heartbeat under my palm and let mine match it the way he taught me. Four in. Hold. Four out. Hold. It’s ridiculous and perfect that I count even now, but it makes him smile and kiss my temple like he knows exactly what I’m doing.
“No rules,” I whisper, smiling into his jaw because my mouth won’t stop finding him. “Remember?”
He huffs a laugh. “Except the good ones.” He tucks the sheet up over my shoulder and drags his knuckles down my arm in a slow, grounding sweep. “Water in five. Your favorite pillow in thirty seconds. Door wedge… already in.”
