Page 41 of Depths of Desire
The air between us pulsed with everything we didn’t say.
And when we moved together again, slow and unbearable, I knew this wasn’t a mistake.
This was the only thing that had made sense in weeks.
And I was going to hold onto it for as long as I could.
Every inch of him I touched felt like unlocking something forbidden. I dragged my hand over his abs, which tightened instinctively under my palms. My hands followed his torso down, grazing warm, bare skin, tracing muscle and bone, finding the notch above his hips where skin met fabric and temptation.
I wanted to touch him everywhere at once.
But I went slow.
His skin was flushed, chest rising and falling like he’d run miles, and I watched a bead of sweat trickle from his collarboneto the center of his chest. I leaned down and kissed the path it left behind.
He exhaled shakily.
My hands moved next to his waistband. My fingers slipped beneath the elastic, testing, teasing, then stopping. I looked up to see his eyes on me, dark, wide, neither scared nor hesitant. Just…burning.
He nodded.
So I kept going.
I slid his sweatpants down over his hips. They stuck slightly where he was hard, and I didn’t hide the way I paused to feel the shape of him, to palm it through his boxer briefs with aching reverence.
His hips lifted again to help me.
When the sweatpants were finally off, I pressed my palm flat to his thigh, feeling the muscle twitch under the touch, feeling the heat radiate off his skin in waves. His legs parted just slightly. An invitation. A warning.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
Then I moved to undo my own sweatpants. I didn’t rush it. I wanted him to see. To feel the shift in the air. I peeled them off and knelt above him in just my briefs, my body leaning down to kiss his stomach, my breath catching on every tremble beneath my lips.
I pressed our chests together again, skin to skin now. It hit me like a second heart beating too fast. His hands gripped my waist, his thumbs pressing into the small of my back like he wanted to pull me all the way inside him.
It wasn’t just physical. It was gravitational.
Every layer gone felt like stripping off the pretense, the distance, the excuses.
All that remained was us. Skin. Heat. Breath.
I kissed him again, slower this time, tasting the hunger that lived just beneath his skin. His tongue swept against mine with a quiet urgency, and he shifted beneath me like he couldn’t stand the space between us a second longer.
Then his hands moved down my back and around my hips, fingers grazing under the band of my briefs, tracing the curve where fabric met flesh. My breath hitched against his mouth, and I stilled, waiting, aching, letting him lead.
He exhaled through his nose, the sensation trembling against my cheek. His palms flattened against my lower back, thumbs slipping just below the hem. There was a moment, a flicker of something almost shy in his eyes, like wonder, like reverence, and then he hooked his thumbs and started to pull.
The slow drag of fabric down my thighs burned. It wasn’t fast or rushed or casual. It was deliberate. It was intimate. It was Oliver looking up at me like he was watching something sacred unfold. His knuckles brushed my skin, and I shivered as the briefs slipped lower, baring more of me, letting the air bite places that had only known heat moments before.
His gaze dropped, just for a second. Just long enough to see. To breathe it in. To want.
I moved to help him, to be rid of my briefs, but he caught my wrist.
“No,” he murmured, voice low and thick. “Let me.”
I nodded once, throat tight.
His hands closed around the waistband, and I felt the trembling restraint in every movement as he peeled the final layer from me. He dragged my briefs down. The elastic slid over my hips, down my thighs, catching briefly on the tension in my legs before I shifted, helping him along.
