Page 117 of A Touch of Stars and Stones
“You might not like what’s in my head. And I need to know you’re okay.” There’s always been something between us, but this—mind-to-mind—feels dangerous on another level. “I mightlet you in, but I trust you to drop our connection if it’s too much.” She nods. “This is new for both of us.”
She’s still. Calm. Her chest rising with deep, measured breaths. She’s gifting me the choice and power. Maybe because she knows she could decimate me if she tried, and that every time we’ve touched, it’s been my choice to persevere. To keep her hand gripped in mine.
Slowly, very slowly, I loosen my mind and let all the instincts, emotions, and desires run through my mind.
We’ve not tried to force this before, but I think of my thoughts in her mind.
“Mmm,” her soft moan tells me she’s seeing everything that’s playing in my head. And then it hits me—I couldfeelher in the vision in the snow earlier. That was a possible version of the future. We both felt it. It wasn’t just an image we were in.
What if…
I concentrate on the image of her earlier, her nipples peeked under her top, but in my mind, I run the pad of my thumb over the tip, and my hand cups and squeezes her.
“Ten!”
“You can feel that?” I check, my voice hoarse with strain.
“Yes.” She pants. And I feel the slight rock of her hips as if in confirmation.
My grip tightens on the chair, my fingers digging so viciously that splinters might be next.
But my mind stays absolutely centred on Ever. Her body, my hands, tracing over her collarbone, trailing down her chest, gripping her hips.
She rolls her hips harder this time, but I keep the curse behind my teeth.
In my mind, I play with her nipple again. Running my thumb over and over, pressing it between my fingers.
“Stars, yes!”
But then the image in my mind stutters, like it did when we connected skin to skin.
I brace for pain or something that will transform me into the abyss that was watching her in that snow. But it’s neither. It’s her imagination. The view of Ever I’m seeing switches to my chest, my neck, her hands, her mouth.
Fucking Goddess, her mouth on my chest.
“Ever!”
“Shhh. Don’t stop it, pleeaseee…” she begs.
My eyes crack open, adjusting to the light, and I wish I had them open this whole time. Her bottom lip is pulled between her teeth, her head rolled back on her shoulders, her hand clutching her breast as if wanting to keep my imagined thoughts right there.
Her breathing is ragged, her movements on top of my thighs growing bolder and desperate. And Goddess, help me, she looks fucking gorgeous and sinful all at once.
Her hair hangs wild and free, and I want to bury my hand in it, hold her, caress her…
This is moving too fast. I’ll be fucking her in my mind if we don’t slow down.
“Ever…” I start, but the growl that comes from my throat only sounds like a possessive claim. “You’ve got two options. One, you’re going to stand up, go and lie on that bed and wait for me to calm the fuck down before I come and talk you through making yourself come with those fingers. All on your own. Or two.” I swallow. “You continue to think of all the things you want to do with me. I’ll continue imagining all the things I want to do with you, and our first time together, between us, the first time I fuck you, will only be in our minds. Without me placing a finger on you.” I pause because that image is slowly working its way between us.
Her hand slips around my cock. We’re here, this same chair, only naked, her arm around my neck, hand in my hair….
“Ever! Stop. Fuck. I don’t want the first time between us to be in our minds.” It’s my time to plead and try to put up some kind of defence.
Kamari’s office. The snow. Anything to focus my mind on building up a defence against the one thing I want to run away with and let my imagination riot.
“I ache, Ten.” Her voice cracks, and my grip slips.
She is killing me. “I know. But I promise I’ll take that away,” I pant.
