Page 82

I curl them just right, drag my tongue in a rhythm I know she’ll remember tomorrow, and she falls.

She comes with a cry that rips through her, her whole body arching off the bed, but my mouth is still moving, drawing it out. Giving her more. Until she’s shaking with aftershocks, herbreath stuttering, her fingers reaching for me like she’s trying to find an anchor to cling to.

I let her pull me up, her eyes so wide and focused it’s like she doesn’t want to see anything else. Her chest is heaving, her body trembling. She presses her lips to mine, making it clear she needs the closeness, the connection.

The same thing I need right now.

“I need you inside of me,” she murmurs, not caring that I must taste of her, that my whole face is slick with her desire. “Please…”

She hitches her hips against me, and I have to close my eyes to center myself. How many times have I thought about this moment since she moved in? Since we said ‘I do?’

Or before?I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about anything except the way her soft curves fit so perfectly against the hard planes of my body, like she was made for this. Made for me.

I cup her face, kissing her as softly as I can, because there’s a feral heat in me telling me to take her rough and hard. To make her mine completely.

To make her scream out my name so loudly that the whole world will know who she belongs to.

But this is Eden. She drew me a bath. I’m not going to be a neanderthal after she treated me so damn sweetly.

“You sure?” I ask her, because I need her to be all in. Somewhere, in the very depths of my mind, there’s a warning siren going off. Not because this is wrong – hell I’ve cleaned up worst messes before – but because it feels too right.

Because I know that nothing good ever lasts.

“Take me, West.”

The way she says it, so softly, yet so full of certainty, pushes away all of my worrisome thoughts, replacing them with a dark, shadowy desire that’s impossible to ignore.

I line myself up, and for one beat, I pause. Just to remember this. The way she’s looking at me like I’m worth something. Like I’m hers.

And then I press into her slowly. Not because I want to tease her, but because the moment feels too damn big to rush.

Her breath catches.

Mine stops altogether.

“Oh.” Her wide eyes stare up at me like I’m some kind of god. “Please. More.”

And then I’m inside of her. All of her. She closes around me like the tightest of velvet warmth.

My whole world narrows to a pinpoint, suffused with heat and pleasure. She lets out a gasp as I bottom out, the two of us connected in every way.

But I don't move. I can't. Not yet.

Because this – this moment – is a miracle. And some part of me knows I’ll never get it back if I screw it up.

She’s looking up at me with those huge, dazed eyes, her lips parted like she’s about to say something but forgot how to speak. And then it hits me.

I’ve never done this before, not like this. Not with someone looking at me like I’m everything. Knowing I’m looking back at her the same way.

I start to move, slow and deep, letting her feel every inch of me. Her breath stutters. Her body arches. Her legs tighten around my waist.

“Oh god, West,” she breathes, like it’s a prayer. Like I’m the answer to a question she never knew she was asking.

I bury my face in her neck, trying to hold it together. To keep my rhythm. To make it last. But the sound she makes when I thrust again – half moan, half sob – makes something inside of me crack wide open.

I want to brand her from the inside out. I want to crawl inside her skin and never leave.

I want to make her mine, so completely, she’ll never see anything but my face again.