Page 87 of Claimed on the Ridge

I lean down and press my mouth to the skin below her navel. Her stomach tightens under my lips. I trace a line from her hip to the waistband of her jeans, unhurried, my hands holding her hips flat against the mattress because she's already trying to move.

"There's your reason," I say against her skin.

I remove her boots, unfasten her jeans and work them down her legs. My hands move back up, from her ankles to her calves to her inner thighs, spreading her knees apart. My mouth follows. I press my lips to the inside of her thigh, and the soundshe makes when my teeth graze the crease where her thigh meets her hip puts heat at the base of my spine.

My mouth finds her. She's wet, and the first long stroke of my tongue pulls her hips off the mattress. I grip her thigh with one hand and use the other to hold her open. Her thighs tense against my shoulders.

The pace is deliberate because I set it, and I set it slow. Every movement is measured, given with the same focus I bring to everything I do with my hands. Steady. Steady is what she needs, and steady is what I give. The man who gives it chooses the pace, and the pace is mine.

The orgasm takes her in a rolling wave. Her back bows off the mattress. Her thighs clamp against my head and her hand tightens in my hair. I ease her through it until the tremors slow and her body goes soft against the bed.

I straighten up and strip off my clothes. Her gaze follows my hands to my belt, the buckle, the button beneath it. She watches me push my jeans down and step out of them, and her eyes travel the length of me with the same slow, thorough inventory I've been giving her body since the first week. When her gaze drops lower, her lips part.

"See something you want?" My voice comes out low, rough at the edges.

"I see something I already have." She props herself on her elbows. The flush from her orgasm still reaches her throat, her collarbones. "Come here."

"Ask nicely."

The look she gives me could strip paint.

"Please, Alex. Come here so I can put my hands on you before I lose my mind."

I move over her. My weight settles between her thighs, skin against skin from hip to chest. My hips move on instinct.

I do it again. Slow.

"Alex." The edge in her voice is the one I know. The one that means she's done being patient.

I brace on one arm. My other hand slides down her body.

"Look at me," I say.

Her eyes find mine. The gold light from the window cuts across her face.

"There," I say against her mouth. "All of me."

"I feel it." Her hands slide up my arms to my shoulders, pulling me closer. "Move."

"Not yet."

"You are impossible," she breathes, but the way her body tightens says she doesn't mean it.

I set a pace. Slow enough that neither of us can rush it, controlled enough that every movement matters. It is taking everything I have to keep it there.

Her legs wrap around my hips. The angle changes.

I pull back from the kiss.

"Tell me how it feels."

"Full." The word comes out on a broken exhale. "You feel so full inside me."

"Right there?" I ask, already knowing.

"Right there. Don't stop."

I don't.