Page 137 of Ghost Ribbon

I widened my eyes.

He never initiated something this passionate.

My hand came up to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his curls as I deepened the kiss. My other hand found his waist, then his hip, then the small of his back, pulling him closer, eliminating the distance between our bodies until there was nothing left.

I put both hands under his thighs, lifting him off the ground, his legs wrapping around my waist, his arms locking around my neck. I carried him across the entryway toward the nearest wall and slammed him against it.

Not with the same roughness I normally would.

That was the thing I had to be careful of now. My tongue was tracing the seam of his lips until he opened for me, until the inside of his mouth was mine and his breath was mine.

His fingers tightened in my hair and his hips shifted against mine.

“Fuck me,” he whispered. “Please.”

I nearly growled. “You beg so pretty, Malyshka,” I said against his mouth. “Say it again.”

“Please,” he whispered.

“Again.”

“Please. Please. Please—”

His voice cracked on the last one. It felt like he was asking me to take him apart and put him back together, and I wasn’t sure I had the skill for the second part, but I was willing to destroy myself trying.

“You want me to fuck you.”

He nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Here?” I asked. “Against this wall?”

A shiver ran through him. Full-body. It started at his shoulders and traveled down through his chest, ending somewhere at the place where his legs were wrapped around my waist. “Yes,” he breathed.

“Or in the bed?”

“Anywhere. I don’t care. Just—please.”

The desperation in his voice was making it very difficult for me to think.

I wasn’t good at thinking when it came to Marco. I had never been. From the first moment I touched him, my mind had gone somewhere else.

I carried him away from the wall and toward the bedroom. I laid him down on the bed and he looked up at me.

I kissed his jaw then down below, my mouth learning the geography of him the way I had learned it a hundred times before and would learn it a hundred times more.

He arched into me, his body lifting off the mattress, seeking contact, seeking pressure, seeking anything that would take him out of himself and put him somewhere else.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I’ve got you, Malyshka.”

Then I gave him what he needed.

His green ribbon was still slightly askew in his curls. I reached up and tugged it free, letting the soft fabric fall somewhere on the sheets.

“Stay still,” I said.

He nodded, breathing hard already.

I started with his shirt. My fingers worked the buttons open one by one. The fabric parted, revealing the pale line of his chest, the faint rise and fall that I watched too carefully these days. I pushed the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, tossing it aside. Then I went for his pants. I unbuttoned them, dragged the zipper down, and hooked my fingers into the waistband of both the pants and his underwear. I pulled everything off in one motion, over his hips, down his thighs, past his ankles.