Page 77 of Honeyfires

"Well." She pushed off the door, backing toward the living room, hands clasped behind her back, chin tilted up. "Every room needs to know you live here now."

I caught her at the waist, pulled her in, and she came without resistance, hands finding the front of my shirt.

"Here's how this works," I said. "I'm in charge."

Her eyes darkened immediately. "Are you."

"Every room." I held her gaze. "My rules. You say parachute and we stop."

"Parachute," she repeated. "I know."

"Good girl." I felt her breath catch. "Then take off the shirt. Leave everything else."

She reached for the hem, pulled it over her head, let it drop, and removed the rest of her clothing slowly. She stood in front of me in nothing at all, barefoot on our living room floor, not flinching under my gaze. A woman who had discovered, over months of careful study, that being looked at like this was something she wanted.

"Kneel," I said.

A beat. She'd never done this from cold, without having already been taken apart first. I watched her consider it. Not whether she wanted to, but whether her legs would hold the dignity of it. Then she sank down, slowly, onto her knees on the hardwood, and looked up at me.

The sight of it did something to me I didn't have a word for. Vera Montgomery, on her knees, in our living room, looking up at me with those clear blue eyes and all the composure in the world.

"You're beautiful," I said. Not a line. Just the only true thing.

"I know," she said, which made me laugh.

I sank my hand into her hair, not pulling, just holding. "Stay there," I said. "Don't move."

I undressed in front of her, unhurried, and watched her watch me, watched her hands settle obediently on her thighs even as her breathing changed, even as the effort of not reaching for me showed in every line of her.

When I finally pulled her gently up by the hair, she exhaled like something released.

I kissed her once, deep and slow. Then I walked her backward to the couch.

"Hands on the back of it," I said. "Don't let go."

She gripped the back of the couch, and I moved behind her, one hand at the flat of her stomach, the other tracing down her spine, feeling every small shiver, and I took my time. I didn't touch her where she needed it. I touched her everywhere else—her throat, her ribs, the undersides of her wrists still locked on the couch back, the sensitive place below her ear—until she was breathing in fragments and her knuckles had gone white.

"Petra—"

"Mm?"

"Please."

"Please, what?"

"Please touch me."

I brought my hand between her thighs, and she cried out at the first contact, hips pressing back against me. I found her clit and worked it with the pressure I knew by now like a fingerprint, and kept my other hand at her throat, not squeezing, just resting. I felt her pulse hammering against my palm.

"Hold on," I said. "Don't let go of the couch."

She held. She was shaking, her grip white-knuckled, and she held, and when I slid two fingers inside her and curled them, she made a sound that I was going to be thinking about for weeks.

"Don't stop—"

"I've got you." I pressed my mouth to the back of her neck. "Come for me. Right here, in our living room."

She came with her hands on the back of our couch, my fingers inside her and my hand at her throat, her whole body clenching and shuddering, my name cracked open in her mouth.