Page 73 of Falling

MILES

I really, really didn’t mind being kissed awake by Booker, or the way his weight felt on top of me first thing in the morning, shielding me from the world and giving me a chance to wake up. I didn’t mind morning breath, or the crick in my neck from the way I’d used him as a pillow, or the bone-deep ache in places I hadn’t even realized I had before this morning.

I loved it. I loved the way it felt when Booker smiled against my mouth, I loved his thighs bracketing mine, I loved running my hands over his skin and pulling him closer and laughing. I loved knowing that I could do all that and he liked it. I loved feeling sore and used and knowing it was because of Booker. Because someone as good and kind as him wanted me and had spent the whole night making me feel good.

He’d warned me I’d feel it in the morning and I couldn’t have been more thrilled that I did. I hoped it’d linger. I hoped I could spend the day shifting just a little to feel all the delicious aches he’d left me with and remember all over again how happy it’d made me to earn them.

“How’re you feeling?” Booker asked between kisses, stroking his thumb over the shell of my ear. “Sleep okay?”

“Better than ever.” I grinned up at him.

“Sore?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I bit my lip and nodded. I was so sore.

It was such a turn-on.

“Would it be weird if I kinda love it?” I asked aloud.

Booker chuckled. “No, I don’t think that’s weird.”

“It’s a reminder,” I said. “A persistent reminder,” I added, laughing.

Booker hummed, running the tip of his nose along mine, catching my mouth for a kiss then working his way along my jaw until his nose brushed my ear. I hummed, arching against him as he pressed a kiss to the hinge of my jaw, a prickle of need curling up the back of my neck.

“Trust me?” he asked.

“Always,” I said. Of course I trusted him. Trusting him had always worked out before now.

“Roll over,” he said. “And let me know the second this is too much.”

I let him help me roll over, trying and failing to stifle a pathetic little groan as I moved. None of my muscles, if I could be said to have those, wanted to cooperate this morning.

“That bad?” Booker asked, hands framing my lower back, which was one of many areas that hated me.

I figured the best way to solve that was to do this again. And again. And, ideally, again. With perhaps a little recovery break between times. I half-remembered Evie explaining to me about starting new activities and building up the necessary stamina for them.

Now that I knew what being with Booker could be like, now that I’d had him inside me and I could still feel it and my dick was already getting hard just thinking about it, I didn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

Booker started at the back of my neck, brushing soft kisses over my skin, nuzzling his way down. He kissed the lines of my shoulders, ran his hands along my sides, licked a stripe up my spine.

“Bet you’ll have more freckles in the summer,” Booker murmured, kissing his way down my back again.

“If you can wrestle me out of my shirt,” I said, relaxing into the mattress.

“That a challenge?” Booker asked, lips moving ticklishly against my skin.

I chuckled. “You might convince me to go swimming without all my clothes on.”

“Might convince you to do a lot of things without all your clothes on,” Booker murmured, pressing a kiss to the base of my spine. “Might even convince you to do a few things with none of your clothes on.”

I’d probably intended to answer him, but then he spread my ass cheeks open one-handed and a jolt of arousal made me gasp.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” Booker repeated, breath ghosting over sensitive skin.

I took a breath to ask if what was too much, but then Booker’s mouth was on me and I forgot how to use my tongue.

He had not forgotten how to use his, though.