Page 48 of Into Ember

Not examining that.

My palms slide up his neck, over the ink, over his scalp, and the short buzz of his hair against my hands is its own entire experience, and he shudders.

He shudders. I did that.

And then a sound rolls out of him that isn’t a groan. Deeper. Bigger. Not a sound a person makes.

I pause, my mouth still on his.

That should scare me.

It doesn’t. It does the opposite of scare me, and I don’t know what that means, and I do not care.

Because everything goes urgent at once. His hands squeeze my hips and the world spins — bark against my back now, his thigh sliding between mine, his body caging me in the best possible way — and his mouth drops to my ear.

“I need you so much you have no idea,” he says, rough. “No idea.”

A shiver runs through me I didn’t allow and I watch his lips tip up.

Fucker.

His hands start moving and I don’t stop them. His mouth finds my neck, open and hot, the ring trailing cool behind it, and every nerve from my ear to my knees shows up to see what the fuss is about. My head tips back against the bark all on its own. His hand slides up over my breast — my nipple is already— when did— and his thumb drags across it through the shirt and I make a sound I would deny in court.

His palm crosses my ribs on the way down. Right over the tattoo. Right through the shirt.

I gasp like he hit a button I did not know was installed.

Sparks — actual sparks, under my skin, racing out from that spot to everywhere, to somewhere deeper than I knew I had, and his hand stills for half a second like he felt it too.

Then his fingers find the waistband of my pants.

“Gunnar—” I object for approximately three seconds. “We can’t— they’re—”

“You don’t have to fight this one,” he says against my ear, and his voice is stripped of every joke he’s ever told. “You don’t have to fight anything right now. Not with me.”

And the war ends that fast.

He flirts like it’s breathing but this man? His hands are shaking and my body has already decided this isn’t the same man. Or if he is, my body doesn’t care.

I let him.

His fingers slide under the waistband, over my hip, down — slow, like I might change my mind, like he’s giving me every chance to — and then he finds me, and we both find out how ready I am in the same second. The sound he makes against my neck is part growl, all satisfaction.

“Sweetheart.” Reverent and filthy at the same time.

His fingers move through the slick of me, learning, spreading, and my knees do something unreliable, and his other arm comes around my waist like he planned for that. He circles slow. Too slow — deliberate, he’s doing it on purpose, obviously he’s doing it on purpose — until my hips chase his hand and he finally gives me more, two fingers sliding deep while his thumb stays right where I need it, and my head knocks back against the tree again and the sound that comes out of me is not a sound I have ever made.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

The stretch of him is its own heat, and when his fingers curl — there, right there — white scatters behind my eyes. I grab his shoulders because he’s all there is right now. Somewhere a tiny version of me is still trying to take notes, and her pen is on fire.

He works me slow and then suddenly it’s not. Fingers curling, thumb certain, a rhythm building like he has all day and knows I don’t. The coil low in my belly winds tighter with every pass — my hips rolling against his hand, my body completely done consulting me, my thighs starting to shake, my breath coming apart into small sounds that his mouth keeps catching. He’s watching me. I can feel him watching me, and I can’t even care, and the not-caring is the most naked thing that’s happened yet.

“Gunnar—” It comes out broken. Everything is pulled so tight I can’t—

“You’re gonna come for me. I need to feel you.” Low. Sure. “Let go, sweetheart.”

And I do.