Page 12 of Josephine and Clay

I taste him on my tongue when I draw his lower lip between my teeth. The sound he makes goes straight through me. I can’t help grinding against him, craving that friction, anything to quiet the ache that’s already started pooling low in my belly.

He sets me down, enough to wrestle my jeans open, and I help him because I can’t stand the delay. My bra vanishes next, his thumb swiping carelessly across my nipple as he peels it away.

I gasp, and he grins, shameless, even as his tongue finds the same spot a heartbeat later, as if he wants to ruin me for anyone else.

I forget my own name, and maybe that’s the first thing I’ve let him take from me tonight that matters.

We fall onto my unmade bed, all limbs and bruised kisses, laughter punched out between tangled sheets.

I’m aware of how messy I must seem to him, hair wild, breath ragged, the flush on my chest spreading and fierce. I worry, momentarily, that it’s too much, that I’m not the girl he thought he was taking home, but then he groans low in his throat and pins my wrists above my head, and I forget how to be self-conscious.

He mouths down my sternum, slow now, savoring, and I realize he’s figured out exactly how to touch me with raw intention, like he wants to see every way I come apart.

I arch up into his mouth, and he laughs again, softer, teasing, but his fingers are firm on my wrists, and I can’t get free even if I want to. He bites my bottom lip, just a nibble, and I let out a sound I’ve never made before.

His grip tightens, and my legs fall open on instinct.

The heat between us is a living thing, stoked by every brush and collision, every gasp and curse. I tug him to me with my knees, and his jeans grind against my bare thighs, rough and perfect, and my hands go desperate, searching for skin.

He lets go of my wrists, and I immediately lace my fingers in his hair, nails raking his scalp. He doesn’t stop me. If anything, it just spurs him on.

I’m not sure when his shirt came off, but it’s gone, and I map the hard planes of his back with my palms, the dips and ridges and the old pale marks that tell me more about him than conversation ever could.

“Fuck, Clay,” I mutter, thumbing the line of his jaw, “you’re obnoxiously hot.”

He muffles a laugh in the hollow of my neck. “That’s a new one.”

I dig my heels into his waist, arching up, my breath catching when I feel him hard against me, separated now by nothing but the last scrap of denim and the thin cotton of my underwear.

I want him.

I want him so badly it feels like ache and hunger all at once, like the last bite of a sweet treat you know you’re going to regret later and don’t care about the consequences.

I push at his jeans, desperate, and he yanks them off in one rough motion, like getting naked is a thing that only ever takes a second.

He pauses at my hips, hooks his thumbs under the edge of my underwear, then glances up at me. I arch my hips up in answer, and he peels them down, slow enough that I feel every inch of the exposure, the cool air on my skin where his hands have just been.

By the time we’re naked, my hands are shaking. I blame adrenaline, excitement, anything but nerves, but when he finally settles over me, I realize it’s all three, tangled together so tight I can’t separate them.

He touches me all over, as if every gasp or twitch tells him something important. His head dips, mouth finding the hollow just above my collarbone, and then lower, until his mouth is on me, tongue sliding over my nipple in a way that makes my hips jerk up.

I’m pretty sure I moan. Or maybe it’s a whimper, quick and desperate, and I don’t care because his hand follows the sound, skimming my stomach and questing lower.

He strokes the inside of my thigh, then, at last, touches me where I need it.

I didn’t realize I was this wet, this ready, until his fingers glide over me. He finds my clit with his thumb and circles it, eyes fixed on my face like he wants to see what every move does to me.

I try to keep my composure, try not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me undone this quick, this easy, but the pulse in my core betrays me.

He slides a finger inside.

I choke on a gasp and scrabble at the sheets to anchor me. He grins, satisfied, and adds another finger.

“Fuck,” I hiss, because there’s no other way to process it, the fullness and pressure and his thumb keeping that perfect, merciless rhythm on my clit.

My body arcs up, hips rolling, chasing the friction, and the sound in my throat gets raw. He’s watching me, and the eye contact makes it a thousand times more intense, makes me feel like this could be the only thing that exists right now.

I try to reach for him, but he shakes his head, pushes my wandering hand back above my head with his free hand and pins it there, gentle but unyielding.