Page 93 of Slapshot Baby

His mouth finds the spot below my ear. His warm lips, his tongue slowly dragging along the tendon below my jaw.

My knees buckle. I grab his shoulders, fingers digging into bare muscle. The sound that leaves my mouth isn’t dignified.

“Let’s go to my bedroom,” I manage, pulling his hand and walking into the room.

I take off the henley and the light pours over his bare chest, the ridges of his abs, the V-cut that disappears into his waistband. The tattoos curve along his arm in patterns I've wanted to trace with my tongue for weeks.

His hands settle on my hips. Both of them. His thumbs press into the hollows above my hipbones, then slide inward, tracing the ribbon tie of the robe.

One slow pull and the ribbon comes loose. The silk falls open.

Cool air hits the bare skin of my stomach. His breath stutters against my neck.

His hands spread across my waist. They slide upward over my ribs, agonizingly slow, until his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts through the lace.

I gasp. The tenderness there transforms under his touch, pain transmuting into a sharp, bright pleasure that shoots straight between my legs. My hips press forward on instinct and I feel him, thick and rigid against my stomach through his joggers.

A groan tears from his chest. Low, rough, vibrating against my collarbone where his mouth has traveled.

His thumbs trace higher. Over the lace. Across my nipples. The pressure is light, barely there. My back arches into his hands because I need more.

"Kai." His name comes out wrecked.

"Tell me if something hurts."

"Nothing hurts."

Everything hurts. My breasts are so tender that one firm touch might make me cry or moan and I'm not sure which.

He cups both breasts, his palms engulfing the lace, squeezing with a gentleness that makes me want to scream. His thumbs circle my nipples, the texture of the lace creating friction that has me panting, wetness soaking through the thong.

He pulls back enough to look at me. His pupils are blown so wide the brown is nearly gone. His cock is straining against his joggers, the outline of it thick and obvious.

Watching his control slip sends a dark thrill through me.

I want him inside me. The want is so sharp it borders on pain.

His mouth covers mine. The kiss is deep, slow, thorough. His tongue moves against mine in a rhythm that mirrors what I want the rest of our bodies to do.

One hand slides into my hair, cradling the back of my head. His other hand presses flat against my lower back, pulling me flush against him.

The full length of his erection presses against my belly, proof that the body changing beneath my skin is still a body he'd choose. My hips roll against him and he groans into my mouth.

I kiss him back harder, faster. I grip his shoulders and pull him closer, trying to shift the tempo. To make it fast, physical, uncomplicated. Bodies only. No eye contact. No tenderness that might crack me open.

But his kiss slows. His hand in my hair loosens. His forehead presses against mine and he breathes. The tenderness in that breath makes my stomach drop.

"Ava."

"Don't stop."

"I'm not stopping. I'm slowing down."

"I don't want slow."

He looks at me in a way that makes me feel like the only person in his entire fractured world. And if I let this continue at his pace, with his eyes open and his hands gentle, I'll unravel into the kind of vulnerability I swore I'd never give another man.

I grab his waistband and pull him backward toward the bed.