Page 87 of Wretched Thorns

“Eli.”

“Yes.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Hmmm.”

She writhed against his hand

“Slow down, beautiful. I’ve waited a long time to have you all to myself.”

She made a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.

He added a second finger. The stretch made her gasp. His thumb found the place that mattered. He worked it nice and slow. She was so wet her honey was running down his fingers, creating a pool in the palm of his hand. He placed his mouth on her inner thigh. He set his teeth at the edge of her pulse without pressing.

He curled his fingers.

She came on his hand harder than he’d expected her to.

She came with her thighs locked around his wrist and her hand fisted in his hair, and the silver thread sang the whole wave through with her, and Eli held her through every second of it with his thumb still moving in tiny circles and his mouth trailing kisses across her stomach. When she came down, he kissed the place his teeth had been.

“That’s one,” he said.

“Eli.”

“That’s one, beautiful.”

He laid her down on the table.

***

Books moved themselves out of his way because the library was his architecture and was his to ask things of.

He spread her legs and slid all the way down between them. He looked up at her once, and she looked back at him through eyes that were warm and tired and hungry, and he put his mouth on her.

He’d thought about doing this with her at least fifty times a day since the day she’d first pulled into their drive. In the small private hours when he’d been trying to go about his work, she’d intruded on his every thought; possessed his every waking moment just looking at him the way she looked at him. He worked the same place his thumb had been working. Slow strokes of his tongue. Long, patient. Flicking at the little pink peak, before working his way back down. Her hand came down and fisted in his hair and held him there. Her thighs trembled at the sides of his head.

He took his time.

He ate her pussy, savoring every taste as if she were a rare gourmet treat. Her thighs trembled around his ears. Her hips tried to come up off the table. His hands held them down. He let her get almost-there. Then he slowed. Then he made her almost-there for longer.

“Eli.”

“Yes.”

“Please.”

“In a minute.”

“Eli.”

“In a minute, beautiful.”

He went back to the steady pace that had built the first one. He added two fingers inside her at the same rhythm his tongue was working. She was tight and slick around them, and the angle of his fingers and the work of his tongue and the sound she was making in her throat all came together at once, and she came the second time with her thighs locked around his head and her hand pulling at his hair and a sound coming out of her mouth that was halfway between his name and a curse.

He stayed where he was through every wave. He didn’t lift his head until her hands eased.

“Two,” he said. Quiet. Against the inside of her thigh.