Page 74 of Where the Snakes Sleep

Camille makes a small, satisfied sound. The next thing I know, my pants are being tugged down, and his hand is gentle and precise, coaxing rather than demanding. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t push, just strokes in slow, patient passes. I close my eyes and let myself dissolve, all the tension draining out of my muscles in waves.

His hand is so warm it blurs the line between my body and the blanket. My hips twitch, and I exhale, a slow, quaking surrender. It’s astonishing how gently he touches me, how he waits for the muscles to unclench before moving again.

His thumb circles, soft as breath. “Is this alright?” he murmurs, voice so close to my ear the words swirl down my spine.

“Yeah,” I manage, biting back an involuntary moan. “It’s… You’re—” There is no sentence to finish, just the tidal pulse of need and relief colliding in my chest.

His mouth presses to my jaw, then the column of my throat, his slight stubble rough and grounding against skin gone feverish. Fingers move with a care so deliberate it’s almost ceremonial. He doesn’t force my legs apart, doesn’t grip me tight—just strokes, then pauses, lets me arch into his hand, then eases back to something softer, letting the heat build without ever demanding a response.

I shudder. There is a brief, embarrassing moment when I think I might actually start crying, but I swallow it down, focusing instead on the rhythm of his hand, the steady pressure, the way his breath ghosts over my cheek every time I whimper.

“Good?” he asks, and although it’s barely audible, I nod.

“Yes,” I gasp, and I can feel him smile against my jaw, the curl of his mouth as he moves lower, trailing kisses down the length of my throat, the angle of my chin, the hollow at the base of my collarbone. One hand keeps working me under the blanket—slow and patient, as if he is determined to undo every knot of shame and panic I’ve ever carried—while the other peels the blanket just low enough to bare my hips.

My chest heaves. I can’t decide whether to hide or pull him closer. Maybe both. Maybe that’s always been the problem.

He kisses the sharp ridge of my hip, then the tender place just above my waistband, then further down, following the trembling path of my pulse. He looks up, pupils wide and black, mouth parted, the tip of his tongue wetting his lower lip. He waits for me to nod again.

“Yes, please,” I say, the word floating up on a breathless exhale.

He draws my pants down with both hands, slow enough that my skin burns. Then his mouth is on me, warm and deft, tongue tracing gentle lines that make my back arch, my thighs tense with a pleasure so raw I can barely process it.

His tongue moves with excruciating patience, licking up the slick he’s coaxed from me, then circling around my cock with a reverence I have never experienced. Every time I whimper, every time my thighs twitch or my hips buck, he backs off just enough to keep the tension running molten and taut.

Camille’s mouth is attentive but never greedy, his hands gentle as he holds my legs apart. I want to hide—every instinct in my body is telling me to flinch away from this much care, this much focus—but he won’t let me.

The world narrows to the wet heat of his mouth, and the way his breath hitches every time I moan. He sucks softly, tongue flicking, then licks, not in a way that tries to wring anything out but more like he’s savoring a meal.

I pant, hands spasming on the couch cushion, breath coming faster. When I come, it’s more relief than pleasure, more surrender than triumph. My whole body locks up, then dissolves, trembling so badly I’m afraid I might break apart. Camille licks me through it, swallowing every shudder, every helpless sound I make. When I open my eyes, I find him watching me from beneath his lashes, jaw tense, mouth swollen and shining.

He kisses his way up my thigh, then up my abdomen, bare fingertips trailing after as if to anchor me in my own skin. He tucks me back into my pajamas, a motion so tender it undoes me all over again.

I roll onto my side, burrowing into the couch, utterly spent. Camille settles behind me, one arm looping around my waist, palm splayed over my stomach. He fits his body to mine perfectly, as if the universe preordained it. I can’t remember the last time I felt safe enough to fall asleep in someone’s arms.

I don’t even realize I’ve started crying until I taste salt on my lips, but by then, I’m already lost to sleep.

14

Camille

I stay awake for a long while after Ryan falls asleep. The library has gone completely dark around us.

Ryan’s breathing has evened into the deep, unguarded rhythm of someone who has finally surrendered to exhaustion, his body molded against mine beneath the blanket, one hand tucked loosely beneath his cheek while the other rests against my forearm.

He trusts me.

The realization should feel like success. Even a week ago, it would have.

When Ryan first arrived, trust had been a problem to solve. He was suspicious of generosity, resistant to help, and stubborn to an almost pathological degree whenever I attempted to make his life easier.

And since trust wasn’t being freely given, I changed tactics and used our obvious attraction for one another as a way to draw him nearer.

It had worked remarkably well.

Ryan came to me—or for me—again and again.

He entered my home willingly, my bed willingly, my laboratory willingly. He gave me his body in ways that required a degree of trust I had not expected to earn so quickly, especially since all other ways of garnering it had failed.