Page 85 of Shatter

"How long have those been in there?" She's shaking with it.

"A while." I scrub a hand over my face. "Since the second week."

"The second week." She lifts her head and looks at me. "And you never once."

"You never asked." I keep my eyes on hers.

Her laughter goes still.

She looks at me for a long moment, and her hand comes up and rests flat against my chest, right over my heart.

"I'm asking now." Her palm presses harder.

I tear the cellophane with my thumbnail.

She takes the packet out of my hand.

"Let me." Her fingers are clumsy on the foil, and she has to try twice while I lie there with my hands knotted in the sheet.

She rolls it down over me, slow, and I have to close my eyes and think about carburetors.

"Can I be on top?" Her voice is small.

I open my eyes.

She's kneeling beside me, bare and flushed, chewing her bottom lip, and I understand.

She needs to be the one who decides.

Every inch of it.

"Yeah." I lie back and put my hands flat on the mattress. "You drive. I'll stay right here."

She swings one knee over my hips.

She's hot and slick against me when she reaches down and takes hold of my cock and lines us up.

I grab two fistfuls of sheet, because it's grab the sheet or grab her.

She sinks down.

One slow inch, and she stops, breathing hard.

"Okay?" My voice cracks down the middle.

"Okay." She pushes her hair back with one hand. "Keep still."

"I'm not moving." My knuckles go white in the sheet.

I'm not.

I'm not moving if the building falls down around us.

She takes another inch, and another, her eyes locked on mine all the way down.

She's so tight and so wet my thighs start to shake.

When she's all the way down, seated on me, she lets out a long, broken breath.