Page 122 of Juniper Unraveling

Arching into him, I part my lips for a moan, and his mouth finds my throat, my collarbone. Warm air blasts against my skin, and he drags his nose over the base of my neck.

“Your smell. So fucking good. I can’t tell you how much I’ve craved the taste of you.” Teeth graze my skin as he bites and sucks, and I squeeze his nape, mouth gaping to a silent scream. “Like wildflowers.” A guttural sound vibrates across my skin, reaching deep into my bones.

Every one of his movements brings a flood of memories. Nights with him in the pole barn, and our quiet explorations in bed. Lying under the stars. “You smelled like fresh rain and metal, and the sweet musk of soap,” I whisper, as he drags his lips down my chest. “I remember.”

He pauses to kiss each of my nipples, and when his lips finally reach my navel, his breaths turn harsh and frantic.

Pausing to rest his head on my belly, he grips either side of me and shakes his head. “I can’t do this, Wren. I want to. You don’t even know how bad I want you right now, but, fuck. I can’t. My hands are dirty. Too dirty to touch you.”

I slide my fingers across the short spikes of his hair, watching him inhale me. “I need you to touch me.”

“I got too much want built up inside of me. Been too long.”

“I’m not fragile, and I’m no angel.” Cupping either side of his face, I kiss him. “I need this too, Rhys. Please?”

Lips tight, he breathes hard through his nose, like a man backed against the wall. Waves of masculine heat pour from his body, telling me he wants this, too, in spite of the conflict in his eyes. In the seconds that follow, I wonder if he’ll abandon this, and finally walk away, but the longer I stare, the more his eyes soften with resolution.

Digging his fingers into the waistband of my jeans, he yanks them down my thighs, jostling me, and slides them just past my knees.

With fervent movements, he pushes my legs as far as they’ll go while bound by the jeans, and spreads me open to him.

He strokes his skull again, the look of worry claiming his expression once more. “Goddamn, I forgot how perfect you are.”

I reach for his hand, eyes locked on his face, and rub his fingers across my wet seam. A whisper of touch that sends a tingle beneath my skin, and I roll back my eyes, lost to it.

When he dives headfirst into me, I cry out, jutting my breasts into the air, while his tongue spears my entrance. The insane little tickles dance across the folds of my sex, and the smile on my face fades to a grimace when the ache sets in. I’ve had the mouths of other men between my thighs, but none so adept, so reverent as Six. As if he’s not forgotten the secret places on my body, the ones that taunt my fantasies and bury the pain.

His tongue explores every dark corner, every crevice, in a relentless bid for my pleasure. I open my eyes to the soft swaying of the Joshua tree looking down at us, as he devours me there, beneath the sun that burns the earth around us. He pushes his fingers up inside, curving them into that place he found eight years ago as we lay in my bed. Back when I was innocent, naïve, and profoundly starving for his touch, as I am now.

Pressure winds in my belly with every wet slide of his fingers. My muscles tense as climax edges closer, trembling, while my nails dig into the dirt at either side of me.

He lifts his head from between my legs, face coated in the shine of my juices, and removes his fingers, stuffing them into his mouth.

I moan at the missed climax, and writhe against the dirt, as he stands over me like a god, head tipped in fascination while he removes his jeans. His hard length sticks up from his thighs, and the size of it promises something exquisite. Something I’ve not felt in a long time.

“Come here,” I whisper to him, sliding my hand to the place where the phantom sensation of his lips still lingers. I’m all too aware my command no longer summons a boy, but a man—one strong enough to crush me if he wanted to. “Please.”

Rhys climbs my body, caging me beneath him, and kisses my throat. I grip his biceps, feeling his muscles flex to hold himself off me, and when he lines his tip at my entrance, an unearthly need builds deep in my belly.

He waits. Makes me wait for him, while he stares down at me.

My jeans still limit my movement below, my knees barely accommodating his big body wedged between them.

At last, he pushes inside of me, and I bite my lip with the pleasure of him filling me. A shuddered breath sends a blast of heat across my throat, and he bites the crook of my neck, releasing a masculine sound of approval that springs goosebumps over my flesh.

As his body rocks into me, slow and easy, deepening with each thrust, I tip my head back. Arms banded to him, I hold on, as he ups the pace with his hastened breaths, each pump of his hips drawing me closer to ecstasy. The pinnacle of pleasure.

Pleasure only he can give me.

“Six,” I whisper, before realizing I’ve called him by his old name. “More. I can take it this time.”

He lifts his head enough that I can see the hunger smoldering in his blue eyes. The need to destroy something. I hold his stare, challenging the uncertainty etched into the grooves of his forehead.

I wriggle beneath him to flip onto my knees, but he pins me against the ground. A harsh breath blasts out of him, and he rests his forehead against mine, his hips still rocking into me.

“No, Wren. I need to see your face.” He wears an unyielding mask of determination. “I need to watch you.”

I stare up at him with a blank expression, uncertain why the request troubles me. But while my mind teases out the messed-up psychology that’s become a permanent stitch in my brain, my body remains connected to what he’s doing to me.