It’s rapidly become more difficult to breathe. My hands slide backwards, my spine arching as it instinctively angles towards him. He’s moving too slowly, and I need him now. “You mean, like a condom?”
He chuckles quietly. “That, too, although I come prepared this time.” He reaches over to the nightstand and produces a small, silver square. “I meant an actual shield, like the one you used to block your emotions from me last year. Because, this is about you. And me. And us.” His eyes, so vivid blue despite the dim light from the lamp next to his bed, darken with something I desperately want to hold onto forever. “And I don’t want to have to worry about holding myself back. I hate that I didn’t think about doing it before, but . . .” His grin is rueful. “It’s kind of hard to think clearly when the girl you love more than anything else in the worlds is touching you.”
He’s so close that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. Smell the mint on his breath, the spiciness leftover from his body wash. And it makes me hot, hotter than I’ve ever been before in my entire life. I want to melt right into him until we’re one.
I’m hoarse when I say, “I’ve already been doing it.”
There’s relief in his beautiful eyes, and a whole lot of desire that sends a sharp spike of longing through me.
I bite my lip, trying desperately not to moan, as my butt hits the bed and I lean back on my forearms. His body lifts over mine, his strong arms finding ground on either side of me. I grab his shirt and tug him closer. I want this. I want him. I want us. I want all of this more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. I try to bring our mouths together, but he holds back, our lips barely brushing, as his forehead comes to lie against mine.
My heart attempts to escape out of my chest.
His breath is heavy against my lips, and I ache, just ache everywhere. I wrap the shield around us like a hug, its strength fortified by the love I feel for him consuming every last atom that makes me me.
He licks his lips slowly, the edge of his tongue just barely grazing my mouth. All that jelly in my arms now liquefies. They tremble so hard I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep myself propped up.
I mimic his movement, and he shudders in response. There’s a heartbeat between us before his mouth finally meets mine. From that moment on, everything is magnified between us, every touch, every kiss, every motion of brushing, sliding, grazing, worshiping skin against skin. Thousands of tiny nerves flare to life all over my body so that I am all feeling, no . . . no thinking. Worrying. Right now, this here, with this man . . . this is everything.
As turnabout is fair play, I take my sweet time exploring his body, kissing so very many places, licking others just so I can hear him groan and feel just how strongly his body reacts to me and my touch. Just like I’d wanted to do days before, I take him in my mouth, sucking him until I know he’s perilously close to shattering. When the torture becomes too much for him, he pulls me up and flips me over so he’s now over me, his mouth reclaiming mine for long, scorching minutes that leave me panting. And then he traces pulse lines down my neck with his lips and tongue until he finds my heart and then one, then the other breast. I arch up into him, all the cells in my body sparkling in fizzy, combustible, achy heat that threatens to tear me apart.
I need him to feel this, too.
I trail a hand down in between our bodies and stroke him. I delight in the sharp intake of breath, how his body now jerks and curves toward mine. With my other hand, I bring his face back up to mine and kiss him until starbursts bloom in my closed eyelids. “I need you,” I whisper against his mouth, my nails grazing him until he quakes against me again, “in me.”
His lovely, shuddery sigh nearly undoes me right then and there. “I need that, too. Gods, I love you so much, Chloe.”
Nothing has ever sounded so beautiful to me before. These words, they’re a gift. So is this man. Even though I don’t know if I deserve him or his love, I’m going to hold onto them with both hands.
“I want . . . can we try something?” he murmurs against my neck as he positions himself above me.
I reach down and grab his buttocks, angling him so he slides into me. I gasp; he’s so big, I’m so tight, but oh the sweet gods above, does this feel like heaven. “Anything.”
He’s so deep inside me, I can feel him all the way to my inner core. My eyes nearly roll right back into my head, I’m so very wonderfully filled. But then he pulls up so he’s nearly all the way out. “Before you come . . .” And then he’s back in me; I buck my hips up to meet his. “I want us to . . .”—another thrust that nearly disintegrates me—“merge.”