I rub myself, my breath catching at the first touch. Rhyson’s eyes fix on my fingers, back and forthing under the silk. I’m hot and wet and slick and swollen, every fire-tipped stroke tantalizing my heart right out of my chest. It’s so good. So much better with him watching, but it’s not him. Not his touch.
He drops down to join me. With his eyes fixed on my fingers, I take his hand, slowly pushing it beneath the black lace, inviting him to join me. He swears so softly it barely reaches my ears, but he meshes our fingers, the rough calluses on his fingertips a sweet abrasion over my clit.
I haven’t been with many men, and I’ve never been this bold with anyone else. I may still hold onto a few secrets, things I’m not ready for Rhyson to know, but there are no secrets between our bodies. He knows every spot that sets me on fire. He knows that when he starts with one finger, it makes me gasp. That when he adds another, I have to bite my lip to stifle a scream. When he strokes me with his thumb and thrusts with his fingers, it’s not long before I . . .
“Ahhh!” My back curves, heels digging into the mattress, the first orgasm stretching me taut as a wire. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Rhyson.”
“I could watch you come all day, Pep.” He says it against my neck, scattering kisses over my shoulders, sucking my nipples, instigating another wave that takes me under, gasping, drowning, dying a little every time. Then resurfacing, coming back to life.
“Gimme your hand,” he says. I offer him the hand that’s clenched around a fistful of mattress. “The other hand.”
His eyes slide down my body to where my hand lies just beyond my black panties, fingers still wet and shiny. Watching me watching him, he takes my fingers into his mouth, rolling his tongue over them until they’re licked clean. He slides down my body, pushing my knee, gripping the back of my thigh and dipping his head between my legs, mouthing me through the panties before he coaxes them aside and then down and then off. Every lash of his tongue pushes me over that precipice again. My hands are buried past the knuckle in his thick hair. My legs flop open, a silent plea for him to take as much as he wants. And though it’s so good my eyes roll back in my head, none of it is enough. None of it satisfies that longing at the very bottom of me that cries out to be filled.
“I need you, Rhys.” Through barely open eyes I watch him. “You, baby.”
I taste myself in his kiss before he turns me onto my side, nudging my knee up just a little bit. He’s hot and hard behind me, an urgent press, but so gentle, so careful with me, guiding my thigh with his, angling me to his satisfaction before pushing in, a slow, sure thrust. The moment he fills me, my face twists with the pleasure of it. He grips my hip with one hand, the other reaching around, tilting my head up for a kiss. His hand wanders from my hip to my breast, thieving my breath. The whoosh of air from my mouth breaks our kiss. I turn my head into the pillow as he pumps into me from behind, a silent scream wrenched from me.
“Don’t stop. Rhys, baby, don’t stop,” I pant into the pillow.
“What is this?” he breathes into my neck. “It’s never been like this with anyone, Pep. I promise you that. Never.”
“I know.” I bite my lip to keep from crying out, even though we’re alone out here. “I know.”
“I need to see you.” He flips me onto my back and plunges back in, almost too much, but my body stretches around him, eager and pliant. “Let me see you.”
He doesn’t just mean to look into his eyes when I come for him. Whatever this is, it shoves aside even our base desires, ignoring our limited understanding of intimacy and closeness. Winnowing down deeper and deeper until it hits bottom. Until it crash lands in our souls, and I can’t even take it. My soul is flayed open, like he’s peeled back every layer and laid me out. I know Rhyson feels it, too, his pace becoming more urgent. He rolls into me like thunder, pushing impossibly deeper until he hits that spot and my last reasonable thought flees my body. We are mindless together, a frenetic madness possessing our bodies, our cries mingling in the sweet-scented air until we both shake and tremble and clutch.
Every emotion coalesces into this joining, and I can’t help it. I weep into his neck. Tears flowing, not just for everything this is to us, but for my mother who never had it. I know she didn’t. She couldn’t have. If my parents had this, my father never could have walked away. And mingled on my lips with the taste of our kisses, is the bittersweetness of everything trapped in mama’s jars.
RHYSON IS AS RELUCTANT TO LEAVE my body as I am to let him go, but he finally does, stroking one wide palm over my leg, over my knee, my hip, my arm. The leisurely exploration of lovers, tinged with love and possession. With the tip of my finger, I trace an invisible heart over his thigh thrown carelessly over me. I don’t care that it’s heavy. I only care that he’s mine.