“Fuck,” he breathed, moving to help her. As he did, he ended up with his face pressed into her hair and damn, did she smell good. Like honey and strawberries and fresh summer rain. And then, because he couldn’t resist, he kissed her shoulder, trailing his lips over the slope of her breast until he could take her hard little nipple in his mouth.
She gasped, arched her back. Tangled her fingers in his hair.
Thank God.
He sucked harder, swirled his tongue around her nipple once, twice, then again and again as she moaned and quivered and gasped above him. Determined to press his advantage, he slid his hand over her hip to her sex. He could feel her through the yoga pants—hot and wet—and for a second he wanted nothing more than to strip them off of her and press his lips to her *.
But before he could do much more than hook his hands in the waistband of her pants, she jerked away.
“No, what are—” He grabbed for her, but she was already gone, sliding off the edge of the bed and tugging his jeans with her while she went.
“I told you,” she said, pressing her lips to his now bare abs. “My turn.”
“No offense, sweetheart, but if you don’t hurry up, I don’t think I’m going to survive your turn.” He sounded like he’d just swallowed a handful of broken glass.
She only laughed, though. “No offense, sweetheart,” she mimicked after a minute, “but I’m just getting started.”
And then she was nuzzling her way along his happy trail, licking along his V-cut, pressing kisses over his abdomen and chest.
She paused at his nipples this time, circled her tongue around first one and then the other before pausing to suck one into her mouth. His fingers tightened in her hair—he’d long since lost the battle to keep his hands to himself—and she moaned, a breathless little sound that had his cock all but standing at attention.
He pulled her closer, held her tighter, reveling in the luscious scent of her, the creamy softness of her. The wicked, wanton sex of her. Though he knew this was her show, knew she needed to be in control, it took every ounce of self-control he had not to lift her up and set her down on his face.
He knew if he did, he could have her screaming his name in less than thirty seconds.
He didn’t do it, though. Instead he lay there as she explored every inch of his body with her hands, her mouth, her soft, wet little tongue. She sucked his nipples into her mouth, licked her way along the macabre, black and white tattoos that made up both of his sleeves, even ran her fingers along the track marks on his hips and inner arms.
He squirmed away the second she touched them, hating that she was seeing them. Hating that she very obviously knew what they were.
And when she leaned forward to press kisses to the ugly marks—one after another—he nearly lost it completely.
“Don’t!” he ground out, pulling her away from him.
“It’s okay,” she told him.
“It’s not okay,” he answered, feeling naked in a way that had nothing to do with how his clothes were crumpled on the floor. He couldn’t stand that his addiction—his weakness—was laid out in the thin black marks for her to see. He hadn’t wanted to be strong for anyone in longer than he could remember, hadn’t wanted to be whole and clean and normal. But he wanted it now, for her. Wanted it with a desperation that bordered on the pathological.
“They’re a part of you,” she told him, shoving his hands out of the way so she could kiss along the tangible proof of his weakness. “Not all of you, not the most important part of you. But a part of you.”
“I don’t want you to see them,” he said. “Please, I don’t want—”
“Okay,” she murmured, shimmying back up him so that she was once again straddling his hips. Only this time all that was between his dick and her sex was the very thin layer of her yoga pants, and it wasn’t enough to keep him from feeling how hot she was. How wet.
“I won’t touch them,” she continued as she rocked her hips gently against him. “But I want you to know what I see when I look at them.”
“Poppy, don’t—” She was killing him, tearing him apart with his need for her and his utter self-loathing all at the same time.
“Ssshhh.” She pressed soft fingers to his lips, even as she slipped a hand between them. Fisted his cock. Began to stroke. “I know you’re ashamed of them, but you shouldn’t be.”
He arched against her despite himself, his whole body straining for the pleasure—the release—her touch promised.