Stunned at his strength, my hands went to his chest. I didn’t push him away. “What . . . what made sense to you?” I asked.
He lowered his head instead of answering, and his mouth moved over mine, coasting softly until he urged my lips open. His tongue touched mine, and the kiss deepened. It was different like this, with me on my back and him above me. He shifted his body down again, slowly, and only until I could feel a little of his weight, a little of him.
I was kissing him back, and I wanted more. Fingers balling into his shirt, I tried to pull him down, but he resisted, controlling how much he was giving me. “Cole,” I whispered, feeling like I was on fire, burning from the inside in the most delicious way. It had been a long time since I felt this way. Too long.
“We have ten years’ worth of stuff to talk about,” he said against my mouth. “There’s still a lot we need to say.”
“I know.” I wanted him closer, so I curled my left leg around him. Biting down on my lip, I lifted my hips just the slightest, pressing into his. He made that sound again and dropped his head to my neck.
Cole kissed me there, just below my pulse. “Still trying to take this slow, babe. That’s the smart thing to do.”
I dragged my hands up to his shoulders, restless. “I . . . I can do this.”
A moment passed and Cole lifted his head. Heated blue eyes met mine. Warmth invaded my cheeks. “I’ve had sex since . . . since then,” I told him. I’d been a virgin when the Groom came into my life. I hadn’t been afterward, and it took years with lots of therapy and failed dates for me to go there with my body and to trust another person in that way, but I had. “I’m not scared . . . of sex.”
“Babe,” he murmured, kissing me softly. “I’m relieved to hear that you’ve moved on in that way, but I still don’t want to rush it.”
“I appreciate that, but . . .”
Those remarkable eyes were fixed on my mouth, and I liked that. A lot. Heat was pounding through my veins, and I wanted to rush things, because I knew there wasn’t always a next time. There wasn’t always a promise of tomorrow, and we were two adults who wanted what we wanted.
Instead of speaking, I cupped his cheeks and drew his mouth back to mine. This time when I kissed him, I threw everything I wanted into the kiss, and I curled my leg around his once more, lifting my hips to his. Oh, he wanted this as badly as I did. Cole made that sound again, and things . . . well, they spiraled beautifully out of control.
He glided his hand down my throat and over my shoulder, brushing the cardigan aside, and heady awareness followed. I gasped into his mouth as his palm coasted over the top of my breast. The material was so thin it was like there was nothing between our flesh. My nipple pebbled, and he groaned. Air hitched in my throat, and every cell in my body waited. He didn’t let me down.
Cole slipped his hand under the cami, and I jerked. His fingers skimmed the side of my stomach, and my eyes flew open as a tiny bit of heat faded. He was near . . . a scar—a scar that had long since healed, but was still raised and rough, and weirdly sensitive. But he didn’t touch it. Oh no, those fingers found the tip of my aching breast as his kiss took on a different strength, becoming demanding. He caught my lower lip, and I let out a little breathless moan. Everything about him invaded me—the taste, his smell, the way he felt. The liquid fire burning in my core was too potent to ignore, and I shivered when he spoke in a deep, rumbling voice.
“What do you want, Sasha?”
Him. Everything. “Touch . . . touch me.”
He moaned. “I can do that, baby. I can do that.”
And he did.
His hand left the tip of my breast, deftly slipping under the hem of my bottoms and the band of my panties. He lifted up slightly, supporting his weight on his left arm. His eyes were on fire. “Open your legs for me.”
Doing as he asked, I held my breath as his fingers made their way over the mound between my legs. My heart was in my throat as he dipped his chin, watching his hand under my clothes. A finger skimmed, barely touching me, but my entire body jolted with sensation.
“Damn,” he said as he gently explored, and I breathed like I’d just run the entire flight of stairs in the inn. “I want to see you, all of you, but we don’t have time for that.”
“We don’t?” I whispered, hips twitching.
“Oh no.” Thick lashes lifted as his thumb pressed against the little bundle of nerves, causing me to whimper. “You’re too ready to wait for all of that.”
He then increased the pressure until my hips were moving, rocking against his hand. A fierce heat rose, building and building until I feared I’d combust right here on the couch. He ran a finger down into the gathering wetness. Tension coiled as I pressed into his hand and then his finger slipped inside.
“Oh God.” My fingers tightened around his shirt, bunching the material. “Cole . . .”
“Damn,” he grunted out again. “Love the way you say my name.”
There was this rhythm he started, and it was perfect, and too much, and not enough all at the same time. My hips thrust up, meeting his hand as my body twisted with sharp spikes of pleasure. Another finger slipped in, and I cried out, a fine tremor coursing throughout me.
I wanted to feel him, the hard planes of his chest and stomach, but all I could do was hold on to him as his name became a plea. The pounding tension inside me expanded as his fingers pumped. Groaning, Cole pressed his erection against the side of my hip and swirled his thumb in the right way, in the right place. The whirling force of the orgasm hit me hard, crashing over me. Crying out, I tensed as my back bowed. Spasms racked my body, seeming to go on forever.
“That was beautiful,” he murmured against my mouth, easing his hand out of my bottoms.
“I think that was supposed to be . . . my line.” My voice caught as a tight aftershock hit me. This wasn’t the first time I’d had an orgasm, but damn, it blew every one of them away.
“Mmm.” He kissed me.
My heart was starting to slow a little, but I wanted to give him what he gave me. I lowered my hand. My fingers brushed his belt when he reached down and gently grasped my wrist, lifting my hand back to his chest.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, his eyes taking on a sexy, hooded quality.
“But I want to.”
He shuddered at my words. “Sasha.”
“And what you did was just . . . it was amazing.” Those were the truest words I’d spoken. “I want to make you feel that way.”
Cole shifted slightly. “Babe, watching you come on my fingers was enough for now. Hell.” His lips brushed mine once more. “I was really trying to go slow here.”
“I like our pacing.”
“Yeah.” His hand coasted over my breast on the way up to my cheek. “Yeah, me too.”