“Stop,” I told him, sliding from underneath him, avoiding his reach when he grabbed after me.

“Aly, please.”

“No,” I said, covering my bare chest with my arms. I wanted back on that bed, back underneath him, but I’d have Ransom my way. I’d have my dream. “Not like that.”

“What…”

“I don’t share, Ransom.” When he shook his head and that frown made his mouth look stiff and defensive, I leaned against the mattress on my knee, coming close to him. “You want in my bed, it’s the two of us and no one else.”

I got closer then, adding my left leg to the right on the mattress in front of him. He was still dressed and sweat beaded along his forehead. When I reached up to wipe his face dry, he again caught my hand. “What do you…want do you want?”

Pushing him wouldn’t work. I’d been around Ransom enough to know no one bullied him into anything he didn’t want. But I also knew that he wanted me. If he hadn’t lied about me turning him on when no one else could, then I’d use the leverage I had—my body, my limited moves—to touch him.

He reminded me of a cop, testing to see if a jumpy suspect was going to reach for his gun—Ransom held his hands flat on his thighs and tilted his head, watching me as I scooted closer. But I didn’t touch his face, just moved my fingernails over his knuckles.

“You want me, Ransom?” He didn’t say anything, but I still caught the answer in the way his gaze moved down my body, in how he licked his lips. I stretched my fingers, letting my thumb slip inside the sleeve of his shirt as I leaned in, placing one kiss under his ear. “You remember what it felt like, that first night at Summerland’s?” Ransom closed his eyes, groaned once when I took his ear between my teeth. “I came just rubbing against you, wishing…wishing I could touch you everywhere, with my fingers, my tongue…” another growl and Ransom didn’t stop my hand as I moved it underneath his hoodie and raked my nails over his stomach, “my mouth.”

“Aly…God…what, shit what do you want me to do?” His large palm was flat against my ass and Ransom used his fingers to curl into my skin like he needed to hold onto me. “I need to touch you. Please…”

“Because you want me?”

He groaned again, sinking his mouth onto my neck, his fingers in my hair. “Yes…I want you. Don’t fucking tease me.”

“Never,” I said, pulling away from him. He reached out once, a little desperate and didn’t fight me when I tugged up his hoodie. It was the small loosening of his tension, the slacked way his arms fell to his side that I used to shift control. Ransom went down easy enough, laying against the mattress as I straddled him.

He was so beautiful. So long, so wide that he took up most of my mattress. His dark skin against my white sheets, his large hands skimming over my legs, it was striking, all of it, and I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to keep kissing him until we were both weak from the effort. But I needed him to feel me, all of me.

I lowered over him slowly, locked my gaze on to his, ignoring how his hands trembled as he rested them on my hips. “I want you too,” I said, kissing his stomach, pushing up his t-shirt as I rubbed my lips against each dip of his muscles. “I’ve wanted you for a long, long time.”

“Aly,” he warned, his fingers digging into my thighs.

“You haven’t felt this, have you?” An open-mouthed kiss over his chest, a flick of my tongue on his nipple and his breathing quickened. “Only this, right?” I asked, stretching on top of him so that my center rubbed against his dick. Ransom squeezed his eyes tight and blinked quickly when I kissed him, when I rubbed my fingers over his forehead and across his cheek.

We were stomach to stomach, our mouths almost touching and as I continued to touch him, that distant glint in his eyes began to fade. “I want to touch you everywhere.” Again he closed his eyes when I smoothed my thumb over his face but this time his eyelids did not squeeze tight and his breathing had slowed. “Will you let me do that for you?”

He had a large Adam’s apple that bobbed when he swallowed and the only answer I got was a small dip of his chin giving me all the permission I needed. And for the first time since I’d known him, Ransom followed.

“Sit up,” I said, eager to get that shirt off him, happy when he obeyed, when he fell back again against the pillow, just as I wanted. But he wasn’t being docile; his reaction to how I touched him—those low, delicious grunts, the possessive grips on my hair, my hips, had me doubling my efforts, tasting his skin, licking and kissing across that beautiful chest, across the tattoo on his left pec. I knew who the angel there was, but didn’t think about it. Tonight Emily couldn’t have him.

“Aly, ah, what are you doing to me?” he said when I continued to kiss down his stomach, nuzzling my nose against his hips, pulling that tight skin near his navel between my teeth. “God, oh…” Those low moans were like music, a desperate song I wanted to hear over and over again. And so it was his voice and the rhythm of his sighs, the touch of his tightening fingers in my hair that urged me forward.

I didn’t think his breath could quicken that much, that I could take his tight hold in my hair, but I did, loving how my mouth, my teeth and tongue seemed to work some kind of spell on him, but when I loosened the button of his jeans and freed that beautiful, long dick from his boxers, Ransom made a noise deeper than any of the others and his heaving breaths stilled, like he waited, anxious, desperate to see what I’d do next.

“God…oh God, Aly…I need…I need…”

“What do you need, Ransom? Tell me,” I said, holding just the tip in my mouth before I released him.

“I need you to touch me.” He moved my head up and when I looked at his eyes there was nothing holding him back. We were alone. “I need you to never stop touching me.”

And I didn’t, not for two straight minutes. Ransom was long and thick and glided perfectly between my lips, the tip of him hitting each ridge on the roof of my mouth, that beefy vein underneath pulsing against my tongue. I didn’t break away from him once, not when Ransom’s groan became a growl again, not when his hips came off my mattress, not when he came, flooded my mouth so hard that I thought his shout would rattle the windows of my tiny apartment.

Ransom was eighteen. Young. Virile. One orgasm did not keep him sated for long. I had barely laid next to him, smiling as he rolled against me, loving how tightly he held onto me, how his cheek on my stomach felt warm, his slowing breaths fanning against my hip. It was just a moment, a handful of minutes, then Ransom’s breath evened out and he kissed my bare skin.

“Aly…Aly…” he said rolling over me. He took my waist between his large hands, holding me underneath him as my name left his lips like a prayer against my skin.

I could touch him now, my hands over his back, my fingers against his forehead, pulling his face closer. “Don’t stop,” I said, when he moved his hand under my thighs to settle between my legs. “Keep going, please.”

I wondered what was written on my face, if that thrill of anticipation, of hope was as plain to him as the craving that surely was in mine. Whatever he saw, Ransom hesitated and for a second I was scared he’d back away.

“Ransom…” I started, keeping my fingers against his face. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to keep from touching him.

“You sure about this? You want all of me?”

“Oh, sugar, every inch you’ve got.”

The quick smile left Ransom’s face, though he still nodded, like he needed me to know he understood. I held my breath, not sure I’d remember to exhale as he lifted his hand and let one fingertip smooth over my bottom lip. “You, Aly…shit, you could tempt a saint just with a blink of those big eyes.”

A small sigh and my breathing settled. “No,” I said, moving a half smile onto my mouth. “Saints don’t like sinners and I’ve got a full tally of sins.” It was true. I couldn’t count the times I’d wished that Emily had never existed just to keep that constant frown from Ransom’s face. I didn’t think there were prayers loud enough to absolve me.