Shooting one last glance up at her, he peeled them down.

Naked but for her bra, she felt even more uncomfortable and vulnerable. Weird and cold, and her breath was shaking as she tried to close her legs. He wasn’t having any of that, though.

More tenderly than she would have imagined, he parted her thighs. Put his palm to the place where her leg met her torso.

The first swipe of his thumb over the length of her slit was a bright burst of pleasure, almost like pain, it was so sharp. Her leg jerked, and she reached to try to still his hand, but then he shifted, getting his fingers into the mix. They were softer as they spread her open, and she forced herself to breathe. To relax.

And then he moved in with his tongue.

“Oh God.” It was warm and wet, like she remembered, but instead of just spelling out his English homework, this man moved around. He touched and licked, across the less sensitive side of her clit and then at the point where everything was too intense.

Then he found the right spot, and her whole abdomen went molten.

“Rylan—”

Without shifting from her sex, he reached up for her hands. Put one in his hair and grasped the other one tightly, and it gave her something to hold on to. A way to be grounded when words had left her, everything had left her. Everything but the sweet pulsing and the building wave.

Over and over, he lapped at her, through each false start, when she was so close she swore she could taste it, only to have it slip away and leave her panting and frustrated. She whined and clutched him tight, probably pulling too hard at his scalp, but he hummed and dove in more hungrily, nuzzling and kissing, licking and sucking.

Tensing hard, she pushed into his touch, into the eager heat of his mouth, and it was there—right there. Warm fingers pressed against her opening, then just inside.

Her eyes snapped open, and her whole body arched, and she reached—reached—

“Rylan—”

God, it wasn’t a wave. It was a tsunami and relief and this crashing, incredible, pulsing oblivion. She shattered, over and over again, swearing out loud and groaning his name, and just wanting him to keep her right there. Against his tongue and his kiss and this trust. This promise.

That he had fulfilled.

When the fire and blackness and flesh-ripe taste of fruit inside her mouth collapsed, she opened her eyes, twitching at the few last laps he took across her clit. She drew her hand from his hair and, too sensitive, nudged at his head to try to get him to stop. Pressing upward with his fingers, he placed one more kiss to her sex before pulling away. Another aftershock rocked through her, only to be followed by a dull emptiness when he withdrew.

Rising up onto his knees, he was a vision, all bare skin to his waist, lips and fingers slick from what he’d given her. He dragged the back of his wrist over his mouth, and she whimpered. For a second, he closed his eyes, tilting his head upward as if he were appealing to a deity. When he looked to her again, his gaze was burning, a hunger so intense it sent a lick of misgiving curling up her spine. She moved to close her legs but he was still between them.

“You have no idea how sexy that was,” he said. He ran his hand down his torso, skimming it over the bulge in his jeans, and something inside of her clenched down again.

She’d do something for him. He’d probably want to be inside of her, and she could do that. If he insisted. It was only fair.

But as he looked down at her, he seemed to recognize the uncertainty tugging at her heart. He hung his head a little, shifting forward, moving to put one knee to the outside of her hip while the other one stayed planted firmly between her thighs. His thumb and forefinger played at the button of his pants. “I want to come so bad.”

“Yeah. We can—” She reached forward to help him.

He shook his head. “Not until you’re ready, beautiful.”

Still, he pulled at the fastener and lowered the zip. She watched, frozen, in a bizarre kind of fascination as he slipped his hand inside, groaning loudly as his wrist disappeared beneath the waistband.

And he was going to— Oh God, he was. Through the fabric, his hand moved, and she shook her head.

“Want to see.”

She’d never witnessed a man touching himself before, and the idea made her tingle, even as sated as she was.

He didn’t ask if she was sure. Everything about him was glazed with arousal, and he was looking straight at her as he pushed his pants and underwear down around his hips. Pulled himself out.

And it shouldn’t have been so hot, but there he was, muscles standing out in stark relief, gaze black with lust, and his cock— She sucked a breath and pulled her lip into her mouth. He was flushed, long and thick, glistening at the tip with fluid.

“See how hard that made me?” he asked, voice husky and dark. “Eating you out. You taste so good, and the noises you make—” He cut himself off with a moan as he took a long stroke down his length with his palm. The foreskin retracted back, revealing more of the head. He took his other hand, still wet with her, and slipped it around the shining skin at the end, leaving it slicker. “Fuck.”

In a punishing rhythm, he thrust his hips into his fist. She lay there, frozen in a sort of fascinated awe. Groaning long and deep, he threw his head back, squeezing out more liquid from his slit.

And it looked good. His pleasure looked amazing, sexy and gorgeous in a way she’d never fully understood before.

Hardly thinking, she extended her hand, slipping her fingertips over the head of his cock. The flesh was hot and achingly hard. “Let me—”

Before she could finish the offer, he gasped out a sound like he’d been punched, his body a tight bow, mouth open. “Kate, Kate, I—”

His come flowed over her hand, spattering down onto her hip in white streaks that felt like possession. She never would’ve expected it, but in that instant, being marked that way made a dark flare of satisfaction awake beneath her skin.

“Goddamn,” he groaned, taking a couple of last, slow pulls at himself before sliding free of his own grip. His damp fingers entwined with hers, and he squeezed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get you all messy.”

“It’s okay.”

Something in her chest turned over. Because it was. She didn’t mind.

She hadn’t been a virgin when she’d met him. They hadn’t had sex. But as she lay there, his body between her legs, her flesh wet with him . . . it felt like she had done something for the very first time.

Like she would never be quite the same as she had before.

chapter EIGHT

Rylan was wringing a washcloth out in the sink when he happened to look up. The bathroom was a little cramped, to be honest, but it was clean, the big plate-glass mirror over the vanity smoothly polished.

The man staring back at him from inside of it looked like he’d just had the best fuck of his life.

Balling the washcloth up in his fist, he ran his other hand through his hair, settling it down from where it had been standing up on end. Kate had done a number on him in that respect, tugging hard at his scalp—almost too hard in the moment right before she’d arched and screamed and pulsed against his tongue.

Just thinking about it made him lick his lips. He’d slept with more than his share of women, but he couldn’t think of any that had gone to pieces quite like that. He probably had nail marks all up and down his shoulders and his neck.

He’d been the first to make her come. And it had shown. God. She’d been wound up, and toward the end there, even he’d been starting to doubt if it were possible. She hadn’t seemed a stranger to the little death—and wasn’t that an image? The idea of her getting herself off? But either she’d been psyching herself out or he had lost his edge. Either way, she hadn’t asked him to stop, and she’d been so into it that he’d had to keep going, drunk on the sound of her moans. She’d clung to the edge for what had felt like forever, and when she’d finally let go . . .