With excruciating deliberateness, he repeats the movement with the other side until my breasts are nearly bared to him.  Tantalizingly half-covered.

Still, Cole watches me as he leans closer, our eyes locked until he passes out of my vision. A fraction of a second later, I feel his lips at my ear.  “So beautiful,” he whispers, tracing the shell with the tip of his tongue as he teases my aching nipples with the backs of his fingers.

He brushes his lips and flicks his tongue along my jaw until he reaches my mouth.  He hovers at the edge of my lips, close enough to kiss me, yet not. He licks the corner and I open reflexively, hungry for the taste of him on my own tongue.  But he doesn’t come in. He must know what he’s doing to me, though, because I feel the huff of warm air and the light rumble of his laugh, followed by a soft, “Be patient.”

I close my eyes as Cole kisses his way down my throat, across my collarbone and then down to the swell of my breast.  I feel his warm breath.  I anticipate his touch, his firm touch, so much that it makes my hands tremble.

I arch my back the tiniest bit, a silent plea for him to take what I’m offering.  But still, he won’t.  He simply skims his open mouth back and forth over my throbbing nipples, taunting them with his moist breath.  Taunting but never taking.

I feel his hands move around my ribs, skating lightly over my skin as he goes. With a flick that’s as quick and soft as a butterfly kiss, his fingers unhook my bra.

When he straightens away from me, I feel it. I feel it in the loss of his body heat, in the loss of this crazy magnetism that’s between us.  And when he inhales, I feel it in the air, like his slow drawing of breath created a vacuum, a bubble where only he and I exist.

I open my eyes when the quiet becomes too still.  Cole’s gaze is trained on my chest, even as his hands come to the straps at my elbows, slowly dragging them down my arms, inch by excruciating inch. I have to bite my tongue to keep from moaning when my nipples pop free of the lace and Cole’s breath hisses through his teeth.  “Damn, you’re gorgeous,” he breathes, his pupils swelling as he drinks me in.  Truthfully, I’ve never felt more beautiful than I do right now, with his eyes blatantly loving what they see.

Cole lets my bra drop to the floor.  In slow, slow motion, he reaches for my breasts, cupping them, weighing them, feathering the peaks with the pads of his thumbs.  My nipples pucker prettily for him and he exhales on a breathy groan.  He closes his eyes for a second.  Time seems to stop.  But when he opens them again, they’re on mine, intense as ever.  Hotter than the fire behind me.

“Perfect,” he says softly, bending his head to swirl his tongue around my tingling flesh.

I let my head fall back, threading my fingers into his hair to hold him to me.  “That feels so good,” I murmur, squeezing my legs together, intensifying the delicious throb taking place between them.

“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” he says against me.  “Lush.  Round.  And your nipples…Jesus!  They fit perfectly in my mouth.  They beg for my tongue to lick.  My lips to suck.  For my teeth to bite.”  The last is said on something like a growl.  It reverberates through my chest and furls my nipples even tighter.  “Mmmm!” he mutters, scraping his teeth lightly over me and causing my insides to spasm.

How embarrassing would it be to have an orgasm at this point in the night?  How embarrassing, but how amazing.  No other person has ever brought me pleasure before. Just me.  Me and my imagination. Me and my fantasies of a man who might change everything.  A man like Cole.  And this time, in real life, I might not be able to stop my body from reacting.

Cole makes hungry sounds as he devours my breasts. I’m arched so deeply into him, it’s a wonder my whole breast isn’t in his mouth.  But I want it to be. I want him to consume me.  To eat me alive, leave nothing but the bones.

His fingers find their way to my waistband, effortlessly unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans as his mouth works to unravel me.  He drops to his knee in front of me, his tongue still flicking my left nipple as he drags my pants and panties down my legs.

When I feel them at my feet, I step out of them and kick them to the side.  The air circulates between my legs, cooling my hot, wet flesh.  Stimulating me. Torturing me.  The muscles within me ripple and squeeze, telling me I’m getting closer.

“Christ Almighty!” Cole moans as he abandons my nipple for the flat plane of my stomach.  “I can smell you.  So sweet it makes my mouth water.”

Lava gushes to my core, and the closer Cole gets to it, the harder it becomes to remain upright. But Cole fixes that.  As though he can’t wait another second, he pulls me down to my knees and lays me on my back in front of the fire.

Then his mouth is on me again.  Crushing my lips, sucking my tongue, laving my nipples, testing my bellybutton.  And when his hands reach between my legs and press them wide, I’m breathless with anticipation.  This time, I’m here with only Cole.  There are no memories, no ghosts.  No tragedies and no pain. Only the now.  Only the beautiful now.

He moans into me when his tongue finds my crease. He laps and licks, his fingers teasing and taunting as they advance and retreat within me.  Never too deep, never enough to satisfy.  Only to torment.  Sweet, sweet torment.

Even though he’s not trying to push me over the edge, I can’t stop my body from reacting. It feels too good, I want him too much.

When the first surge of climax washes through me, it steals my breath. It’s slow and deep and so, so pleasurable that I can do little more than hold on until it passes.  Until it releases me from its spell.

Only it’s not over.

“God, yes!” Cole murmurs against me, his fingers and tongue vying for the center of me, battling it out in the most delicious trade-off imaginable.  With every thrust and wriggle, with every lick and nibble, another swell breaks over me, tightening my stomach and arching my back.  My thighs clamp rhythmically around his head and my fingers curl viciously into the rug.  My ears are ringing with the sounds of his fervor and my ecstasy, and I don’t want to hear anything else.

Before the last of the spasms can wane, Cole is kissing his way up my body, dragging the flavor of me into my mouth, swirling it around my tongue with the tip of his. And then he’s pushing into me.  Slowly, unceasingly. Giving me time to stretch for him, to welcome him, to move with him.

When he starts to withdraw, I wind my legs around his hips to keep him close. He thrusts back into me, even deeper, even thicker.

Back and forth, back and forth, he eases out and then rams back in. Never enough to really hurt me, but enough that I feel a delightful sting, a delectable stretch. I can’t help wondering how much of him is left

I urge him on with my heels and he lifts his head to look down into my face. His expression is almost pained and there’s a fine sheen of perspiration glistening on his forehead.

“I made you a promise.  And I don’t want to give you any reason to tell me to stop.  But dammit, Eden, I can only take so much.”

He flexes his hips, almost as though a beast is riding his back and he’s trying with all his might to keep it at bay.  To save me from it.  Or save me from him.

Only I don’t want to be saved this time.  I’m not afraid.  I see no one, I feel no one but Cole.

And now I want to feel all of him.

I push at his shoulders until he leans up off me, a frown knitting his brow. I keep pushing until I can wiggle out from under him and then I press hard, urging him onto his back.  With a desperation I don’t quite understand, I climb onto him, positioning my body over his.  Our eyes meet, his backlit with a fire that burns brighter than the flames behind his head.  He’s beautiful and intense and I can feel his want like a physical heat, brushing my cheeks, kissing my lips, caressing my body.