The wild, unseeing look in his eyes sets my heart racing, and for a moment I wonder if this is all a dream. His mouth captures mine, the taste and feel of him so very real. I draw my legs up his sides, ready to guide him inside me, when by the grace of some rescuing fate, I remember what needs to happen first. I gasp out the words, “Do you have a condom?” I’m not used to asking; I’ve been on the pill for so long.
Leo pushes up on his hands and blinks at me, and I swear, for just a second, I see confusion in his eyes. But without another word, he reaches into his nightstand drawer and digs out a box. It looks like it’s never been opened. He pulls out a packet and fumbles with it so much, I’m afraid he’s going to destroy what’s inside.
“Here.” I take it from him and carefully tear it open.
Is it possible? No, he can’t be. “Have you?—”
He bites his lower lip, but there’s no self-consciousness in his expression. “No, I’ve never used one before.”
Holy shit. “But you’ve?—”
“Yes.”
My only conclusion is that all his relationships have been monogamous and long-term, because he’s not the sort of man to be careless.
I offer him a smile. “Let’s see what you remember from high school health class.”
I soon find out that he’s all book knowledge and no practice. I try to guide him, only half aware that he’s let me take over, his hand covering mine, learning its motions.
“Thank you,” he whispers, his eyes hooded and glazed.
He slides his arms underneath me and shifts me further up the bed, placing me exactly where he wants me to be. Where our bodies are perfectly aligned.
Then he nudges my thighs further apart with his knees.
The moment he pushes inside me, my skin catches fire, and any worries I had that he was inexperienced fly out the window. He stretches and fills me, slowly pulls back, and pushes again. And again. Deeper and deeper, but still at that same agonizingly slow pace. Each thrust sends a fiery wave of pleasure through me, melting me from the inside out. I moan his name as my spine curls.
His fingers dig into my thigh. “Betts, look at me.”
I try, but I can’t. My eyes won’t open, my neck won’t relax. I’m drowning in pleasure.
“Betts—” He slows his movements as he frames my head between his hands. “Please.”
It’s his kiss that snaps me out of my delirium. As he draws back, my eyelids flutter open. He’s peering down at me, his long bangs shadowing his eyes. I reach for his perfect, beautiful face, palms sinking into the hollows beneath his cheekbones. My heart slams against my ribs and my stomach leaps—like I’m in free fall.
He whispers my name again, then says something else. A phrase that’s beautiful and lilting and foreign. I don’t know what it means, but I feel compelled to reply. I bury my fingers in his hair and answer him with a desperate kiss, one he returns with equal intensity. All these emotions—both scary and safe, needy and content, too much and not enough—are crashing over me in waves. And I don’t know if they’re Leo’s or my own.
Satisfied, he resumes his relentless pace, but he never loses his awareness or control. He caresses my neck with his thumb, plants kisses along my jaw, runs a warm hand along the curve of my hip.
I’m a whole person to him.
He leaves a trail of heat everywhere he touches me, and inside me? There’s an inferno. I cling to him as I writhe in its flames. “Oh god, Leo, please?—”
“Please what?” he murmurs. “What do you want?”
All I get out is another whimper.
“Tell me.”
I’m coming undone. My nails scrape his broad back, but he doesn’t even flinch. I tighten my legs around his hips and rise up to meet each one of his strokes. “More,” I plead.
“More what?”
“Harder. Faster.Please.”
With confident hands, he tilts my hips up, creating the perfect angle to plunge into me even deeper. Harder and faster, just as I asked. He moans and his hands tighten into fists. Our breathing is stilted. Ragged. And then mine flat-out stops. He grips me behind one knee and pushes up. One hard thrust and I shatter, the explosionracking my whole body. Cries spill from my throat and a growl rumbles out of his. He jerks once, twice, and drops his cheek against my head with a long sigh.
As we kiss, my chest squeezes tighter and tighter.
