She went still. Her hand twitched on the counter. I felt her smile before I saw it—a ripple, quick and sly. A pulse. “Don’t startsomething you don’t have time to finish,” she whispered, voice soft as steam.
“How much time do you think I need to get you off?” I said. “Because I’m betting it’s not that much.”
She snort-laughed. “Famous last words, Moretti.”
“I improve with practice.”
I pressed my mouth along her shoulder, moving the flannel just enough to find skin. She tasted like minerals and sleep, the clean brine of a body that belonged, for now, only to itself. She leaned into me; I felt her spine under my thumb, the subtle sway as I pinned her hips to the counter. I wasn’t in a hurry, but my hands remembered everything—darkness before sunrise, trains and tunnels, hotel rooms where nothing lasted except the way we touched each other.
Her breath hitched when I slid my palm under her shirt, up her stomach. “Easy,” Jade said, warning me, but not really.
“I could wake you up another way.”
“You can’t get me more pregnant before breakfast.”
“Then I’ll just use my hands,” I said. “And my tongue.”
I dropped to my knees, slow and deliberate, tension humming in the air. I liked how she adapted, how her body learned into my hands; the shiver up her back when I nudged her thighs apart, holding her steady. She tasted like sleep and fall apples and the faintest ghost of mint and coffee on her breath.
She let me, one hand braced on the counter, the other in my hair, tugging me closer. Sometimes I wondered if Jade even realized how hot it was—the scientist letting herself be handled, made to gasp and swear in a language that had nothing to do with logic. Her thighs shook before her voice did, soft and high; I caught them with both hands and, for a second, forgot about the world outside.
“So you’re going to make me come, here, in this kitchen, before breakfast?”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”
I slid her underwear down.
I said it against the inside of her thigh, a promise cut by the scrape of my jaw. She tasted like memory—salt and weary, metallic, but still burning with that secret wildfire always inside her. I used my tongue with the patience of a man who wanted to be remembered for this, and for a while her breathing filled the kitchen, soft at first, then desperate enough to fog the windows.
I pressed and circled and watched her knees buckle, hands scrabbling for grip on the counter.
“You’re so fucking wet,” I said. “You taste so good.”
Her laugh was broken, breathless. “You’re such a goddamn showoff,” she managed, then couldn’t hold her voice at all as I pushed her over—her thighs clamped tight, her back arched, the cry escaping between her teeth and the granite in a way that would have made a priest blush. She shuddered, then slumped, legs gone to water.
And me? I felt a savage kind of pride.
“I’m going to make you come again until you squirt for me.”
“Wait—can I just have breakfast—”
“No.”
She was still draped over the counter, half-laughing, half-shaking, when I coaxed her up and spun her so she leaned against the island. “You really don’t have an off-switch, do you?” she muttered, but her grip on my arm said otherwise.
“No,” I said, and meant it.
I pushed her up until her hips hit the edge of the island. Her face was flushed, sweat on her cheekbones, hair wild like a storm cloud backlit by the sun. She looked like hell, or a beta version of heaven—either way, she was mine.
She held her ground, barely, legs braced shoulder-width on the linoleum. I watched her catch her own reflection in the microwave’s chrome—a blurry cameo, more amused than embarrassed. Caffeine or not, Jade wanted this. The animal in her was awake.
I lifted her—she was heavier than I remembered, more solid, more real—but she wrapped her legs around my waist without missing a beat, clung like she’d always known this was next. I angled her hard against the edge, one palm under her ass, the other sliding under her shirt, circling her nipple until the fabric went taut and damp. She hissed through her teeth.
I kissed her, hard, tongue pushing until she bit down. She liked it rough; she always had, though neither of us ever talked about it. Her nails raked my skin, found the bruise on my shoulder from last week, pressed until I swore.
She said, “Do it,” and I did, hiked her up, used my thigh to keep her spread, and pushed in. The wet heat of her, the way she gripped me—I almost lost it right there. She bit my neck and growled—actually growled, low in her chest—then arched her back so I could fuck her at just the right angle.
She scrambled, hands in my hair, back pressed so hard to the cabinet the wood creaked. I held her in place, one hand on her ass; with the other, I rubbed her clit in frantic, messy circles and watched her try to break me with her eyes alone.
