“Hi,” he murmurs, barely pulling back. His forehead rests against mine. His breath ghosts my mouth.
“Hi,” I whisper, my voice not entirely reliable.
His thumb sweeps along my jaw, patient. “Can I tell you a secret?” His voice is so soft against my ear, a low grumble coming right from the center of his chest. “I hoped you needed that charger last night.”
I chuckle and look into his eyes, and he smiles in return. That feeling of uncomfortableness I had the second I knocked is swept away by the appearance of his dimple.
Connor kisses me again, slow enough to make my toes curl, and his hands are thorough like he’s finally able to learn me by touch—waist, ribs, the slope under my shoulder blades, the back of my neck. My fingers have their own agenda; they sneak under the hem of his T-shirt to find warm skin and a steady hum of muscle. He shivers, almost imperceptibly. I feel stupidly victorious.
“Tell me if you want to stop.”
“I don’t.” The answer finds me before the question is even finished.
“Bed,” he says against my mouth, and I nod because walking sounds complicated and very dangerous. He guides me therewith one hand at my waist, never quite breaking the kiss. The mattress dips, sheets cool against the back of my bare knees. He stands to push the laptop and sets it aside, then looks down at me like he’s trying to decide where to start.
“Everywhere,” I say, surprising the both of us. The honesty of it makes my cheeks heat.
His smile is small and wrecking. “Okay.”
He peels my shirt over my head, slow, careful of my hair. The air touches my skin and tightens everything. He doesn’t rush. He watches, like that first day on Elle’s rooftop, quiet and introspective. His hands slide up my stomach, under the band of my lace bralette, then back down like he’s teasing himself as much as me.
When he finally unclasps it, he breathes out with a quiet, reverent “god,” and the sound shoots straight through me.
I tug his T-shirt up, and he lets me—arms raised, obliging—and then it’s tossed somewhere I don’t care about. He’s warm under my palms, smooth. I mouth along his collarbone, taste clean skin and a hint of salt, and he mutters something that could be my name, or maybe it’s a curse word. In any case it makes my skin break out in goosebumps and my spine tingle.
We take each other apart like this for a long time—hands, mouth, breath, that slow slide of patience that makes everything sharper. He kisses down my sternum, the center of my stomach, the sensitive place just above the waistband of my shorts where I swear I feel sparks.
“Por favor,” I hear myself say, and I don’t even know what I’m asking for. Just… more.
He slides his hand under the elastic and slowly works my pajama bottoms down with the soft scrape of his knuckles against my thighs, and then his mouth is on me through the thin cotton of my panties, deliberate. I arch into him withoutmeaning to. He hums, pleased, and the vibration drags a whimper out of me I try, and fail, to swallow.
“Quiet,” he whispers, not unkind. “You’ll get us caught.”
“Then don’t—” I can’t finish my sentence. He hooks his fingers in the edge of the fabric and eases it aside, breath warm where I ache. The first slow stroke of his tongue against my clit blanks my mind. My hand finds his hair on instinct, fingers tangling, not pushing him but instead anchoring myself to something that isn’t floating.
He takes his time, maddening and generous. Slowly, he tilts me backwards so I’m lying in the middle of his bed as he maps me. He learns what makes my hips chase his mouth, what pulls a sharp breath from my lungs, what unspools me without warning. He doesn’t rush past any of it. When he slips two fingers inside, I clamp my legs around his head, my eyes falling shut.
“Look at me,” he says, voice low.
I do. His eyes are dark and steady, and his mouth is slick with me, his hand moving in a rhythm I can’t fight. He looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be. Something tight coils low in my belly, and I try to hold it, and then he curls his fingers just so and I break—jaw slack, breath stuttering, the world narrowing to white noise and him in between my legs. I come with a strangled sound into the crook of my arm, trying to remember how to breathe, how to keep quiet, how to exist in a body he’s turned upside down and backwards.
He kisses the inside of my thigh once, a soft little stamp of heat, and crawls up over me, bracing himself on his forearms so his weight is a promise, not a crush. I kiss him because I don’t know how else to say thank you. I taste myself and him, and the combination makes my head spin.
“I’ve wanted to taste you since the rooftop,” he admits into my mouth, words rough and unguarded.
Something in my chest kicks hard. I don’t let myself think too hard about what that means—not now, not with his mouth this close—but it lodges somewhere deep, humming through my body.
“Me too.” It feels like jumping and finding ground beneath my feet.
He reaches to the nightstand, finds a foil packet, pauses. “Okay?”
I blink at it, then let out a small, startled laugh. “Do you just… carry condoms with you?”
His mouth tilts, sheepish and amused all at once. “No. Jack.”
“Jack?”
He nods, sliding the packet between his fingers. “Apparently he thought I might, you know… get lucky? His words. Not mine.”
