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Or maybe to shove me away. In which case, I braced myself for the rejection, giving him a second to choose.

To stop me. To stop himself. To stop us.

His eyes raked over me, his posture rigid, and doubt settled in. What had gotten into me? If I continued, if I tried with him, I’d go to bed mortified.

I eased back, pulled back, stepped back. “Never mi—”

His hands shot out, seized my hips, and hoisted me against him.

23

Fantasy

And the hour closed in around us. And every corner of these woods disappeared.

He’d crushed me to his chest, but now remained still—on a ledge.

My lips trembled for his, and maybe he felt the same, because his hooded eyes fell to my mouth, his irises dimming from morning to midnight.

Our lips halted a breath away.

My breasts dragged over his pecs, the fabric of our clothes rustling, my nipples popping through the material to scrape against him. A shocked sigh toppled out of Aire’s chest. A pure sigh that I would’ve pinned to someone inexperienced.

When’s the last time someone touched you?

But I didn’t need to ask, and he seemed incapable of speech anyway, so I jerked my hips into him. Just once, needing to be closer, harsher against him.

That’s how I got my answer. He sighed, a rickety exhalation, so unlike his gossamer lilt. I’d made him sound like that.

The sound belonged to me. It was mine.

I jolted my hips again, one more experimental time, and he made another noise that drifted into the air, while something similar peeled from my tongue.

I felt it. I’d made him hard. Mother fucking victory.

Seasons, the length of him. It rubbed against a sensitive part of me, a delicate little lever, which only need to be flipped once, to get the rest of me to react. Mechanisms low in my belly lurched to life in seconds.

I bit my lower lip. Keeping one hand on my waist, Aire reached up with the other, caressing that spot where my incisors grazed. He stared in wonder until I nipped his digit, causing his pupils to swallow those blue irises whole, and dammit, my head and heart were about to combust. I’d go mad at this rate.

I paced myself, pausing the hip-roll, but still felt himthere.

In two years, no one had put their hands on him. That much was clear.

Oh, I’d do that and more.

My chin tilted, my lips dipping to the underside of his chin. His head fell back, facing the stars as I planted greedy open-mouthed kisses along his skin, tasting the slope of his jaw, the column of his throat, the hollow between his collarbones.

At the side of his neck, I drew in his flesh, sucking the pulse point, and listened to him keen, his fingers gripping my hips, digging into the wood.

So continued the sexiest, most breathtaking fondle session I’d ever known. I feasted on his throat, licking along the edge, racking him with shivers. I took what I’d been wanting and gave what he’d been needing. And he gave back, holding me, just holding me, just that.

An honest embrace.

My fist balled his shirt, his palms glided to my back, and our chests pounded. My free hand thrust into his hair, deep into those golden threads while my lips worked him into a frenzy.

On a groan, his fingers soared up to my scalp and pulled my head back, forcing eye contact. I understood. This sequence of events was happening all out of order, but I didn’t care, and neither did he.

But we had to care, because he always cared so much about things, and I cared about him, and I cared about this. This wasn’t empty fun. This was devastating and frustrating and miraculous and complicated and scary and safe.