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His hands moved, one threading into her hair to hold her head still, leaving her mouth and neck bare for him to sample at will. And he did, a touch of fire, a faint hit of steel. The other hand slid down her back, slow and certain, then beneath the hem of her T-shirt to mold itself to her hip.
Then lower still, as if he couldn’t help himself. As if he needed to test the shape of her bottom, full against his palm.
Everly shuddered. Blue muttered something, hot and male and explosive.
Then everything shifted. He lifted her up and swung her into his arms as if she were weightless. Or maybe she just felt that way around him. She was captivated by the span of his mighty shoulders. And that wide, sculpted chest with a dusting of dark hair. And that intense, deliriously focused look on his face, as if she were the only thing in the whole of the world.
Everly was afraid her heart might claw its way out of her chest.
Or maybe the truth was she didn’t mind what happened next, as long as it happened with him.
She thought he might head into the bedroom, but there was something desperate in him. In her, too. She felt nothing but grateful when he carefully laid her down on the couch and then came down after her, covering her with his long, hard body.
“The bed—” she gasped.
“Too far.”
He settled between her legs at last, and it was her turn to frame his face with her hands. She ran her palms over the rough surface of his unshaven jaw, thrilling to the faint abrasion against her skin. It seemed to wind its way deep inside her until it pooled like a new fire between her legs.
He let out another sound, something like a sigh.
As if this were magic for him, too.
“I need to taste you,” he said, his voice like its own caress, there in the dark.
And all Everly could do was make a noise, helpless and greedy at once. She didn’t know what it meant. But Blue seemed to.
He reached down and took the hem of her T-shirt in one fist, then lifted it, tugging it up and over her head.
And then she was naked, save the skimpy pair of panties she wore, stretched there beneath him.
Open. Vulnerable.
Completely exposed to the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life.
But Everly thought she’d never felt more beautiful than she did with Blue’s dark, hot gaze all over her, as if she were an altar and he had a mind to get his worship on.
He bent down, his hands smoothing their way over her as if she were precious beyond measure, so he could lift her breast to his lips. He licked her until she squirmed, and then he sucked.
And when she cried out, he started all over again on the other one.
Everly simply tipped her head back, surrendered herself to his hands and his mouth, his teeth, and his low, stirring laughter, and let him drive her wild.
She was breathing loud and heavy when he moved down farther, and she squirmed beneath him. His big hands circled her hips and held her still as he tested the depth of her navel, then licked his way down farther still.
“Stop fidgeting,” he said against her belly, halfway between her navel and the part of her that ached for him the most.
“I can’t help it.”
“Try.”
Everly could feel him smile. And his words were like coals, hot and glowing, pressed deep into her. She couldn’t stay still. She couldn’t stop smiling, her head tipped back like she was at the very top of a roller coaster and about to take flight.
“Or what?” she managed to ask.
“Oh,” he murmured, the scrape of his jaw against her tender skin, his head much too close to that melting place between her legs. “I’m sure I’ll think of an appropriate punishment.”
Everly couldn’t wait.