Page 7 of Avalanche (Endless Winter #3)

My cock softens at the thought. At the idea that I pushed her into doing something she didn’t like, that I’ve committed some misstep without realizing it.

Should I have trimmed down there? Is that something that guys do?

I don’t remember any of the guys I was deployed with mentioning it, but maybe it’s one of those things that’s a given.

One of those obvious things that I’ve missed.

There’s been a few of those in my life, I guess.

Dumb as a box of rocks, Dad said. My dad sure as heck never told me to shave down there though.

He’d bought me my first razor and showed me how to shave my face when I was thirteen.

Be careful not to nick yourself , he’d said, and that had been the end of his advice.

“What?” Lily blinks up at me, the confusion written over her features echoing my own.

“My hair,” I clarify. “I know I’ve got a lot of it,” I add hurriedly. “I can trim it or whatever if you hate it. You just have to tell me, okay.”

I sit back, until I’m kneeling between her spread thighs and rest one hand self-consciously over my lap in an effort to hide the way my cock has softened beneath my boxers.

It probably looks small now, all soft like this.

I think about the tufts of dark blond hair surrounding the base of it, blending with the sparse hair on my thighs, trailing up to my naval…

“Your hair?” Lily laughs, a soft, bewildered laugh that doesn’t have an ounce of meanness in it.

She scrambles up the bed, until she’s sitting with her back against the headboard, her legs crossed.

“No, your hair is fine, Matty.” She reaches out to trace one finger on my knee, shooting me a reassuring smile.

“I was talking about my hair.” Her smile falters, gaze going distant. “I just thought… my last boyfriend…”

Her throat bobs and I track the movement of it, my attention lingering on the pink skin that marks where my lips were only minutes ago. When she’d been panting beneath me, desperate for my touch.

Before I ruined the moment with my bumbling inexperience.

“Your last boyfriend was an idiot.” I jolt at the sound of Liam’s drawl, at the scathing tone in his voice.

I turn to see him leaning in the doorframe, faint light from the kitchen marking his silhouette, casting his face in shadow. Antoine is close behind him, the elegant curve of his features marked gold in the light. My chest squeezes at the sight of them, stomach tightening with nerves.

“Well, yeah,” Lily concedes wryly. “He was…”

“What’s this about your hair, ma puce ?” Antoine asks gently.

Lily drags both hands over her face and groans in embarrassment.

“Let me guess.” Liam folds his arms across his chest, his lips curving with disdain. “Your ex was one of those guys who claims to be into chicks but gets squeamish at the sight of an actual vagina.”

“Oh, you mean that type of hair.” Antoine gives a small chuckle, then follows Liam into Lily’s room, his footsteps padding across the carpet until he’s at the bed.

He climbs onto it without preamble, placing himself beside Lily with comfortable familiarity, his long legs tucked in, his knees knocking against her own.

Liam stands at the other side of the bed, lingering, as if uncertain whether he should sit down or not.

“Oh my god.” The back of Lily’s head thuds against the headboard, both arms raising to hide her face.

I shoot Antoine a pleading look. “I just wanted to go down on her,” I whisper.

Nerves have wound a knot in my stomach, and my skin heats from the tips of my ears to my neck. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. But this is the girl I’m going to marry, dang it. If I can’t face embarrassment for her, I sure as heck don’t deserve to get down on one knee for her.

Antoine gives me an understanding smile, then turns to peel Lily’s arms away from her face.

“ Ma chère ,” he purrs. “What are you doing? Don’t you want Matty to make you feel good?”

Lily nods, her eyes squeezed shut, a whimper catching in her throat.

My own throat tightens. I hope I can make her feel good. But so far, I’ve just made this whole thing awkward…

Liam makes an irritated sound, scowling his disapproval at the three of us before brushing sleep mussed hair from his forehead. “No fucking way,” he grumbles. “Nope.”

I look at him in alarm, but his glower is fixed on Lily, not me.

“Open your eyes, Lily,” he orders. “You don’t get to hide from us.”

It shouldn’t send a thrill through me to hear that gravelly order, but it does.

“I’m not hiding,” Lily protests. But she opens her eyes, staring up at Liam with a mixture of irritation and hunger.

“Good,” Liam rumbles. “Then you’ll take off those little sleep shorts and let your boyfriend taste your fucking pussy.”

Lily gasps, hazel eyes widening as if no one has ever spoken to her like that in her life.

“Liam,” Antoine warns, but Liam cuts him off with a raised hand and a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t worry, love.” The faintest of smirks curves Liam’s lips. “She knows she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Don’t you, Lily? But she wants it. She’s fucking desperate for it. Do you know how I know?”

Liam looks at me as he asks this question. I shake my head, too stunned to speak.

“Because this poor chick hasn’t gotten off in at least a week.

Maybe longer. She’s been working herself to the point of exhaustion and not one of her five boyfriends has been thoughtful enough to order her to get in bed, spread her legs and let them worship her.

Well.” A low huff. “I guess that’s what we’re fucking doing now, isn’t it?

Lily, pants off. No, don’t give me that look.

You know I’m right—you’ve gotten wet just from me talking, haven’t you?

Don’t lie. You know I can see it, right? ”

He tilts his chin to where her legs are spread as she sits cross-legged, to the thin cotton of her sleep shorts pulled tight until the fabric is pressed against her core.

I follow his gaze. He’s right, I realize, with a dizzying pulse of arousal.

I lick my lips, almost overcome with the urge to bend forward, press my face between her thighs.

I bet I could taste her through the cotton.

Lily looks at me in silent question, all trace of the glower she’d cast in Liam’s direction gone.

Instead, there’s just want there, the same quivering want that stretched between us when it was just her and I beneath the covers, moments earlier.

Before I’d opened my big mouth and asked her for more than she felt comfortable giving.

“I… I’d love to try,” I rasp, offering her a tremulous smile. “If you want it.”

Saying those words, it’s more terrifying than anything I faced in that hellscape of a desert that I try every day to forget.

But I have to say them. For her. For the woman I’m going to marry.

Because some asshole made her feel ashamed of her body—her!

The most incredible woman I’ve ever known.

The sort of woman I never imagined would look my way, let alone want to date me.

She needs to know how much I adore her. How I crave everything about her.

“Oh, she fucking wants it,” Liam mutters, dropping to the bed beside me. I shoot him a nervous glance, startling at his sudden closeness. As intimidating as it was having him looming over us, I think having him beside me might be even more terrifying.

Which is silly, because he’s my friend. I’ve seen him and Antoine naked, had his body close beside my own in this very bed.

I’ve seen the way his brow pinches when he comes.

Lily draws in a stuttering breath, presses her lips together with resolve, then pulls off her sleep shorts in one fluid movement. My own breath catches in my throat, heavy and solid as a stone, nearly strangling.

“Beautiful.”

The word comes out guttural, a deep primal sound. Saliva fills my mouth and I lick my lips. God, I hope I don’t drool. Please don’t let me drool.

Lilt worries her lower lip with her teeth, pressing her thighs together and angling her body as if she intends to hide herself from us. “You don’t have to. I’m not…”

A dark hand covers Lily’s mouth before she can finish whatever she was going to say, making her eyes fly wide in surprise.

“ Non .”

Antoine gives his head a vehement shake before launching into what can only be a chastisement, though I don’t understand a word of his lilting French.

It’s beautiful though, musical and intelligent sounding.

A language that fits him as naturally as those collared shirts and designer sweaters do, like a second skin.

“He’s right,” I tell her, even though I haven’t understood a single word that he’s said. “You are beautiful. Every part of you.”

My gaze drops to her lap, to that hidden part of her that is currently tucked out of sight between pressed-together thighs.

But I can still see that tantalizing mound, a little v decorated by dark curls.

Heat rushes down my spine at the sight of her, at the curve of her hips and those strong legs, at the dip of her naval and the stretch of her sleep tee across her breasts.

My wife. This is the woman who is going to be my wife.

If I can get her to say yes.

The thought has me launching myself across the bed, pulling her sumptuous little body back beneath me, slanting my lips against hers.

Somewhere, I’m aware of Liam huffing, of Antoine chuckling, of the brush of his thigh against my bicep as I nearly knock him out of the way, wedge myself between him and Lily.

I don’t care though. Not when Lily’s legs are tangled with my own once again, when there is nothing between me and her but the whisper thin fabric of my boxers, when her fingers are tracing the length of my spine and she’s moaning into my mouth.

Yes. This. This is where we were before. And this time I’m not going to mess things up.