Page 31 of Brave Spirit (Bound Spirit #6)

After giving me her mug, she unlaces her boots, sets them to the side, and then crawls toward me on her hands and knees.

My brain immediately short-circuits, and I have to make a conscious effort to remember how to breathe.

She sits next to me, lifting my left arm around her shoulders so she can cuddle into my side.

She gazes up at me with a look that causes my blood to thrum through my veins and then bites her bottom lip. “Can I have my mug back?”

“Huh?” I respond, my focus so intent on Callie’s full bottom lip that I don’t register anything she just said.

Reaching over, she brushes her hand over mine, tapping the travel mug with the tip of her fingernail. “My mug. Don’t want it to get cold before I can finish it.”

“Oh, right. The mug.” I pass it over like I just remembered that I have hands, let alone recalling I was holding anything.

She smiles over the lip of the mug while looking into my eyes, and then she takes a sip. “It’s really good. Very romantic hot chocolate.”

“The trick is to use milk and chocolate shavings,” I respond, the words sounding distant over the pounding of my heart.

Her tongue darts out to lick the chocolate from her lips, and I nearly groan as I follow its path with my gaze. “Maybe you can teach me how to make it sometime.”

I’m so distracted that I merely nod my head, completely forgetting Callie shouldn’t be anywhere near a kitchen without at least three fire extinguishers.

“Are you going to have some?” she asks, raising her mug slightly.

“I’m good,” I squeak, my voice cracking on the two word sentence. Clearing my throat, I try again “No, I’m good at the moment.”

A knowing mischief dances in her eyes. “Are you?”

“What?” I whisper as my whole body tingles from her nearness.

Callie sets the mug down on the box behind us. She runs a hand across my chest and over my shoulder, then she loosely grips the back of my neck. Looking up at me under lowered lashes, she murmurs in a low, husky voice, “Are you good?”

My brain melts as all the blood from my head goes directly to my groin. In the smoothest moment of my life, I whisper, “I’m about to be.”

With a delighted hum, she kisses me while falling back, pulling me on top of her. Like before, the heat between us feels like an inferno, and all I can think about is how much I want her, how much I want to feel and know every part of her.

Our hands are a frenzy of movement, tugging on each other’s clothing until nothing stands between our skin.

I’ve never been anywhere near this far before, but with Callie, it feels completely natural.

I pull the blanket over our nude bodies, and then I commence memorizing all of her curves and valleys under my explorative touch.

Kissing like our survival rests within our shared breath, we swallow each other’s moans as each caress adds more fuel to this burning need.

Her hands claw down my back as I wrap one arm beneath her and the other fondles her breast. I have no idea what I’m doing, but it seems I’m doing something right if the way she arches her back, pushing her breast more firmly into my hand, is any indication.

With eager fingers, she reaches between us and brushes them along my hardened cock. “Is this okay?”

“Fuck!” I gasp, my whole body throbbing under her light caress. I swallow heavily, and my head bobs up and down. “Yes. Very much okay. Better than okay.”

She kisses the corner of my mouth and then wraps her fingers around my dick. Gently, she strokes up and down, my precum making her hand slick. “And this? Is this okay?”

“Oh, holy shit, yes,” I whisper, rocking my hips to the motion of her hand as pleasure coils through me. This is the first time anyone has touched my cock, and it may be the most amazing feeling of my life.

It feels so fucking good that before I can register what’s happening, I explode in her hand so hard that I get lightheaded. When my brain starts to work again, I’m horrified and embarrassed that I came so quickly, my cum dripping through her fingers and onto her belly.

“Crap. I’m so sorry.” I scramble to find my abandoned shirt so I can help clean her up. “I didn’t mean to… It’s just I’ve never… I mean, you’re the first person to…”

“Felix, there’s nothing to apologize for.” Callie reaches up with her clean hand to cup my jaw and brush her thumb over my lips. “I’m glad it felt good. I want to make you feel good.”

“I want to make you feel good too,” I reply, looking into her beautiful face and wondering how in the hell I got this lucky, “but I don’t really know what I’m doing.” Embarrassment makes my cheeks burn. “And then I came early and ruined everything.”

Leaning up, she kisses my forehead, and her voice turns tender. “You didn’t ruin anything, I promise, and we don’t have to stop here unless you want to.” Again, she does that super sexy bite of her lip, and a pink stain blooms on her cheeks. “I could show you how I like to be touched.”

If I hadn’t just come, I know I’d be hard again at the mere thought of Callie teaching me how to touch her in intimate ways. “Yes. Please. I mean, I’d like that.”

A breathy giggle falls from her lips over my enthusiastic awkwardness, and then her blush deepens. “Um, we’ll need to switch places.”

“Oh, okay.” I roll off her and onto my back, excited and nervous about whatever comes next.

After finishing wiping herself clean with my shirt, she tosses it aside and then adjusts the pillows against the saddle box. “Sit up against these.”

I do as she requests, and then she settles between my legs with her back against my chest. The blanket falls to our waists, causing her nipples to harden in the cool night air. Looking down at her nestled back against me, I know no one and nothing will ever be more precious to me than her.

Callie rests her head on my shoulder, her long, thick hair pulled up into a messy bun on top of her head. She wiggles a little, as if settling in, and then releases a slow, deep breath.

Placing her hands over mine, she leads my fingers to her breasts, placing my thumbs and forefingers on either side of her peaked nipples.

In a quiet voice, as if she’s worried about being overheard by whatever nocturnal creatures amble through the empty field, she explains, “I like having my nipples pinched. Not really hard, but, like, just a little bit feels good.”

Her breasts fit perfectly in my larger hands, and as I cup them in my palms, I close the distance between my thumbs and forefingers, trapping her nipples between them. With a hint of pressure, I begin rolling them between my fingers. “Like this?”

“Just like that.” Her breasts swell in my hands with each of her quickened breaths.

Emboldened by her reaction, I start dropping featherlight kisses along her neck and shoulder as I tease and massage her breasts the way she likes.

Her head rolls to the side to give me better access, and she arches her back once more. I continue with a singular focus on her pleasure, using her moans and movements as a guide of proper intensity.

As her body becomes a live wire within my grasp, she once again covers my hands with hers.

She keeps one holding her breast while she leads the other down her belly and between her legs.

My cock starts to grow hard when I feel how wet she is, instantly turned on knowing she’s this aroused because of me.

She runs my forefinger through her slick folds, and then she begins to rub the tip over a sensitive nub. “You want to make firm circles around my clit. Start slowly.”

Following her lead, I begin to rub slow, tight circles, pleased to know that I’ll be one of the guys who knows where the clit is. She bites her lip as moans of pleasure vibrate within her throat. Her hips start to rock as she presses her pelvis harder into my touch.

With each gasp of, “Harder,” or “Faster,” I increase the intensity, loving the way she writhes within my hands and moans my name.

“Just like that,” Callie praises, and then a tidal wave of pleasure and desire washes through me, making me instantly and desperately hard. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” I promise as every stroke of my finger seems to heighten this connection between us. I no longer have to guess if I’m doing it right, because it feels like our pleasure is tied together.

My soft kisses turn to sucking the tender flesh of her neck into my mouth, and I feel her cry of pleasure like a reverberation of sensations throughout my body.

I pinch her nipple a little harder and run my middle finger along her slick entrance before dipping it inside her.

She’s incredibly tight, her silken walls clenching around me while I continue to stimulate her clit with my forefinger.

“I’m close,” she pants, her fingers clawing down my bare thighs.

“Me too,” I growl, understanding as overwhelming pleasure snakes through my body that, for whatever reason, in this moment, our climaxes are linked.

My muscles tense up, teetering on the peak of ecstasy, and then, like the tipping point of a roller coaster, I fall into oblivion. We shatter in unison, our cries of release echoing into the night.

Panting like we just ran a marathon, we collapse back in a satisfied heap. Every time she twitches in an aftershock from her orgasm, I shudder right along with her. For a full minute, we sit in silence, cocooned in the warmth of this shared experience.

“I think I made a mess again,” I mumble, blindly reaching for wherever my shirt was thrown to.

“It’s okay,” she replies, not moving an inch. “I’m partially to blame. I can’t quite figure out how to keep my magic from sharing the experience.”

“So that’s what happened.” I stop searching for the shirt so I can wrap my arms around her. “That was amazing.”

“You don’t mind?” she asks quietly, clearly feeling self-conscious about it.

I press a tender kiss to her temple. “Being able to share that moment with you and feel what you feel is the most amazing experience of my life. Don’t ever stop, and certainly not on my account.”

She relaxes into me, and her face tilts to the sky. “I love you, Felix Jacobs. Thank you for choosing to be my friend all those months ago and for loving me now.”

“To be honest,” I whisper against her ear as I breathe in her sweet, fruity flower scent. “I’m sure I loved you the moment I saw you.”

“All the way back when you were convincing me you were a ghost and not a figment of my imagination?” She laughs, hooking her arms up and around mine.

“Most definitely then,” I tease, kissing her temple again. “The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen just moved into my bedroom. It was like a dream come true.”

“I understand the feeling,” she replies, and I’m filled with a tender warmth, content with the magical feeling of having Callie in my arms. Her fingers run along my upper arms in gentle, long trails. “It seems I derailed our date a bit.”

I release a bark of choked laughter. “I’m certainly not complaining.”

She starts making little patterns along my skin, her touch switching from long strokes to circles and dots. “Want to teach me stargazing now?”

“Right now?” I ask, surprised she even remembers that was the original plan.

There’s a smile in her voice as she answers, “Yeah. Unless you don’t want to.”

“I absolutely want to.” I squeeze her tightly, happier than I ever thought possible. “I love you so unbelievably much.”

“I love you too,” she chirps, and then she points one finger toward the sky. “Is that part of a constellation?”

“Pretty sure you just pointed to the North Star,” I inform her with a warm grin.

“Oh, yay!” She bounces in excitement. “That’s one of the important ones.”

For the next hour, snuggled within each other’s embrace under a warm blanket, I share what my dad taught me about the stars.

Though it was a risk, I know I made the right decision by rejecting my door.

Heaven is right here in this moment, and there’s nothing the afterlife could offer to make me believe otherwise.