Page 9 of Dr. Stone

We didn’t make room for small talk, and we sure as hell didn’t need tender pauses. Two bodies, same intention. Her sounds pushed me lower: along the line of her jaw, the column of her throat, the rise of her chest where I tugged the lace down and ran my mouth over her. She arched into me as my tongue traced slow circles over her peaked nipple, my teeth grazing lightly untilher breath hitched. Her fingers locked in my hair, a silent order for more, and I obeyed.

I slid the matching lace down over the curve of her hips. Every inch of her was deliberate—clean lines, soft skin, a confidence that said she knew the effect she had and didn’t apologize for it. It wasn’t vanity; it was power. I appreciated excellence in all forms, and everything about Andie was excellence.

I was lowering, ready to taste more of her, when her fingers tightened in my hair and her gaze pinned mine.

“I said I’m making the rules tonight,” she murmured, that smile back, sharper now. “I’m in control. Of everything.”

I rose, letting my height close around her. “I’m not arguing.”

“Good,” she said, pleased, like she’d expected a fight and was happier I understood the assignment.

Her hands went for my belt. Efficient. Confident.

After my slacks fell, she worked my shirt like she’d been born undoing buttons. The cotton hit the floor, then my undershirt followed, and her palms dragged over my chest with a predatory kind of curiosity that made my breath saw in my throat.

She pushed my briefs down, and before the fabric finished sliding, she took me into the heat of her mouth.

A sound tore out of me, raw and unplanned. I braced one hand against the wall and the other in her hair to steady myself as she set a pace that bordered on indecent. Not frantic, hell no. Focused. Every pull was deliberate, every glide of her tongue threatened to buckle my knees.

It was obvious this woman didn’t guess; it was like she could read me. The disciplined part of my brain, the part that always existed even mid-storm, clocked that detail and filed it under dangerous.

And I ached for more.

“Jesus,” I breathed, the word mangled.

My control slipped, then slid. I wasn’t used to losing it this early; hell, I wasn’t used to losing it at all.

“I don’t come before a woman,” I told her, my voice rough from holding on.

It wasn’t a boast; it was a line I didn’t cross. Not because of politeness, but because of precision. It’s who I was.

Her answer was to grip my hips and take me deeper. Lightning snapped behind my eyes. The damn yacht could have listed and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“Fuck—” The word broke apart.

Get it together, Stone.

This was new territory for me: being guided without being diminished. I didn’t hate it.

Just before I came, she gently eased off.

When my eyes found hers, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding, and it came out as a groan.

That’s when her mouth curved, wicked and knowing. “I want you inside me,” she said. No teasing, no coyness, just a clean statement of need.

My laugh was quiet and disbelieving. “Oh, you’ll definitely get what you want. And so much more, gorgeous.”

I walked her to the bed with my hands at her waist, the pads of my thumbs counting the beats of her pulse. She climbed back, hair spilling over the white duvet, while the moonlight laid a gold veil over the shape of her. The balcony door stood open and the sea whispered beyond it. Her tan lines flashed when she shifted, and I thought, for one useless second, that I was in trouble.

I was so very fucked.

Who the hell was this woman? The mental file I’d begun on her tonight didn’t even come close to covering this. None of it warned me that I’d want her again before we were finished the first time.

I reached for the nightstand without taking my eyes off her and pulled a packet from the box. Practicality and precision weren’t just costumes I put on for work. They were who I was. I tore the foil, rolled the condom on, and got an intoxicating view of my impending problem: Andie’s legs opening for me, a slow invitation that fried the rest of my circuitry.

Mental files be damned; I needed more of this woman.

She smiled as if she’d read my thoughts, “Come here, big guy,” she said, amusement threading through the heat. “I want you.”