Page 125 of Finding Denver

As the door closes behind us, I kiss Colt again.

“I love you,” he says against my lips.

Love.

Real love.

Love that is respect. Love that makes you want to be better. A constant warm, caring feeling. A love that shouldn’t be real but is.

He kisses me, and my mouth never leaves his as he carries me upstairs.

We reach his room, and he sits me on his bed and kneels before me. My heart races as his hands glide up my legs before they reach my coat, pushing it off my shoulders. He grips the bottom of my sweater and lifts it over my head, and my breath feels too much but not enough. He finally removes my T-shirt, his eyes greedily taking in the white lace bra beneath.

He pulls me to the edge of the bed, my knees open to allow him between them, and he buries his face in my chest, kissing the softness of my breasts. It’s so intimate to have him on his knees before me again, to see a moment of vulnerability from a powerful man.

I tangle my hands in his hair, closing my eyes as he unbuttons my jeans. I lift myself up to allow him to remove them until I’m sat only in my white lingerie.

I’ve never felt more seen. More present. More in a moment.

And when he pulls off his T-shirt, I hold my breath.

Intricate art covers his glorious body. One bicep is deep, solid black, leading to beautiful patterns made up of curls, lines, and dots. Darkened clouds and timepieces are strangled by thorns of roses down his other arm, and I trace my fingers across an inferno that delves across his abs, hands grappling from the fiery pits of Hell and reaching for his heart—where a deep, vast void has been drawn so delicately I feel as though I could reach into his chest.

And above that, balancing delicately on his collarbone, is a small bird, its head tilted in intrigue as it looks into that void, as if considering flying into it.

My gaze meets his, and as I place my palm flat over the void, he takes my hand.

“I got it a few years ago,” he says quietly. “The artist had just designed it and said she’d do it for free just to see how it would look. I didn’t even know what it was until she’d finished. I said it’d be my last one.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my fingertips. “A robin.”

My heart races. “My middle name.”

He nods. “Finn said maybe it’s fate.”

Maybe it is. I lean forward and kiss the tattoo of the robin, and he exhales softly. I glide my hands down the powerful lines of his body and unbuckle his belt, but he catches my hands.

“This is about you.” He kisses me softly.

“Last time was about me, too,” I point out.

He grins. “That’s partly because I thought it was temporary. Now I have you forever, we can take our time.” He stands, and I look up at him, breathless at the power he exudes from a single movement. Forever. The word is beautiful and terrifying. “Lie on the bed.”

I do as he asks, my chest tight with anticipation. He hooks his fingers into my underwear, and I lift my hips as he glides the delicate material down my legs. Dampness clings to my inner thighs, and he kisses across my hips and spreads my legs.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, placing another kiss on my abdomen, then lower. The first brush of his tongue is dizzying. A light, delicate taste. “Fuck.” He growls the word and presses his mouth against me, gripping my thighs until he’s sucking, licking, circling my entrance. I feel it in every partof me, spirals of pleasure pulsating through my legs, stomach, chest, arms, and mind.

Holy fuck, he really does devour me. My back arches, and my fingers snake through his hair as his tongue pulses against my clit.

And then he stops.

I release all the oxygen from my lungs. “No, no, don’t stop?—”

My eyes roll back as his fingers slide into me, pumping slowly, too slowly, and my clit is desperate for attention—one stroke and I’ll careen into an orgasm. I try to close my legs against his hand, to find some kind of friction, and he chuckles softly, leaning over me to take a nipple in his mouth.

“Del, when you come, I don’t want you to see me. I don’t even want you to see stars.” He nibbles my breast, moving up my neck, across my collarbone, until he reaches my ear. He plunges his fingers deep and I cry out. “I want you to see fucking heaven.”

“Please—” I grind against his hand, dizzy from want, my mind cloudy with desire. He finger fucks me perfectly until I’m squirming, begging, panting for more, and when he moves away from me, I whimper.

“Eyes on me, Del,” he says as he gets off the bed. He unbuckles his belt, the metal loud, dulled only slightly by the violent hammering of my heart. He pushes his pants down and my eyes widen.