Page 43 of Little Pieces of Light

I gasped as he gripped me under my thighs with both hands and got up from the chair, taking me with him.

He carried me to his bed and laid me down, then covered my body with his.

We kissed and touched, our hands roaming over our clothes until it wasn’t enough.

Until we needed skin and heat and to be naked with each other.

I sat up and pulled my sweater over my head, taking my shirt with it and leaving me in my bra. Xander’s eyes swept over me, and everywhere they landed, I felt the tingling anticipation of his touch. We’d kept our clothes on before but today was different.

“More this time,” I whispered, moving so that we were both kneeling.

He nodded and pulled his shirt off, leaving him bare-chested. I’d felt the hard contours of him before, but now…

“Jesus, Xander.” I stared greedily, my fingertips tracing his collarbone, across the planes of his chest, then down to the ridges of his abs. “They need to make rowing a national requirement.”

He didn’t reply, uninterested in his own perfection, but reached for me.

His hands slid into my hair as he kissed me—a hard, thrilling kiss—that was different from his usual.

Xander’s kisses never failed to ignite every part of me from the inside out, but this time I felt his intentions shift. His need deepen.

He started to undo the clasp of my bra but then paused, checking with me first with a quick glimpse. I nodded and then felt it loosen. Slowly, he pulled it off my arms and tossed it aside, his gaze drinking me in.

“Emery,” he breathed. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, it hurts to look at you.”

His hands slipped down over my breasts, thumbs brushing my nipples in maddeningly soft little touches.

I placed my hands on his and pressed them against me, letting him know to squeeze and knead and touch me without restraint.

Being topless with him, with his hands on me like this, it felt like our first kiss.

A reunion, this time with our bodies, and I could only imagine what it was going to feel like when he was finally inside me.

Xander erased my thoughts with another biting kiss, then he tore away, his forehead bending to touch mine, his breathing coming harder now as he fought for control.

I could feel the tension in him, the suppressed want for me that coiled in every taut muscle.

His mouth took mine again before moving to my neck, my throat, then down to one nipple.

I whimpered as the heated wetness of his tongue swirled over me, as his teeth bit lightly—teasing me—before clamping down and sucking.

I let out a cry, my hands in his hair, gripping the strands and holding him in place while little bolts of electricity radiated from everywhere he touched me, then skimmed down my back and between my legs until I was practically panting.

“Xander…I…”

He came back up for more kisses, his arms sliding around me and holding me close, chest to chest. So much bare skin touching…

he was so warm, yet hard against my softness.

His hands roamed, returning to my face, to hold me like I was precious and then kissing me like I was the air he needed to breathe.

To feel both at once, desired and cherished…

to feel how badly he wanted me while never losing himself in his own need, was a kind of consideration I’d never known before.

“Emery,” he breathed, his hands slipping down my back, then around the front of my jeans. “I want to touch you.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “God, yes. Me too.”

I tore at his buttons while he worked to undo mine.

We came apart to slip off our jeans, then lay side by side in our underwear, his head beside mine on the pillow.

We tangled like vines, arms and legs entwined, kissing hard enough that breathing came second to the deep sweeps of our tongues that needed to explore every corner.

Below, our hips moved in desperate thrusts, his erection pressing against the center of me again and again.

Just when I thought I couldn’t take it another minute, his hand slipped over my breast, my stomach, then lower, leaving little fires along every inch skin he touched.

He went between my legs, cupped me over the silk of my underwear, and began rubbing gently.

A moan fell out of my mouth at the sensation—a deep ache of pleasure that was begging for release.

I let my hand follow the same path down his magnificent body, honed by God-knew-how-many hours in the gym, trailing over the lean muscles of his torso that tensed under my touch.

I slipped lower, under the waistband of his boxer briefs, to find the hard length of him—thick and perfect.

I wrapped my fingers around him and stroked him once.

He released a hissing breath. “Fuck, Em…”

“Do you have lotion?”

He nodded at the nightstand behind me. There was a box of tissues there, while in the drawer I found a little bottle of lotion. The image of Xander lying on his back, taking himself in hand and working to make himself come, suddenly flashed across my mind, and the ache between my legs intensified.

I put a few tissues beside me and then a small amount of lotion in my palm before coming back to him. We tangled again immediately, as I slipped my hand inside his underwear to caress him again, this time with smooth frictionless motion, the lotion sliding easily over his erection.

“What do you think about when you do this to yourself?” I breathed against his lips, working him in long, slow strokes and squeezes.

“Can you guess?” he said gruffly. “I think about you.” He went between my legs again, to my damp underwear. “I think about being here. Being inside you. Making you come.”

Dear God…

A little cry erupted out of me as his fingers slipped beneath the hem of my underwear, to that sensitive little knot of flesh that was already throbbing.

“You’re so wet,” he breathed, somehow surprised that he’d created this want in me. “Just here, okay?”

I nodded, and he rubbed his fingers over me, the sensation sending licks of fire through me and making me dizzy. We fell into a rhythm, each striving to bring the other higher and higher, my leg locked around his hip, our mouths clashing in messy kisses.

The intensity building at the center of me reached a sudden, shocking peak and Xander’s fingers coaxed me over the edge.

I gasped, my body going rigid, as the pleasure broke and spilled all through me in shuddering waves.

He pressed his fingers harder, moving in slow, rhythmic circles, somehow attuned to my orgasm and making it last.

I let out a final, stuttering breath, every cell in my body feeling as if it were brand new, electrified by him and only him. I kissed Xander with renewed fervor to give him what he’d given me.

“Emery…” he grunted, as I squeezed and stroked the thick length of him again and again. “I’m going to…”

I grabbed the tissues I’d stashed beside me and came back to him, reveling in how his muscles tensed, how his face was a mask of pained ecstasy, and the noises he made—all of it my doing.

His pleasure belonged to me, and I took it.

I coaxed his release out of him, his body shuddering like mine had, into the tissue.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped.

He lay on his back, breathing hard, and I watched his abs expanding and contracting with pride. With satisfaction. Because all of these reactions and moans and the deep satiation radiating off of him came from me.

Xander tossed the tissue aside, then rolled back to me, hauling me to him and wrapping me in his embrace. He kissed me long and slow, a recovery kiss, to soothe my swollen lips and chafed skin.

His blue and brown eyes searched mine. “Are you good?”

“Are you kidding?” I said softly. “I feel like I’m in a warm bath. Every part of me is humming and happy. I’m happy.”

Xander smiled. “Me too.” He kissed my cheek, my temple, then my hair, inhaling deeply. “Me too, Em.”

I basked in him, moved almost to tears again at how considerate he was of me, how he made me feel so safe. Xander held me tightly, protectively, as if he could keep me from the things that would hurt me. Or tear us apart.

I held him just as tightly and fought off the doubt and fear, sure that something that felt this right could only last forever.