Page 49 of Little Pieces of Light

We took the ferry back and drove home into a deepening night.

His house was dark and quiet as Xander took me by the hand and led me up the stairs.

No sooner had he shut the door to his room than I was in his arms. My back pressed against the door as he kissed me with deep sweeps of his tongue.

Demanding. Devouring. And me offering myself willingly.

There was no hesitation. Nothing stopping what felt inevitable.

A coming together that felt so perfect and right it must’ve been written in the stars.

All I knew was an electric hum of anticipation everywhere he was going to touch me.

We stumbled farther into his room, stripping out of jackets and sweaters.

He lifted me onto his desk and moved between the V of my legs, our hands roaming, tugging at clothing, mine carving through his hair, his tangling in mine.

All the while, Xander kissed me with a possessive need that stole my breath and ran just as hot as my own.

He took off his glasses and set them beside me so he could bury his face in my neck, kissing the delicate skin beneath my ear and grazing his teeth so that shivers skimmed down my spine. I tugged at his shirt, lifting it up and off, his magnificent torso bare to me in the lone light of his lamp.

I placed my hand on his heart, felt the rapid thump of his pulse beating against my palm, then let it drift down, my fingertips grazing his warm skin over the hard lines and ridges of his abdomen.

Xander made a sound in his chest as my fingers moved over his jeans to the hard bulge of his erection.

I undid the buttons while he moved in, kissing me, one hand cupping my jaw, the other in my hair—a fist, sending tiny licks of pain over my skin to add to the electric tingles that were fast growing into a heavy ache.

He took off my sweater, then the shirt beneath, filling his eyes with my breasts spilling out of my bra. The hunger in his gaze stole my breath.

“Take it off me, Xander,” I said, and he complied, unhooking it at my back, then slowly drawing it off my arms and casting it aside.

“Jesus, Em.”

His eyes were hooded, both colors darkened.

He took my breasts in his hands before putting his mouth on one nipple, sucking and biting, then kissing the bites with soothing, velvety sweeps of his tongue.

Every touch made sparks; every spark added to the burning desire in the center of me—drawing it in tighter, heavier, waiting for Xander’s touch in the deepest places to set it loose.

I tugged his jeans off his hips. He moved away from me long enough to strip mine off of me, then came back, his erection straining against my dampened panties as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He ground his hips against mine, plundering my mouth with a kiss, then moving down my throat.

“Please…” I managed. “I need you…”

Xander carried me to the bed, then lay over me, kissing me slowly, deeply. But so much bare skin on bare skin, our bodies aligned and ready, only served to fan the flames higher. Within moments, our hips were rising and falling again, grinding, seeking connection.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he breathed, pulling himself away from me with effort and bracing himself on his forearms. “We have to slow down. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I trust you.”

The way his face softened at those words…his eyes full of love and pain because I knew it hurt him to love this much. And the fact that he did anyway, that he loved me …

“I just want it to be perfect for you,” he said.

“It’s already perfect because it’s you.” I pushed him onto his back and straddled him. “But this is your night too.”

I bent over him, took his lips in mine with a sucking kiss that made him groan.

My hair fell down around us, blocking out the rest of the world.

I kissed him again, a licking, biting kiss, then took his lower lip.

He made a sound deep in his chest, a sexy, pained sound of want, his hips rising, his erection pressing into me.

I moved my mouth over his chin, his neck, then down over the broad plains of his chest. My hot, open mouth kissed the tight lines of his torso, which contracted under my touch. I moved lower, tugged at the hem of his boxer briefs, but he stopped me.

“No,” he said, taking hold of my shoulders and rolling me onto my back. “When I come it’s going to be inside you. But…I want to make it good for you first. Okay?”

I nodded mutely, my breath catching at a different kind of anticipation.

Now it was his turn to drag his mouth over my skin, between my breasts, his hair tickling my chin; I put both hands in the thick softness of it, made fists just tight enough that he grunted and took my nipple between his teeth.

I gasped, arching into him and then he moved lower, sending pleasant shivers dancing across my skin as he got to my navel, then down…

“Can I?”

I nodded breathlessly, watching him as he tugged my underwear off my hips, down my legs, and tossed it away.

Uncertainty found me for the first time.

He was right there, and I was naked before him.

Nothing left to hide. But Xander’s eyes drank me in, his eyes liquid pools of want and lust and love and desire.

“Yes,” he murmured. “So fucking beautiful.”

I bit my lip then cried out when he put his mouth against me.

The sudden pleasure shocked me, like a flare lighting up a black sky, and I gasped, my hips bucking.

Xander kissed and sucked and licked, gripping my hips to hold me still as the pleasure crescendoed; now it was an entire sky full of fireworks, him attuned to my every moan and gasp, knowing exactly what to do to bring me up and over the edge…

I crashed over, shuddering into the last slow strokes of his tongue before he made his way back up my body, kissing every inch of skin along the way until he lay over me again.

“Hurry,” I breathed against his lips. “I need you while I’m feeling like this.”

He nodded and reached to his nightstand for a condom. Within seconds he was ready, and then he was propped over me again, his forearms on either side of me, hands holding my face.

“Emery?”

I nodded, tilted my hips and let my legs fall apart enough to reach down between us with my hand to guide him inside. He sucked in a breath. The orgasm he’d given me was still throbbing through me as he slowly moved inside me, inch by inch.

I tensed, a little cry escaping me.

“I’m hurting you.”

I shook my head. “Don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

He obeyed, sank in deeper. I slid my hands down the smooth skin of his back, pulling him to me until our hips touched, joined completely.

“Jesus Christ,” he said into my neck, his breath gusting heavily. Then he lifted his head to study me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded quickly. “Yes. God, you feel so good.”

The hard heaviness of him inside me felt like nothing I could explain with words. A perfect joining of bodies after a long wait. And the look in Xander’s eyes told me he felt this moment as much as I did.

Still going slowly, Xander began to move, watching me, studying my face for discomfort, until I kissed him, my lips brushing against his.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I want this. I want this so bad.”

My words spurred him. The pain had already faded, and now Xander moved in me a little faster, deeper.

I wrapped my legs around his narrow waist, reveling in the undulations of his body, the lean masculinity of him, on top of me and inside me.

I felt soft and feminine by comparison, taking him in and bringing him closer to the ecstasy he had brought me.

“Emery…” he said. A choked word, him on the brink.

I nodded. “Yes. Yes…”

With the final strangled cry, his face contorted in that beautiful, painful ecstasy.

His last thrusts became erratic and deep.

I locked him to me, wanting to take all of it, until he collapsed on top of me, a perfect, heavy blanket of warm skin and muscle, his orgasm shuddering through him until he was spent.

Xander’s chest expanded against mine in deep breaths, and I smiled into the dark, my hands in his hair. The years between the day we met and this one had finally disappeared, and he was right where he was supposed to be. In my arms.

Gently, he moved off of me and disposed of the condom, then came right back to gather me to him, my back to his chest, his arms around me, our fingers laced. He kissed my neck, my shoulder, my body growing heavy and drowsy, until finally I drifted down into sleep, taking Xander with me.

Because he’s mine. And I’m his. Since always and into forever.