Page 68 of Silas

“What, honey?” His answering whisper is a rough growl. “What do you need?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know.”

I writhe on top of him, driving the nadir of my need, the center of my sex, against the hard, denim-roughened ridge of him. A surge of electric heat blasts through me when I do that, and I gasp, whimper.

Shake all over.

“Shit, Naomi. You’re about to come.”

“I…what?”

He rolls me to my back, resting on his side above me, angled toward me. “Naomi, have you ever had an orgasm?”

“I…I don’t know.”

I see darkness coil in his eyes at my answer. “Then no, you haven’t. You don’t even know what that is, do you?”

“No,” I answer.

“My fucking god,” he breathes. I can’t tell what he means by that, what feelings lay behind the epithet.

His eyes are dark in the dim moonlight, seeking mine, searching me. He traces the contours of my face with his fingers as his deep beautiful green eyes gaze down at me, and I can almost feel how lovely he thinks I am just in the way he’s looking at me. It’s the most wonderful feeling, and I know in this moment that I will do anything to have him look at me like that. Again, and again, and forever.

“I can show you,” he murmurs.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Please.”

“You trust me?”

I nod.

“Just relax, okay? Just…feel. If you don’t like it, or it’s too much, you just tell me you want to stop, and I will, okay? I’ll stop right away. No questions asked.”

“What will it feel like?” I ask.

“Hopefully, really, really amazing.”

He leans down and touches his lips to mine in a brief, soft kiss. “Can I see more of you, Naomi?”

I bite my lip, nervous, unsure. He reads this and rubs my cheekbone with his thumb.

“Not yet,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

He rests his forehead on mine, and his hand lays heavily on my belly. Now that I’m thinking about what’s going to happen and what it will be like and how it will feel, I’m nervous and afraid. The daring I felt before is receding.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Silas kisses my forehead, where worry and fear wrinkle my brow. “Breathe, okay? You change your mind?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just…I like kissing you. I…when we’re kissing, when you’re kissing me and touching me, I’m not afraid. I guess because I’m not thinking about it. But now, I’m…” I trail off, shaking my head. “I feel scared.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, I promise. It’ll just be like it was—kissing and touching. I’ll touch you in ways and places that will feel good for you. That’s it.”

“Touch me how? Touch me where?”

He nips at my lower lip and then slashes his mouth across mine in a sudden, scorching kiss that steals my breath and makes my heart pound and my limbs tremble.

This time, he doesn’t stop, doesn’t merely sip from my lips but drinks deeply from me, kissing deeper and deeper until I’m panting and disoriented and hot all over and writhing. He doesn’t let up, tilting his head this way and that, deepening the kiss, backing away until I’m about to lift up to bring the kiss back where I want it, need it, but he always reads me before I can. The heat billows inside me, gathering at my center. His hand dips under the hem of my shirt, his touch grazing my belly. I bury my fingers in his hair, trace the shape of his head, feel the iron strength in his neck, palm the hard roundness of his shoulders, the rippling power of his broad back.

His hand skates higher, pausing just beneath my breasts. My spine arches of its own volition and he takes this as the tacit permission I suppose it is; his hand covers my breast over the fabric of the bra. My nipples both go diamond hard, aching inside the prison of the bra.