Page 46 of Yearn

The kiss was anesthesia and overdose at once—numbing every fear, flooding me with too much need to survive. It silenced the noise in my head, cut off every rational protest, and left me high on nothing but her taste.

The kiss was my diagnosis, every symptom laid bare: dilated pupils, short breaths, an arrhythmic pulse hammering through my veins, and an aching length throbbing against her like proof of my condition.

The kiss was prescription and poison, cure and relapse, the therapy I’d been starving for and the addiction I’d never escape.

This kiss became my confession, written in saliva and heat, every press of her mouth telling the truth I couldn’t hold back—I was sick with her, and there was no treatment I wanted.

I only yearned to drown in this exquisite disease.

She appeared startled for half a heartbeat, then gave back—her lips parting, breath catching, a sound low in her throat that made my heart thud against her palm where it rested on my chest. She tasted like citrus and something sweet, like laughter after drought.

When her tongue met mine, I made a sound I didn’t recognize.

The kiss was so hot.

Forbidden.

Power.

Release.

My hands settled at her hips and found purchase, fingers pressing into soft fabric and softer flesh.

I lifted her.

She gasped and wrapped her legs around my waist.

Then, I carried her to the tiny kitchen table and shoved my books to the floor. They fell in dull thuds.

I kissed her again—slower, deeper—charting each angle like a surgeon learning sacred anatomy. Every stroke of my tongue was a diagnostic test, every press of her lips a vital sign I catalogued: oxygen low, pulse racing, fever high.

She was the patient and the cure, the illness and the remedy, and I was a doctor who never wanted recovery.

Dear God, she tastes so good.

Her fingers slid into my damp hair and tugged, and the sound that caught in her throat broke something open in me.

“Dominic,” she whispered against my mouth, as if giving me a secret. “God.”

I pressed her back an inch, just enough to look at her gorgeous face. Those pupils were wide. She was breathing like she’d run here.

“Do you know how long I have wanted to kiss you?”

Shock filled her gaze.

Not giving her any more time to think about it, I dragged my mouth along her jaw, then lower, tasting the salt at her throat, the heat where her pulse jumped under my tongue.

She arched, hands sliding over my shoulders, nails biting, claiming.

The towel at my waist shifted; her palm skimmed down to the bulge of my cock and trembled.

Fuck yes. Touch it.

Then her fingers curved over the thick length, stroking me in a way that was far too knowing.

Christ. She’s only touching it, yet driving me crazy.

She wasn’t fumbling. She wasn’t shy. She knew exactly how to grip the base, how to drag her palm up slow so the terrycloth rasped across the ridge of my cock until I almost doubled over.