A corner of his mouth tipped up. “I do, but we won’t be needing one for a while still.” He eased me onto my back until my spine was flush against the cool wood, and then he parted my legs and draped them over his shoulders.
When his tongue flicked against me, I picked my head off and gasped, “August! You don’t have to do that.”
I could only see his eyes, and they glowed with amusement and with a bunch of other things, but mostly amusement.
“Don’t have to do that?” He spoke the words so close to my delicate flesh that I shivered and writhed. He clamped his hands around my thighs to pin them to his shoulders. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to do this”-he gave me a long, slow lick-“since the day you walked back into my life.” He skated a kiss over my pulsing center. “Fuck, you taste so good,” he growled.
He was relentless and made me shatter so many times that my body felt made of clouds and stars instead of flesh and blood.
At some point, he came up for air, lips swollen and slick. He scooped my boneless body up, grabbed his wallet, then carried me over to the couch. He laid me out before pulling a condom from his wallet. The casing crinkled as he tore it open. With unabashed curiosity, I watched him roll it on.
“Ness,” he whispered raucously, climbing over me and bracing himself on his arms as his length settled against my abdomen, “condoms . . . they can break. It’s never happened to me before, but they can. Are you sure you want to do this?”
I traced the shape of Cassiopeia on his cheek, connecting each freckle to the next. “I have never wanted anything more.”
“But you understand the risks?”
“I understand the risks.” When he still hadn’t moved, I said, “Are you going to make me sign a disclaimer?”
A laugh burst from him. “Maybe I should.” He moved down my body to position himself at my entrance. “Next time.”
Next time . . . My heart felt like it had melted and little pieces of it were beating everywhere in me.
His hips shifted, and then he was stretching me open, and a gasp tore up my throat. When he pulled out, eyes stained with concern, I clamped my hands on his backside, over his scar, and pressed him back in.
Pleasure warred with pain. Neither sensation won. They battled till the very end, till his body stilled and shuddered over mine . . . into mine.
Stroking his scar, I whispered, “You had a toast ready for me tonight, didn’t you?”
A smile touched his mouth that smelled like a mix of him and me. “I did.”
“Can I hear it?”
“You can.” He nosed my jaw.
When he didn’t say anything more for a prolonged stretch of time, I asked, “Tonight?”
He lifted his head, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, and then in that raw-honeyed voice of his, he said, “I may not have been your first choice for a mate, but I hope I’ll be your last.”
Emotion gripped my throat so hard I couldn’t respond with words, so instead, I picked my neck off the couch pillow and aligned my lips and heartbeats with his.
I woke up to the scent of coffee.
As I stretched, every second of our love-making replayed in my mind. I twisted around, but August was no longer on the couch next to me. Last night, he removed the back pillows to make room for our two bodies, and then he dragged me against his chest, and we fell asleep skin to skin.
“August?” I called out.
When he didn’t answer me, I sat up but regretted the sudden movement that awakened a dull throbbing between my legs.
Pale sunlight fanned over the loft, tinting everything lavender and gray.
“August?” I repeated, my throat feeling as raw as the rest of me. Had he left for Tennessee?
I pushed my senses out, trying to pick up on another heartbeat, but only mine resounded.
He left.
He’d gone and left, and he hadn’t even woken me to say goodbye. The most overwhelming devastation crushed my lungs, made it impossible to breathe. Hands shaking, I took the cover and wrapped it around myself, then struggled to a standing position that intensified the throbbing.
The front door snicked open, and my heart all but short-circuited.
I clutched the cover tighter.
August walked in, a brown paper bag dangling from his fingers. When he caught sight of my expression, he kicked the door shut, tossed the paper bag on the kitchen island, and rushed over. “What is it?”
My bottom lip wobbled. “I thought you . . . I thought you’d left.”
His forehead puckered, but then he smiled, cupped both my cheeks, and tipped my face up. “Just to get breakfast.”
When had I become this needy girl ready to cry for having been left alone? I averted my gaze from his. “I feel so stupid right now.”
“Why?””For flipping out.”
“I like that you flipped out.” He pushed a lock of tangled hair off my face. “I was worried you might have regrets and run away from me again.”
I looked up at him. “Run away? It was the best night of my life.”
His hazel eyes blazed. “That’s a dangerous thing to say.”
“Why?””Because I want to hear you say that every morning you wake up”-his hands settled on the base of my spine and pressed me against him-“which means I’ll have to outdo myself each and every night.” He bumped his nose into mine.
My pulse fluttered against my neck and then lower, until it had all but soothed the shallow ache and replaced it with fierce want.
“I’m on board with that,” I murmured.
His eyes twinkled a tad wickedly. “On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in right now?”
“Pain?”
“Down there.”
“Not much.”
“Not much isn’t a number.”
“Two.”
His brows slanted. “Really?”