I lean down until my forehead rests against hers.
“Then tell me what you want, Panty Lady.”
She takes a breath.
Then she says it.
“You.”
One word.
Not fake.
A beginning.
That is what I hear.
I kiss her and ease her back onto the bed. I cover her with my body carefully, because I’m bigger and I know it, becauseweight can feel like a cage if a woman has been held down by the wrong man. Her legs open for me, and I settle between them, shaking like some green kid instead of a man who has known plenty of beds and forgotten most of them.
I won’t forget this one.
I line myself up and stop.
Her eyes open.
“Amelia.”
“Yes.”
I push in slow.
The world narrows to heat and breath and the way her hands clamp around my shoulders. She gasps, and I stop immediately.
Her nails dig in. “Don’t stop.”
“Need a second or you do?”
She laughs breathlessly, and it turns into a moan. “Both.”
Good.
Fine.
I can die here.
When she shifts her hips, taking me deeper, my control goes dark at the edges.
“Christ,” I grit out.
She wraps her legs around my waist.
I look down at her, and there is no fear on her face now. Not gone from the world, not healed forever, but nothere. Here there is only effort, want, trust, and a kind of fierce concentration like she is learning a new language and refusing to mispronounce herself.
I move.
Slow first.
Then deeper when she asks with her body.