“Then don’t.” I trail my fingers up the inside of his thigh, and the muscle there jumps. “I want this. Let me have it.”
His head drops back against the pillow. “Yes, ma’am.”
I lower my mouth to his cock. The first taste of him is salt and heat and something entirely Ethan. I take him slowly, watching his face, cataloging the way his jaw clenches, the way his abdomen pulls tight, the way his hand comes up automatically to brush my hair back and then stops, hovering, like he’s remembered he doesn’t get to move tonight.
“You can touch me,” I murmur against his hip.
His fingers slide into my hair. Gentle. Trembling. The hand that has steadied everyone on this ranch is shaking against the side of my head.
Good.
I take him deeper, learning him. I discover what makes his breath catch—a slow drag of my tongue over the tip. What makes him swear under his breath—pressure at the base. What makes his hips lift off the mattress before he clamps them down again—my hand wrapped around him, working in rhythm with my mouth. I’m not practiced. I’m new at this. But I’ve spent six months learning the rhythm of this man’s breathing, and now I intend to wreck him with pleasure.
“Jen.” It comes out broken. “Jen… I’m going to?—”
I look up at him, my mouth still wrapped around his cock.
He sees me see him, and his whole body jolts.
“I don’t care,” I whisper against his length. “I want it. I want you to let go. I want you to give it to me.”
His head hits the pillow. “Fuck.”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t last long after that, his hands buried in my hair as he jerks and spills down my throat with a tortured groan that’s almost a sob. I stay with him through it, slow and attentive, the way he stayed with me last night in this bed when he worked me through the aftershocks with kisses against the softest skin of my inner thigh.
When he’s spent, he’s breathing like he’s run a mile. His arm is over his eyes, and his chest is heaving. He looks completely undone.
Crawling up his body slowly, I let my mouth brush the line of dark hair below his navel, the skin over his ribs, his sternum, his chest. I want him to feel every inch of me as I move against him. I want him to know that I’m returning.
As our faces align, I kiss him. He tastes himself on my lips and lets out a sound that sends a thrill straight between my legs.
“More?” I ask.
His eyes open, dark and unfocused. “Jen, I… give me a minute.”
I grind my hips against his and kiss him again, taking my time. My hands are on his chest, his shoulders, the places I’ve been wanting to mark as mine. By the time he’s hard again—which happens far more quickly than should be biologically possible—I’m already sliding down to position myself over him.
I sink onto him slowly.
Oh.
The angle feels different. The rhythm shifts, and from this vantage point, I'm in command of every inch. He fills me in a way that makes me stop and breathe for a moment. His hands come to my hips, not to move me, just to hold. He's blurred and raw, and entirely mine.
“Jen,” he breathes.
“I know.”
I move.
Slowly at first, finding the rhythm my body craves. His hands slide from my hips up my sides, over the patches on my ribs. He doesn't pause on them, doesn’t trace them, doesn’t treat them as the focal point. They’re just my skin. I’m just me. He sees me all at once, whole.
His thumb finds my nipple. “Like that?”
My breath fractures. “Exactly like that.”
I roll my hips. The pleasure climbs faster than I expected. I have permission tonight. I gave myself permission, and my body is taking it. His hand slides between us, his thumb finding the spot that makes me gasp, and I feel the pressure of him everywhere.