She took my cock in her hand and looked up at me with those level eyes and took her time. Ran her tongue slow from the base up, watching my face the whole way. I put one hand in her hair, not directing, just resting, and let her set the pace, which was thorough and merciless. The pull of her mouth made my hands go still and my jaw lock, something low and deep pulling taut in a way that had nothing to do with eight days' worth of healing.
She worked me with the same focus she brought to everything else, and the pace was entirely hers, and when she took me deeper and looked up through her lashes I held her gaze and stayed right there and let her feel exactly what it was doing to me.
"You're perfect." Rough and low. "Every damn time."
She took me deeper in answer.
I let it run as long as I could hold still, which was longer than I'd expected because she was wicked and relentless and she never stopped watching my face, and when I finally pulled her up and brought her back to the bed she was flushed and breathing hard and there wasn't a single clinical thing left anywhere in her.
I laid her back and got her jeans off, no rush about it, and she stretched out across my sheets with an ease that caught me somewhere past my ribs, moving through my space like she'd always known where everything was.
I got my mouth on her pussy and she arched up immediately and hard.
Her hands went into my hair. I worked her slow and thorough, tongue and two fingers, learning the specific pressure that made her thighs shake, the rhythm that made her stop catching the sounds she made. When her hips came up I put my forearm flat across her belly and held her down.
"Scorch." My name stripped all the way down to the base of it.
"Right here, darlin'. I've got you." I said it against her and felt her shudder at that. I kept the pace even and thorough until her thighs locked against my shoulders and her back came off the mattress and she fell apart completely, hands fisted in my hair, my name in her throat, nothing held back.
I pressed a kiss to her hip and moved up beside her. She caught her breath for about twenty seconds. Then she pushed me flat on my back and swung up over me and looked down at me.
"My turn now," she said.
"Right where I want you." I put my hands to her hips, not guiding, just there, warm and certain.
She took me in hand, positioned herself over me, and sank down slow. The rough exhale she let out went straight through me.
She set the pace from the first stroke and I let her. My hands stayed at her hips and I watched her face and she held my gaze and didn't look away. Full eye contact, no distance between us. I'd been waiting for this version of her—the one with nothingin the way—since the day my pulse jumped under her fingers at Memorial Hermann.
"You're so fucking good." Low and even, watching her face. "You know that?"
"Tell me again later," she said, breathless, and rolled her hips, and the sound I made was entirely honest.
She leaned forward and changed the angle, both hands braced on my shoulders.
"Fuck," she breathed.
"Stay right there, darlin'." I slid my hand between us and found her clit. Her hips rocked forward hard and the sound she made broke against her throat.
"Don't you stop," she said.
"Not a chance."
I kept my thumb even and watched the second wave hit her: the way her lips parted, the way her eyes went dark and unfocused, the flush burning up across her skin. When the climax broke it was low and wrecked, and I followed her over not long after.
WE STAYED EXACTLY WHEREwe were.
The morning had come all the way into the room, light slanted long across the floor, the day going on outside without us. Her weight on my chest was something I was already bracing for losing. That told me where things stood.
After a while Whitley lifted her head and looked at me.
"Go on and say it," she said.
I held her gaze. "You know what it means in my world when a man brings a woman to his place." I kept my voice level. "I've been a guest in yours. I want to return the favor permanently. I want you to be my old lady, Whitley. My person."
She sat up. Looked at me for a long moment. Then she reached out and pressed her hand over the memorial ink and held it there.
"I'm yours, Scorch," she said. Her eyes came up to mine. "I already am."