Page 126 of What We Bury

“Is this your version of trying something?”

“Maybe.”

He turns his head slowly, like he’s giving himself one last chance to be a gentleman before he stops trying. His eyes find mine.

They’re dark.

“Okay,” he says. “Cool. Cool cool cool. Just wanted to confirm the situation. But you’ve gotta be the boss of this. Now what?”

“Now you come over here.”

“No.Youcome over here.” His hand drops the cushion and wraps around my foot. “I’m not the one with a leg full of opinions.”

“I thought you said I could be the boss. This feels like a power struggle.”

“It is.” His thumb strokes once along the arch of my foot. Then he lets go. “Come here.”

I uncurl from my end of the couch and crawl across.

Eighteen inches. On hands and knees. The TV is still going and I don’t care. I climb into his lap and straddle his thighs,putting my hands flat on his chest. Milo’s eyes go wide for one second. His hands find my hips and he holds on as if for dear life.

“I like this show way better, kitten,” he says, his voice rough.

“Me too.”

He sighs as I move a little on his lap, pressing against his now prominent erection.

“Sage . . . this is escalating.”

Some Pokémon pun is probably forming in his head right now, so I cut him off before it can land, “Yes.”

I grind down on him.

He groans. “Okay. I am one hundred percent fine with this. I just want to be on record.”

“Great, glad I have your consent.” I lean in and kiss him.

THIRTY-FIVE

SAGE

He kisses me back, hard. His hands are on my hips and he’s not keeping them still, like he isn’t sure if he should push me down into him or just steady himself for impact. He tastes like wine and some kind of boy-sweetness I can’t name and nothing about this is gentle.

I’m struck by how differently he kisses from Knox and Micah. Micah kisses like the world will end, like he wants the taste of me to carry him through the apocalypse. Knox barely lets himself have me at all—when he does, it’s with this hunger, this totality, and it’s a force field. Milo kisses me like he’s playing for keeps. Full contact, full stakes. He’s all in, hands everywhere, tongue greedy and clever, no slow build-up, no testing the waters. He burns from zero to one-thousand and expects me to meet him there.

I do.

He tilts his head, deepens the kiss, and I taste the hum he’d been holding back—a half-laugh, half-moan that vibrates through me all the way to my toes.

His hands slide from my hips to my ass, holding me tighter, and I feel the shake of his fingers as he grabs a handful of me and pulls me closer. The heat is immediate and frantic, my skin prickling from the effort of keeping up.

My hands go to his hair, tangle there. He makes a greedy sound and bites my bottom lip, not hard, just a promise. I squirm, and in reply, he angles his hips up and into me. I gasp, and the sound is swallowed by the kiss, and the shifting, wet slide of his tongue on mine.

He pulls back, breathless. “Just for the record, you started this.”

“Are you complaining?”

He cups my face, and the look he gives me is so fucking open it’s almost dangerous. “Never. Just like proper documen?—”