Page 127 of What We Bury

I kiss him to shut him up. He grins against my mouth and I want to bite him for it. So I do, nipping at his bottom lip as I rock against him. He groans, and his hands slide from my hips to my back, and it hits me that he’s staying on top of my clothes.

He’s not going under my shirt. He’s not trying to grope at my chest. His hands are at the safe latitudes of back and hips and he’s letting me lead the rest.

“Milo.”

“Yes, kitten?”

“Take my shirt off.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

My shirt hits the floor, and I shiver. The look Milo gives me is somewhere between reverence and total fucking delight. He makes this sound, a soft, awed “hoh,” like he’s seeing boobs for the first time since birth.

“You good?” I ask, acutely aware of my own skin.

“Better than good, kitten,” he says, and then he’s on me, his hands cupping my bare shoulders, his mouth trailing kisses from my collarbone down down down. I try to catch my breathbut it skips away every time he latches onto a new piece of me. His hands are warm, almost shaking, and when he finally gets to my chest, he pauses.

“How about you?” He says it into my skin, voice muffled and so earnest it undoes me a little.

“Hell yes.”

“Sure?”

“Milo, you can stop asking. I’ll tell you if I don’t like something.”

“Sorry. Sorry. Bad habit. I check things.”

“It’s not a bad habit.”

“I just mean—I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t ask.”

“You’re not.”

I kiss him again. His hand slides up my ribs and his thumb brushes the underside of my breast and I make a noise.

I rock my hips.

It’s not a big movement. Just a shift. But the friction of him against me through two layers of denim sends a spark up my spine and I let out a whimper. Milo’s hands tighten at my back. His forehead drops to my collarbone.

“Fuck, Sage.”

I grind again and this time he groans, loud and desperate, his hands flexing and then going very still. His hips jerk under me. He seems shocked at himself, like his body betrayed every ounce of self-control he tried for in the last hour.

I plant a palm on his chest and push him back on the couch. He goes with it, that wild grin stretching across his face.

“Just so you know, if you keep dry humping me like this, I’m gonna come in my pants like a teenager, and I want that to be a deliberate choice on your part, not an accident.”

I do it again.

He laughs—surprised, breathless, his head dropping onto the back of the couch. His hand at my back pulls me harder againsthim, and the next time I rock my hips it’s with intent. I want him to come in his pants. I want to drive his brain to static, his body to overload. I want a stupid, embarrassing, no-brakes mess. I want to be what throws him off.

Everything since dinner has been made out of nervous laughter and wanting and a growing need that feels like hunger when you’re already full.

“Kitten.” He hisses.

I push my hips down and grind in a slow, open circle. He gasps. His hands find the waistband of my jeans and hold me there, and I feel the shudder go through him, a full-body tremor that makes me tingling-hot everywhere.

“Fuck,” he pants, “that’s—God, Sage, you’re a fucking problem—” He rocks back, hard, answering my pressure with his own, and we set a rhythm with the TV still going and the Duke and the Lady doing something on screen that I’m in no position to follow anymore.