Page 226 of What We Bury

I slide down her body. Hook her thighs over my shoulders. Take a moment just to look at her—slick, open for me—and murmur, “I’m gonna need a while.”

I put my mouth on her.

She cries out, hands fisting the sheets. I find the rhythm that makes her breath stutter and hold it, long flat licks, my tongue swirling and sucking tight around her clit. I alternate between the two and make her work for it. Make her rock up against my face like she’s the one taking from me and not the other way around. When she’s slick and dripping and the small sounds at the back of her throat have turned into pleading, I slide one finger inside her.

She moans. Her body grips my finger immediately, her hips lifting off the bed.

“Knox—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

I add a second. Curl them. Find the spot inside her that makes her gasp and chase my hand. My mouth stays on her clit, swirling and sucking, and I let her grind against me until she’s shaking, thighs trembling on either side of my head, and then she’s coming on my tongue—a long, low, broken sound, her body clamping down hard on my fingers, her hips rocking against my face like she can’t stop, like she doesn’t want to.

I work her through it. Stay with her until the last shudder fades. Then I sit back on my heels and watch her, collapsed onto the pillows, chest heaving, looking up at the ceiling with thedazed look of a woman who has just been somewhere she didn’t know she could go.

“Holy shit,” she breathes.

“I’m not done.”

She lifts her head. “You’re not?”

“I told you—everything that doesn’t end with me inside you.”

I crawl back up her body, kissing my way up, and I settle next to her on the bed. My mouth finds hers—she tastes of salt and herself and a faint sweetness underneath, and she moans into my mouth. My hand slides down between her thighs, finding her still slick, still open, the aftershocks of her orgasm still pulsing.

“This time we’re going to take it slower,” I say.

“Slower than that?”

“Slower.”

I slide two fingers inside her, easy now, her body welcoming them. Curl them. Find the spot. Keep my thumb light on her clit, just enough to keep her warm without driving her up too fast.

“Two of my fingers,” I murmur against her temple, “and you’re already taking them like they belong there. Imagine three.”

“I want three.”

“Soon. Not yet.”

“Knox—”

“Patient, Fury.”

She whimpers and presses up into my hand, chasing the rhythm she wants, her hips setting the pace. My mouth moves to her neck, her shoulder, the soft place just below her ear that I’m cataloging as one of her tells. When she’s wet enough that her juices are dripping down my hand, I add a third.

She gasps. Tenses. Pushes down against my hand experimentally.

“Easy. Breathe.”

“It’s—”

“I know. Just breathe.”

I keep my fingers still inside her, letting her body adjust. The stretch is real—three of my fingers isn’t me but it’s still more than most—and I want her to feel it, to learn what it’s going to be like before she even considers taking more.

When her breathing evens out, I move.

Slow. Deep. Curling on the upstroke, finding the spot, my thumb working her clit in time with my hand. Sounds fall from her lips that aren’t quite words—pleaseandKnoxandmoreall running into each other—and her hips lift to meet me, fucking herself onto my hand because her body has decided it knows what it wants.