Page 49 of Born for Starlight

“Matthew,” she panted. “I told you to take off your clothes.”

“I got confused. I thought you wanted me to take off your clothes.”

Her eyes glittered as she looked up at me. “You never get confused, Grainger. It’s not part of your makeup.”

She was right about that. But now that I was staring down at the heart of her, I really didn’t feel like debating the subject with her.

“Are you listening to me?”

“No.”

She laughed. It was full of joy. “Matthew.”

“Shhh. I’m concentrating.”

I could tell she was going to start talking again, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. I lowered my head, and took a long lick of her tender flesh. I was pretty sure that Angelica meant to say my name again, but the word came out garbled.

Good.

She tasted good.

I took my time. And the moment when she went still and silent, like she was listening to something far away, I felt like a king.

When she came apart this first time, she cried out my name in such a way that I felt it down to my bones.

She pulled me up her body while she was still shaking.

"Now. Right now."

I yanked at my belt and undid my pants. She reached for the foil, then rolled the condom onto me, watching my face while she did it, mercilessly, and by the time she finished, I was the one shaking.

Her legs cradled me and I pushed inside her, slow, both of us watching each other. Her mouth fell open. My whole world came down to the heat of her and her brown eyes and the small sound she made when I was all the way home.

I stilled. Forehead dropping to hers.

"Okay?"

"So much better than okay." Her hands framed my face. "Move, soldier. That's an order."

I moved.

We found the rhythm together, her hips rising to meet me, and it was nothing like I'd braced for. Part of me, the cynical part, had braced for choreography. There was none. There was a woman with her hair coming loose, unguarded and greedy and loud in a house with nobody to hear. She laughed once, right in the middle of it, for no reason except joy. The laugh clenched her around me and turned into a moan, and I drove into her harder and watched the woman who directed everything just let go.

It was an amazing moment. More than I hoped for. "There you are," I said against her ear. "There you are."

"Don't stop. Matthew. Don't you dare stop."

"Never."

She looked at me. She was close. I could feel it building in her, and she kept her eyes open and on mine while it took her. She broke around me with her eyes locked on mine, and my control went with her. All sixteen years of it. I followed her over with her name on my lips and her nails digging into my back hard enough to leave marks that I’d grin over, later.

I collapsed to the side and gathered her in so I wouldn't crush her. We lay tangled on her couch, both of us wrecked, her heart hammering against my ribs, morning light everywhere, cinnamon still in the air.

She recovered first.

"So." She was breathless against my chest. "New rule."

"God help me."