Page 133 of Star Bringer
But she’s not listening, her hands and her focus moving to the edges of my panties. She skims a finger along the edges of the legs, moving back and forth several times before dipping inside to stroke my mons, the edges of my sex.
I whimper at the first touch, my already shaky knees turning completely useless in a moment. She moves quickly, sliding around until she’s kneeling in front of me, her arms wrapped around my thighs to steady me.
“Brace your hands on my shoulders,” she tells me in between the soft, tickling kisses she presses to my abdomen.
I do as she says, unable and unwilling to even think of saying no. As soon as I do, she hooks her fingers inside the waistband of my panties and slides them down, down, down my legs. As soon as I step out of them, she leans forward and presses a long, wet kiss just at the top of my mons.
I’m trembling now, a shaking, sobbing mess of want and need and fire—so much fire licking its way over my skin, along my veins, through the very heart of me. “Please,” I whimper as she traces designs on my skin with her tongue. Over my hip, around my belly button, and then down along the seam where my legs meet my torso. “Beckett, please.”
She laughs again—this time, it’s definitely a wild, wicked sound—and stands, her mouth moving straight up the center of my body—from my navel to my heart to the hollow of my throat. She tastes all the different parts of me before finally taking a step back.
I reach for her with desperate hands. I don’t want her to stop, don’t want this feeling to ever go away. “I just need a moment,” she whispers, bending forward so she can nibble her way along my collarbone.
Then she’s stripping off her own boots and jumpsuit, leaving them in a jumbled pile on the floor that is totally unlike the obsessively tidy Beckett. The fact that she doesn’t care tells me she’s as into this as I am, and I feel a strong wave of gratitude.
For tonight.
For this moment.
But most of all for Beckett. Always for Beckett.
It’s my turn to take a step back as she shimmies her panties down her legs. And I’m glad I did because I have the most glorious view—her rosy brown nipples; her long, lean body; the soft curls between her legs.
“I’m not beautiful like you,” she says, gesturing to her scars, and for the first time I realize she’s as self-conscious as I am. Maybe even more, though she has no reason to be.
I take her hands, holding them tightly as I bring them to my heart. “You have nothing to be self-conscious about,” I tell her fiercely.
“I know what I am,” she says.
“Good,” I answer. “I’m glad you know that you are beautiful and powerful and strong—” My voice breaks as I look at the scars—the many, many scars—marking her warrior’s body. “So, so strong. Not to mention the sexiest person I have ever seen in my life.”
“I think you’re mistaken,” she teases. “That title belongs to you.”
“It doesn’t, no. But I’m glad you think so. That’s all that matters to me.”
Beckett smiles as she slides a finger beneath my chin. She tilts my head up and then slowly, carefully,perfectly, lowers her mouth to mine.
The moment our lips meet, my body sinks into hers. She tastes like the sweetest berries from the monastery garden, like cream and sugar and just a hint of gerjgin.
She feels even better, the dips and valleys of her body magic beneath my questing palms.
And when she leads us toward the bed, when she lays me down across it, every particle in my body yearns for more. For everything. For her.
She follows me down, and her mouth finds mine again as I wrap my arms around her and stroke my hands down her warm back. My fingers run into scars, and a part of me wants to linger, wants to explore each one with my hands, my eyes, my mouth. But I’m afraid doing so will only push her away from me—at least for now—so I ignore the badges of courage, of survival, that she carries on her body and focus on all the other things that make Beckett Beckett.
I toy with the coarse curls that frame her face.
Trace a finger along her full lower lip.
Rest my hand over her big, strong heart.
She whispers my name every time I touch a new place, until the sound of it falls around us over and over again, like the softest droplets in a summer storm.
She gives me a few minutes to explore her—to taste and touch and smell all the beautiful pieces of her. And then she takes over, kissing my throat, my jaw, the pulse point beneath my ear.
Heat licks through me as she moves lower, kissing and sucking her way over my collarbone to the hollow of my throat to the upper curve of my breast. My head spins, my heart races, and my hands clutch at her shoulders, her arms, her waist.
I’ve never felt like this before, never imagined that I could feel so much at one time without crying—without dying. And still, somehow, want more.
