Page 148 of Star Bringer
When our palms finally meet and our fingers lock together, he gives a little tug, and I flow smoothly from my place at the end of his bed to a place in his strong, powerful arms.
He feels good. More, he feels safe. And when I look up, it’s to find that his mouth is only a few centimeters from mine.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever felt the need to announce it like that. It makes me wonder just how nervous I look. “Is that okay with you?”
More than okay. I start to give him an enthusiastic yes, but my tongue hasn’t completely untied itself yet. So I settle for a nod and then wait, heart beating out of my chest, for him to finally lower his mouth to mine.
This isn’t our first kiss, but with the amount of sensation that runs through me the moment our lips meet, it might as well be. I learned before that Ian knows how to kiss, but as his lips slowly, carefully move against mine, I can’t help thinking that hereallyknows how to kiss. And that I want him to go on kissing me for a very, very long time.
His hands slide up my arms to my shoulders, from my shoulders to my cheeks. As he cups my face in his palms, I expect the nerves to return. But there is no nervousness, no awkwardness, no fear of looking like I’m out of my depth. No, as his mouth claims mine, the only thing I feel is desire. Pleasure. Need.
So much needas his tongue sweeps along the seam of my lips. As it toys with the sensitive corners of my mouth. As it delves slowly, sweetly inside of me.
“You taste so good,” he murmurs, sucking my lower lip gently between his teeth. “You’ve always tasted so good.”
“So do you,” I answer, licking my lips in an attempt to get more of him. He tastes like warm gerjgin, bittersweet coffee, and pure, warm man. From the moment he poured me my first gerjgin, I’ve been drawn to the taste of it, relishing the warm heat of it on my tongue, the burn as it makes its way down my throat, the fire it brings to my belly. As I relish the taste of him now—smooth and sharp and delicious all at the same time—I can’t help wondering if the reason I like gerjgin so much is because it reminds me of Ian.
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that I’ll never be able to drink the liquor again without thinking of him. Without thinking of this moment when his fingers tangle in my hair and his mouth tangles with mine.
As his fingers tighten in my hair—not enough to hurt but more than enough to have more sensations spinning through me—I follow his unspoken request and tilt my head back to give him better access.
And then his mouth is on mine again, and nothing has ever felt so good. So perfect. So real.
He bites down on my lip—softly, this time—and sensations claw through me. Shivers run down my spine, heat pools low in my belly, and a hollowness I’ve never felt before takes up residence at the very heart of me. Then he soothes the tiny little hurt with his tongue, dancing it over the inside of my lip until my hands are shaking and so are my knees.
Ian is really good at this. Really, really good.
It makes me want to be good, too.
So when he moves to pull away from me, I don’t let him. Instead, I nip him back, sinking my teeth into his upper lip before pulling it into my mouth and sucking away the hurt.
Ian groans low in his throat at the tiny prick of pain, and the sound gets me hotter than it has any right to. I slide my hands up his back so that I can tangle my fingers in the short curls at the nape of his neck.
They feel surprisingly good slipping back and forth against my palms, sliding over my skin, wrapping themselves around my fingers. I wish we could live right here—right fucking here—in this moment of possibility forever.
But then he tilts my head back even more, and there’s a new moment for me to live in as his mouth devours mine. As he bites and sucks and licks his way inside my mouth, his tongue sweeping against my own until all I can think about is him. Until all I can see or hear or taste is him.
I moan low in my throat, and this time when my fingers tug on his hair, there’s no gentleness in it. How can there be, when Ian is driving me slowly, inexorably, out of my mind? And making sure that I love every second of it.
It’s my turn now, to nibble at his lips, to run my tongue over his teeth and the sensitive skin between his gum and his upper lip. He groans when I lick inside him, capturing my tongue and sucking it even deeper inside his mouth.
I’ve never been kissed like this before, never even imagined that a kiss like this could exist, and I want to hold onto this feeling for as long as I possibly can. For as long as Ian will let me.
But then he’s moving on, his lips tracing a hot trail across my cheek to my ear. He pauses there, nibbling at my lobe before moving on to press hot, open-mouthed kisses into the sensitive spot just below my ear.
I gasp when he licks his way across my skin, pausing for a moment to suck his way along my throat in a move that I’m fairly certain will leave me with the best kind of bruises tomorrow—the kind that will remind me that this isn’t a dream after all.
“Is this okay?” he murmurs as he delves even lower, his fingers dancing across the zipper of my jumpsuit and dragging it down to the center of my breasts.
I’m too busy arching my back, too busy grabbing onto his hair to hold his mouth in place against my skin to do much more than nod.
Thankfully, a nod is all he needs, and his fingers skim lower, tracing the curves of my breasts before delving inside my camisole to glance across my nipples. Once, twice, then again and again until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but drown in the sensations Ian pulls from me so easily.
“I want to see you,” he murmurs as he kisses his way over my collarbone and down the center of my body to the spot just between my breasts.
“Yes. Please.” I arch against his mouth to give him better access, and he laughs—a dark, seductive sound that shoots all the way through me.
Then he’s lowering the zipper on my jumpsuit completely, peeling it down my arms and body until it pools around my waist. He pauses then, sliding warm, calloused fingers along the sensitive skin at my waist, stroking his way under my camisole and up, up, up my ribs until he’s cupping the weight of my breasts in his hands.
