“Mmm,” he rumbled.
She put the heels of her hands against his shoulders and looked down at him, gazing up at her. Leaning forward, she slid her palm down the side of his face, from the warmth of his skin to the prickles of his beard to the soft skin of his neck. She hesitated, then continued on, brushing her palm against his shirt, feeling the hard bud of his nipple. She gave it a tweak, heard him inhale, saw his eyes flutter shut. Still, he kept his hands motionless at her waist.
She began kissing his neck, warm, openmouthed caresses. When she nibbled at a spot just beneath his ear, he gasped, and stiffened, and his voice sounded strangled as he said, “Oh, wow, that’s good.”
She nibbled at him some more, tasting his salty skin, feeling the curve of his head against her palm. She sat up straight just long enough to pull off her sweatshirt and T-shirt. Michael leaned back and watched her, eyes wide. She smiled, and took one of his big hands, and brought it to her breast, and the plain beige bra she was wearing. He held his hand in place, then began sweeping his thumb in arcs against the skin of her chest. “Okay?” he whispered.
Instead of answering, Diana reached down and brushed her fingers over the solid mound behind his zipper, smiling at the strangled sound he made.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said, but he didn’t sound unhappy about it.
She leaned forward, letting her hair brush his cheeks. “I want it,” she whispered. “I want you.”
He groaned, then stood up with Diana in his arms and carried her up to her bed. He laid her down as gently as if she was made of spun glass, as if she was some rare treasure. With great care, he undressed her, unlacing her shoes and easing each one off, pulling off her socks, unbuttoning her jeans and drawing them down over her legs. He looked at her for a long, airless moment, like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen, and she had to close her eyes against the tenderness of his gaze, before it scorched her.
He leaned forward, mouth close to her ear. “I want to make this good for you,” he rumbled.
“Mmm,” she sighed.
“Anything you don’t want, you tell me,” he said. “If you want to stop, we’ll stop.”
She nodded. It made her heart ache to hear such consideration, and to know he was treating her with such care because of what had happened. I’m damaged goods, she thought.
“You’re perfect,” he said, as if he’d heard what she was thinking. Then he bent to her, kissing her ankle, her calf, the back of her knee. She could feel the softness of his hair, the prickles of his beard, the warmth of his lips and his tongue as he moved up, up, up. “Oh,” she sighed, and she felt him kissing, then sucking gently, his beard tickling her thigh.
“Do you like that?” he whispered. She thought that the way she was squirming on the bed, her hips rising and falling with an unconscious, insistent rhythm, would have given him an answer, but clearly he needed to hear it. She’d almost worked out what to say when she felt his fingers pressing into the soft flesh behind her knee. When she felt his lips there, she arced right off the bed.
“Ooh!”
She heard his chuckle, felt his hands on her hips as he urged her onto her belly. Then he repeated the process on her other leg, kissing his way from instep to ankle to calf to, this time, the back of her knee. When she felt his tongue there, she made a noise so loud it would have been embarrassing, if there’d been any part of her that still had the capacity for shame. For once, she’d stopped thinking, her mind abandoning itself to sensation as Michael gripped her thighs, holding them firmly, but not with enough force to keep her in place if she wanted to move. She rolled her hips in the air, desperate for friction, frantic for him to touch her.
“Oh,” she whispered, “oh, please, please, please…”
He brushed his thumb right between her legs. She squeaked, and did it even louder when he repeated the gesture with two fingertips.
“You’re so wet,” he muttered, and hooked his thumbs into the sides of her panties. “Okay?”
“Mmm,” she hummed.
He drew them down slowly, slipping them over her feet, and his warm hands were gently urging her thighs apart. She had a brief moment to wonder how she looked, how she smelled, an instant to think I should have shaved my bikini line, before he dragged the tip of his index finger along the wet seam between her legs, so delicately he was barely touching her. His fingertip landed on her clitoris and flicked it gently, and she forgot how to think. He brought his face between her legs, and just breathed on her, gently, so gently that she could barely tell he was there. She lifted her hips, trying to spread her legs even wider, moaning, “Please, please, please.”