“Something changed for me after that. I had known you were out there somewhere, but to see you? I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“When you showed up at Daddy’s funeral, I couldn’t believe it.” I chuckle. “I’m pretty sure I flung myself at you.”
“I was glad. I wanted to hug you, but it had been so long since we’d known each other, I wasn’t sure if there was protocol. And I imagine a lot of people you grew up with try to insinuate themselves into your life knowing you’re close to such important people.”
“You could never be a lot of people, Ez. There’s everyone else, and then there’s you.”
The look on his face is something hot and needy, ardent, mirroring what’s building inside of me. My heart swells in my chest, scraping against my rib cage, barely contained. This time, I don’t have to wonder who moves first.
It’s me.
I lean closer and press our lips together, eyes open and looking right into his. His glance, his frown, asks if I’m sure.
I’m not. How could I be?
But I close my eyes and deepen the kiss, a foolhardy fall I may pay for later. It’s not even all the rationalizations that spur me to kiss him again. I could tell myself they broke up and that Aiko moved on first, but none of that actually runs through my mind when our tongues wrap around each other and our sighs entwine. My mind, consumed with the taste and feel of him, shouts one word over and over, an insistent refrain.
Finally. Finally. Finally.
He lays me down back onto the trampoline, and in the dark, the netting makes a world of mesh and magic, population: us. Our kisses turn desperate. What was gentle grows urgent, and he’s clutching me, squeezing my leg, my arms, my ass. Exploring my body like a blind man seeing with his hands. The pressure is just right and too much and not nearly enough. I tear my mouth away, kiss his jaw, drag my lips down his neck. He sucks my earlobe, finding a direct lust line to my pussy. I squirm and whimper.
“You like that?” he breathes into the tiny cove between my neck and ear.
I nod, tightening my hands at his lean waist when he does it again, taking time with my ear
s and ghosting kisses down my neck and over my shoulders. When his lips meet the barrier of my strapless top, he pauses, hovering over my breast.
“I want to touch you here so badly my hands are shaking,” he says, his voice a husky rumble. “Can I?”
I can’t even breathe to get the “yes” out. Anticipation thieves my breath and beads my nipples. I barely manage to nod before he’s cupping my breast through the shirt, dusting kisses along my collarbone. All the while, he pinches my nipples, squeezes my breast.
Oh my God. Please suck it.
I press deeper into his palm, willing him to pull the top down so he can see how hard my nipples are. How much I want his mouth on me. He just keeps raining infuriating, drugging kisses everywhere but there, churning a frenzy inside of me. I close my eyes, willing myself not to beg, and then I feel the wet heat of his mouth through the thin fabric.
“Ez,” I moan. “Yes, please.”
Hallelujah, he tugs the shirt down, slowly sliding it until the night air mists my nipples into proud peaks. I open my eyes and he’s staring at my chest like it’s Christmas morning. His breath is hot at the underside of my breast, blowing steam through my body. He takes my nipple into his mouth with an insistent, starving suction of his lips and tongue. It’s not gentle, but it is a long, hard draw, transporting me through a tiny tunnel of pain to pleasure that explodes between my legs. A hundred words, a thousand ways to tell him that feels soooooo good flood my mind, and my mouth falls open, but no sound escapes. Ezra alternates, laving and sucking and biting one breast, pinching and plucking and kneading the other. I think I could come from just this, but he recruits other parts of my body in this sensual attack. He presses lightly at the juncture of my thighs, asking not with words, but with his touch.
I already know my voice will fail me, so I simply nod. He unsnaps my jeans, slides the zipper down, his fingers deft, eager. There’s no fumbling or searching. He skates under the lacy rim of my panties, finding my clit unerringly quickly and passing the pad of one finger over the cluster of heat and nerves.
“Jesus,” I gasp. “Lord.”
“Open your legs.”
I widen for him, and he rewards my obedience with the most delicious intrusion of one huge finger plunging inside. He adds another, stretching me, plundering me. His hands, lips, tongue, conspire to drive me over the edge. He sucks my breast, rubs my clit, and fingers me with relentless tenderness and pounding urgency.
“Shit, shit, shit.” My back arches and my head tips back and my body surrenders every molecule, splintering into a million writhing particles. I dig my heels into the trampoline as the orgasm washes over, tears through me. A jaw-rattling scream scrambles up my throat, but I bite my bottom lip, trapping the sound inside. I grind down onto his hand, shameless, careless of my obvious greedy need. I’m chasing this to the very end. I allow myself a few tiny whimpers as the last of it coats my whole body, twisting through my limbs and tingling my toes.
Ezra’s hands slow. His kisses gentle, but he doesn’t stop until I’m completely still, ragged breaths my only outward motion. I’m moving inside, though.
I’m a filthy feather floating back down to earth.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ezra
I steal a look at Kimba’s face, dimly lit by the moon and shadowed by the netting of the trampoline. We’re lying down, facing each other, our bodies like confidants, huddled close. My hand rests just inside her panties, the unzipped waistband of her jeans gaping open. Her top is pulled down, the fabric scrunched at her waist. Her breasts are bare, the coppery skin glimmering, her nipples wet and plump from my kisses.