I reached out and swiped at the dollop, bringing it to my lips for a taste. She watched my every move, and I swore I saw heat flare in her malachite depths. Everything in me tightened, especially things south of the midline.
“Kholt?” she said, her voice quiet yet serious.
“Yeah?”
She set her mug on the coffee table, moved closer to me on the couch, and reached out to take my cup out of my hands. The insecure part of me feared that I had overstepped, and she was about to ask me to leave. The hopeful part tapped into the desire flaring through my system and sent up a prayer that the flip side of the coin was the actual answer.
I didn’t dare look up. I wasn’t sure if I could.
When she moved even closer, I finally raised my gaze to meet hers. What I saw there made my stomach bottom out, and chills race across my flesh. It was a look I had thought to only dream about. Something I had hoped for as a teenager but never received. It was . . . everything.
I didn’t dare move. I didn’t want to break the spell. I just sat absolutely still and soaked in the heat radiating between us. The rise and fall of her chest against the soft material of her tank. The flutter of the pulse in her neck that I wanted to run my tongue over.
When she reached up and ran her hands through my hair and then hummed a little, I almost lost it. Just that simple touch and small sound almost had me coming undone. But it was nothing to the fire scorching every nerve ending when she cupped my face in her hands and brought her lips to mine.
The kiss was slow but deep, and I couldn’t stop the groan I let loose. My arms instantly wrapped around her to pull her closer, and the feel of her curves against my body was heaven. She deepened the kiss even more, her tongue tangling with mine, the taste of her making me drunker than any of the alcohol I’d had tonight. She tasted like coffee and whiskey and cream, but none of those things could wipe out the taste of her. This treasure that I had always wanted that was now within my grasp.
I let her lead and followed happily as she explored, running her hands up and down my torso, returning to my hair again and again, her nails scraping my scalp and making me shiver.
I tentatively slipped a palm under the hem of her shirt to touch skin, moving slowly to gauge her reaction. When she hummed again and pressed into my touch, I took that as permission and expanded my treasure hunt.
When I cupped a breast, the rough material of her lace bra against my palm creating a delicious friction, she ripped her mouth away from mine, tipped her head back, and let out a sigh, her teeth finding the corner of her bottom lip as she moaned.
“Jesus, Lark.”
She gripped me through my jeans, and it took everything inside me not to come right there and then. This moment was all my teenage fantasies come to life, and it had been a while for me.
“Sweetheart,” I said. “If you keep touching me like that, I might embarrass myself.”
“I’d be okay with that,” she said, looking straight at me then, her heavy-lidded eyes and swollen lips sending even more heat to my groin. “I want to make you lose control. I want to lose control with you.”
“Jesus fuck,” I said and pulled her onto my lap, waiting until she’d straddled me before retaking her lips and ripping her shirt and jewelry over her head with probably too much force.
She pulled away just enough to reach between us and unbutton and unzip my jeans, reaching inside to take me in her soft palm and caress. I grunted, the tingle at the base of my spine getting more intense.
I had to think about taxes or something. I didn’t want this to be over before it’d even started.
I almost swallowed my tongue when she unsnapped the hook on her bra and stood to shimmy out of her jeans and underwear. Lark was stunningly gorgeous in anything she wore—honestly, she always had been—but standing before me naked, she was like some mystical faerie queen. Utterly ethereal and perfect.
She reached up and let the top portion of her hair down, shaking her head and letting the strands fall against her shoulders and around to partially conceal her breasts, and I couldn’t help but reach up to run a finger down a strand, slipping it across her tightly budded nipple as I did.
“God, Lark. You are . . . you are everything. So beautiful, you take my breath away.”
She merely smiled and then helped me out of my shirt, exploring my pecs and abs and shoulders. Her hands were so soft, and I felt a trail of heat follow with every swipe she made.
When she took a small step back between me and the coffee table and tugged on the undone flap of my jeans, I maneuvered myself enough to raise my hips and ass and shove them down my legs, taking my boxers with them.
Part of me thought I should be embarrassed by how turned-on I was—I was so hard it was almost painful. But when she took me in and licked her lips, that heat flaring even hotter in her gaze, that was no longer even a concern.
“I may not last, sweetheart.”
Her response? “We have all night. Unless you have somewhere else to be.”
Yep, she was gonna be the death of me.
But holy shit, what a way to go.
Chapter18