Nothing else there 24

This kiss is the hunger finally let off the leash.

I’m pulling his shirt free from his jeans, his hands are twisted in my hair, and I can’t remember how we got here but stopping feels impossible. I fumble with his buttons. Get three open before I give up and just pull the whole thing over his head.

It catches on his watch and he yanks it off without breaking the kiss, and then his chest is bare under my hands.

His skin burns under my palms. I can feel his heart slamming against his ribs. When I drag my nails down his stomach, he makes a sound that goes straight through me—low and wanting and mine.

I’ve thought about this. In the hallway. On the couch. Longer than I’ll ever admit.

“Come here,” he says against my mouth, and lifts me again.

My legs wrap around him and the hard length of him presses between my thighs through his pants. The friction makes electricity spike up my spine and I gasp into his mouth.

We’re kissing and stumbling until we collapse onto the couch in a graceless tangle of limbs. He catches his weight on one arm to keep from crushing my stomach, but I pull him down anyway.

Want his weight. Want to feel every inch of him pressed against me.

My hands find his belt, the leather slides through my fingers and I’m pulling it free when he catches my wrist. His grip is gentle but firm.

“Aria.” His voice is wrecked. “Wait.”

I look up at him. His pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any blue left.

“You’re twenty weeks. I need you to tell me if this is okay. If I’m okay. If you want…” He stops, swallows. “If you really want to go all the way.”

The concern in his eyes, the way he’s holding himself back when I can feel how badly he needs this, needs me…

“Yes.” I pull his belt completely free and throw it somewhere behind the couch. “My belly isn’t that swollen yet. But if you concerned even by that or it looks dis—”

“No! No, you look perfect! It’s just… I’m serious. If that could hurt you or the babies somehow, or you unsure, I need you to—”

I palm him through his jeans and his words die in his throat. “Does this feel like I’m unsure?”

His eyes flutter closed. “Fuck…”

“That’s exactly the idea.” I squeeze gently and watch his jaw clench. “Don’t worry about the babies, you won’t hurt them. You won’t hurt me.”

When he opens his eyes again, the careful restraint is gone. What’s left is raw and hungry and it makes my stomach clench with wanting.

He reaches for the hem of my shirt and drags it up slowly, his knuckles grazing my ribs. Then his hands go to my skirt, unbuttoning it with fingers that aren’t quite steady and pulling it down with my underwear in one fluid motion.

When I’m naked except for my bra, the air feels electric against my skin.

Nick sits back on his heels and just looks at me. His chest is rising and falling. There’s a flush spreading across his collarbone, creeping up his neck.

“What?” My voice comes out breathless and thin.

“You.” He leans down and kisses my stomach, just above my navel where the babies are growing. His lips are warm and reverent. “You’re so damn beautiful I can’t think straight.”

His hand slides behind my back and the clasp releases and the air hits my skin and I close my eyes and arch into him. “Nick…”

“God, Aria.” His voice is wrecked. “You have no idea, do you? How long I’ve…”

He doesn’t finish, his mouth comes down on my collarbone instead, then lower. His lips tracing the edge of my bra, slow and deliberate. His mouth is warm and my hand finds the back of his head, holding him there.

Then his mouth moves even lower. Kisses the inside of my thigh, then higher, until his breath ghosts across the most sensitive part of me and I stop breathing entirely.

The sounds coming out of me are small and involuntary and I want more of him, all of him. Every part I’ve been pretending I wasn’t imagining.

When his lips close over me, the world narrows to just that sensation. Hot and wet and purposeful. My hand flies to the top of his head, fingers twisting the hair. He looks up at me through dark lashes and doesn’t stop.

His tongue moves slowly. Deliberate circles that make my thighs shake. Like he has all the time in the world. Like he’s been thinking about this for months. For years.

“Please…” I don’t even know what I’m begging for. “God, please don’t—”

But he did stop. He moves back to strip off his pants so fast he nearly falls off the couch. Then he’s back, settling between my legs, and I can feel the thick heat of him pressed against my entrance and I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life.

When I give him a short nod, he pushes inside in one long, slow thrust and both of us let out a sound that’s half moan and half sob.

“Jesus Christ.” His forehead drops to mine, his whole body is shaking. “You feel… I can’t…”

“Move.” My nails dig crescents into his shoulders. “Please move or I’ll die.”

He moves, slow at first. Pulls almost all the way out and then slides back in, achingly slow, and I can feel every ridge and vein of him dragging against my inner walls. “Faster.”

“Not yet.” His mouth finds the pulse point in my neck and bites gently. “I’ve wanted this for too goddamn long to rush it.”

His hips roll in a way that makes my eyes roll back and I whimper, actually whimper, and hate myself for it and do it again when he does it a second time. “You’re killing me…”

“Good.” He bites my earlobe, thrusts deeper, and I feel it all the way up into my ribs. “Tell me how it feels, darling.”

“Like I’m going to die if you don’t—” I can’t finish because he shifts his angle and hits something inside me that makes white-hot pleasure explode behind my eyelids.

“There?” His voice is strained, barely controlled.

“There. God, right there!”

His rhythm builds faster now, harder, each thrust deliberate and devastating. Exactly what I need in a way that makes me think he knows my body better than I do.

I wrap my legs around him, lock my ankles behind his back. Pull him deeper until there’s no space left between us. Nick makes a sound like something shattered inside him and kisses me hard and I’m so close I can taste it, feel it building like a storm in every nerve ending.

His hand finds mine and our fingers lace together before he pins our joined hands above my head. His mouth is on my throat and I am shaking and he is shaking and I love him.

The thought arrives whole and certain and I don’t push it away.

I love this man — his hands, his patience, the sound he makes when he says my name.

I love him and I’m not afraid of it.

Then I break first. It crashes through me in wave after wave of white-hot pleasure that starts where we’re joined and radiates outward until I’m shaking and crying out.

I don’t care who hears, don’t care about anything except this feeling and his body and the way he’s looking at me like I’m everything. He follows three thrusts later and he says my name like it’s the only word he knows.

We’re both gasping. His weight settles on me and I don’t want him to move. I wrap my arms around his back and hold on while the aftershocks roll through us both.

His face is buried in the curve of my neck. I can feel his breath hot and ragged against my skin, his heart slamming against my chest—or maybe that’s mine. Maybe there’s no difference anymore.

“We never ate dinner,” I say, and he laughs breathless and a little bit wrecked, then lifts his head to look at me.

His hair is a disaster, lips are swollen from my mouth and there’s a mark blooming on his shoulder where I bit down and he’s never looked better.

Nick pulls out carefully and we both make small wounded sounds at the loss. He reaches for his discarded shirt and uses it to clean us both—gentle and careful in a way that makes my throat tight.

Then he stands and scoops me up like I’m something precious. “I can walk.”

“Probably not.” He adjusts his grip, one arm secure under my knees. “And I’m not letting you try or sleep on this couch.”