Page 126 of Reckless
When I could think again, barely, I realized I was still holding her too tightly.
I loosened my grip.
Kelly laughed against my throat.Shaky.Wrecked.Entirely too pleased with the state of me.
I drew back enough to look at her.
With her hair wild and mouth swollen I was lost.But when I added in the bar skin lit silver by moonlight and some sand stuck to her calf, she was absolutely the beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“How do you feel,” I asked.
“Like I need a moment before I trust my legs.”
“That bad?”
“That good.Don’t look smug.”
“I’m not smug.”
“You are radiating smugness.I can feel it through the dark.”
“That’s moonlight.”
“Shut up.”
She blinked up at me, and something in her face changed.Softer now.Truer.
“Like that was worth waiting for,” she said quietly.
The sentence hit me deeper than it should have.
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Xerses.I am naked on a beach and smiling.What more evidence do you need?”
Instead of answering, I kissed her once, gently, and said the first true thing I had.
“Good.”
Fifteen
Dangerous After
Kelly
The first thing I thought after sex with Xerses on a dark beach was that I wanted to do it again.Not eventually but now.
My body was still shaking.My mouth was swollen from kissing him.My thighs were weak in a very specific, very glorious way.And being here in moonlight with the ocean behind us and my sweater in the sand, all I could think was:
Oh.So this is what it’s supposed to feel like when it’s right.
God, it had been hot.His mouth.His hands.The way he found my face like every reaction mattered.The way he didn’t rush me even when he was devastated himself.The way he made wanting feel like something we were doing together instead of something he was taking from me.
But more than that, it had felt right.
