Page 55 of She Haunts Me Still

Ezra’s lips cover hers again, keeping his fingers impossibly still for a moment before slowly stroking his way out. Taking his time, feeling every inch of her.

And then, he drags his fingertips, slick with her desire, right over her clit. Firmly. Purposefully. Coaxing her toward surrender.

Heat rages inside her, and Mallory rocks against his hand, moaning freely into his mouth, the pressure finally as rough as she wants it. He’s barely touched her and she’s seconds,fucking seconds,away from coming apart in his palm.

“I could tell,” he breathes, “how turned on you were earlier. And you know what I wanted to do about it? Right there in that fucking church?”

“What?” she pants, clenching around his hand.

Ezra pulls back and she practically whimpers. But her frustration slips into surprise when he kneels before her, reaching under her skirt to tug her underwear down her thighs. She barely has time to gasp before he’s guiding her backward and arranging her legs over his shoulders. His pupils are blown at the sight of her, bare and spread open for him beneath her skirt.

He raises his gaze to hers in the crimson glow. “I wanted to worship you.”

Mallory’s breath rushes out as he pushes the fabric up toward her hips and leans in.

Ezra groans at the first taste of her, and she drifts somewhere else at the rough, hungry sound. Levitating closer to the moon, the stars, to another fucking dimension as he kisses between her thighs just as desperately as he kissed her mouth. Rolling his tongue forward and back, grazing her with his teeth. Mallory’s spine arches above the switchboard, buttons scraping at her skin, but she doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything other thanthis.

“Oh god,” she cries as he presses two fingers back inside her, then a third. She can feel the heat building and building as he works her right to the edge—

And pulls back just before she falls.

“Ezra,” she whines as she wriggles onto her elbows. “Please don’t stop.”

His smirk is a blade in the dark as he drags the pad of histhumb through her glistening, swollen skin. Lashes lowered, transfixed. “Look at what I’ve done to you.”

Something unexpected and desperate flares inside her at his words, and she slams upright, swinging her feet to the floor. Ezra’s grin deepens as she shoves him onto the couch in the corner, kneeling above him as she works his belt.

“I’ve never seen you so impatient—”

Mallory presses her palm to his mouth. “No more talking.”

She can feel his smile against her, which turns into soft kisses as she undoes his buckle with her other hand. Mallory tries to ignore the warmth of his tongue trailing her fingers, staying focused on her task until she finally works him free.

Ezra meets her gaze as she tightens her grip. He settles against the couch, arms confidently spread across the back, but she’s not oblivious to the tiny changes in his face as she starts to stroke him up and down—as slowly and carefully as he teased her. His smirk vanishes, replaced by a feathering in his jaw, a quickening of his breath.

“Is this all for me?” she asks, sliding her palm more firmly along his length.

He brings one hand up around her rib cage, holding her to him. Fingers clenching slightly. “You know it is.”

Huffing a soft laugh, she leans back to pull off her sweater before reaching down again. His focus slips to her breasts straining against her bra, the rosary beads tucked inside from earlier.

“You’re still wearing these,” Ezra muses, words punctuated by a sharp inhale as she curves her thumb over the silky tip of his arousal.

“I haven’t taken them off. Is doing this while wearing them another sin?”

“Probably,” he chuckles, before clasping a firm grip around her breast. “Would you sin for me, Jules?”

Mallory keeps her eyes locked on his in the reddened glow, pulse whirring as she repositions herself to feel him against her.

“I think I already have,” she whispers.

Ezra groans at the direct contact and she rolls her hips, sliding along his cock, distantly aware of how easy it would be for him to slip inside her. Of how much she wants to feel every impossibly thick inch of him. She shouldn’t want it, should hate him,despisehim, but the thought only makes her press closer, the edges of her indignation shifting to poisonous lust.

“Fuck—Jules.” The untethered way he growls her name sends another blaze of heat between her thighs. “Don’t we need a condom, sweetheart?”

Mallory arches against him, delirious. “I’m on the pill. And I got tested this summer. You?”

He groans again, as if the thought of fucking her without anything between them might be his undoing. “Yeah, I was, too, but—are you sure? We can go back to my room, I—”