Page 70 of Sparrow

Cocking a brow, I smear some on his nose, too, and by the time he realizes what I’m doing there’s a line of it down the bridge of his nose.

He puts a hand to his nose and it comes away sticky with frosting, which makes him shout.

Which makes me laugh with delight.

He grins and starts laughing as well, and the tension of his stance melts away until we’re laughing like children, giving each other deep, cinnamon-flavored kisses and spreading flour and frosting everywhere with our actions.

I feel drunk, though I haven’t had any alcohol. But we’re flying together, both of us so relieved, so happy, that the chemistry is lifting us up into the sky in all our flour-dusted glory. I can’t stop laughing and I don’t want to, even when he pulls my panties to the side and runs his tum along my seam. My body jerks in the sudden pleasure of it and I groan aloud and start panting for him when he reaches my clit and begins to rub it. The laughter is still bubbling in me though, and it leaks out in between my moans. When he pinches my clit and I come for it, I give something caught between a sob and a laugh and he catches it in his mouth, his lips descending on mine like he owns me.

I’m not finished coming yet when he shoves his fingers into me and crooks them to hit the spot that makes me want to scream.

And now the laughter does die, because he’s playing my body like it’s a fucking violin and he’s the only one who can make it sing. He moves his finger until I’m riding them, desperate for release, and then, right when I’m about to reach that crest once more, he removes them. He takes them to his mouth and licks them slowly, his eyes on mine.

I think I might die of the tension he’s building.

“You’re as sweet as icing,” he whispers.

“That’s awfully romantic,” I respond.

He lets his jeans drop to the ground and pulls his cock out then, rubbing it up and down my seam, and God, he’s big and so hard, the head of his cock pausing at my entrance and pushing in just enough to stretch me.

“I keep telling you, Arden, I’m not a romantic.”

“Liar,” I whisper, my voice strangled.

When he finally pushes into me, I have a full second when I don’t think I can handle him. He’s too big, too full. Then he lifts my feet up and sets them on the counter, my legs spread wide and my core totally vulnerable to him, and my body shifts to take him deeply. He pulls out, watching me, and then slides back in, his actions slow and controlled and intense, and I nearly sob at the emotion bleeding out of me.

He pulls out one more time, then cups my jaw and forces me to watch him as he starts to move more quickly, his thrusts getting longer and harder as he takes me until he’s slamming into me, hitting me in a place I didn’t know existed again and again and driving me up and up and up toward a peak I don’t understand.

One I’m not sure I can manage.

“Say my name,” he suddenly demands.

I’m so far gone already, so lost on a cloud of lust and pleasure, that for a moment I don’t understand what he means.

“Arden. Please,” he gasps.

And I see how much of a toll it’s taking on him to hold back. How hard he’s working to be careful with me rather than scaring me or hurting me. He’s using everything in himself to hold back, but he needs to let himself go.

He needs me to take care of him, this time.

And his name is the key.

“Mars,” I whisper.

His expression crumbles like someone has just giving him the secret of life and his actions become frantic and full of need. He thrusts again and again, his hands on my hips and his forehead dropping to mine as he seeks his own release, his instincts taking over.

And I know how to hold him there.

“Mars,” I say again. “Mars, Mars, Mars.”

It’s not even difficult. My body is strung so tightly I can hardly breathe, but I know who’s doing this to me. I know who to call for as I get closer and closer to the edge and finally jump off it with my arms spread and a whole dark expanse below me.

But I’m not scared of that expanse, because I know Mars will catch me before I fall.

Just like I’m here to catch him.

“You can’t eat those!” I shriek. “They’ve been on the ground! Besides, I thought you were going to bake me new ones. Wasn’t that your threat?”