Page 111 of ClickBack

At my bedroom door, he sets me down and looks toward the television. “He still spending?”

“They found another wall.”

Jarrett takes the remote from my bed and lowers the volume. Then he stands behind me at the dresser, his hand resting low on my stomach. In the mirror, the silk looks darker against him. I start to fold my arms, see myself doing it, and let them fall.

“You like it?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I can tell.” He kisses the side of my neck. “You were showing me the back before I asked.”

“I was being thorough.”

“Keep doing that.”

He takes his time with the lingerie, his fingertips tracing the lace at my hip, his mouth following the strap down my shoulder, and he pushes the camisole up only far enough to get his hand under it, then leaves the silk bunched against my ribs while he turns me in his arms, and his palm fills with the weight of my breast, his thumb circling the nipple once, then again, slower, when my breath catches. He draws the silk back down and closes his mouth over it through the thin fabric, tongue pressing and flicking until the wet fabric clings and my hands go to his shoulders to stay upright. When he kisses me again he traces my bottom lip with his tongue first, nips it, then draws it into his mouth like a man with all the time in the world and every intention of using it to make me impatient.

“Hands on the dresser.”

“You look very sure of yourself.”

“I came across town knowing what I wanted.”

I put my hands down, and his hand moves down my spine, then lower, taking the shorts with it by slow degrees, and he fills his hands with my ass and squeezes, fingers spreading with enough possession to pull a low sound out of me.

His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “Too much?”

“No.”

“Then tell me what you want.”

“Again.”

He does it, firmer, and I grip the dresser. Then he kneels behind me, one big hand closing around my thigh, and I feel his breath first, then his tongue, a long slow lick that has me grabbing the edge of the dresser.

“Stay up.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“I got you.”

I try. His mouth is patient and thorough and completely unfair, his tongue circling, pressing, his goatee rasping the inside of my thighs, and by the time he stands I am breathing against the glass with the shorts somewhere around my ankles. I step out of the shorts. He turns me, lifts me onto the dresser, and kisses me with the taste of me still on his mouth.

He reaches toward his clothes, and I catch his wrist. “Leave the light on.”

He looks me over. “Wasn’t planning to turn it off.”

The camisole stays on, the straps down my arms. He takes a condom from the nightstand and strips, leaving his clothes beside mine, all of him in my lamplight, the corded forearms, the rippled stomach, the hard dark length of him in his fist while he rolls the condom on with his eyes on mine, then steps between my knees and pulls me to the edge.

“Tell me if you need me to slow down.”

“I know how to talk.”

He grins. “You damn sure do.”

Then the head of him nudges against me and he pushes in with one hand at my hip and the other at the back of my neck. The hard sound he makes when I take all of him goes through me.

“Look at me.”