Page 170 of Gamebreaker

She hesitated, and her eyes flicked up toward her bonnet.

"It's staying on," I said, before she could ask.

"Cam, it's not exactly..."

"It's staying on." I ran my thumb along her jaw. "I made you pay for one night with me in the morning already. I'm not doing it again." I watched her face crumple a little at the edges. "You're beautiful in it. You're beautiful in everything. It stays."

She stared at me. "You can't just say stuff like that at four in the morning."

"I can. I just did." I tipped her chin up. "Say yes, Harper."

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

Her breath shook. "Yes, Captain Miserable."

I threw my head back and laughed. "You know what? Fine. Good girl."

The happy, turned-on sound she made went straight through me.

And then I stopped holding back.

I rolled us in one motion, and she was under me before she'd finished gasping, my weight pressing her down into the mattress, my body caging hers. She made the sound I'd been hearing in my sleep for three weeks, the low, involuntary catch in her breath when I moved faster than she could brace for. I caught both of her wrists in one hand and pressed them into the pillow above her head.

"Keep them there," I said. "You don't move them until I say."

"I won't."

"You will. And then I'll put them back."

She shivered all over.

I kissed her the way I'd wanted to kiss her every night for three weeks. Slowly. Thoroughly. With no clock running and no sunrise coming to take her away from me. I kissed her jaw, her throat, the spot under her ear that I had not forgotten and never would, and bit down there, gently at first, then harder, until her breath stuttered and her wrists pulled against my hand and found they couldn't go anywhere.

"Eyes open," I said.

They opened.

"I want you to watch me."

Her lips parted as her breathing changed.

I let go of her wrists long enough to pull her shirt over her head, and she put her arms right back where they'd been, without being told. I looked down at her, and for a moment, I couldn't do anything else.

I had looked at her before. In my house, in less light than this, with the grief already creeping in at the edges. This was different. This was Harper in the gold light from under her own door, her arms above her head, her body bare and open to me, her dark eyes watching me with a look I had no precedent for. Trust and want, and—love. So much love.

"You're beautiful," I said. My voice cracked on it. "God, Harper. You're so beautiful."

She opened her mouth to deflect and stopped herself. "Thank you," she said instead, quietly, and I felt how much it cost her, and I loved her for paying it.

I ran both hands up from her waist and cupped her breasts and watched her eyes flutter closed.

"Open," I said.

They opened again.

Her hips shifted under me.