She growled, digging her hands into my hair and pulling.

I drew my finger down from the hollow of her throat to her breastbone. “You won’t want to linger at these perfect spots: the warm skin here, the sole freckle on your torso just there. You won’t be able to kiss your own rib.”

I bent kissing her just beneath her bra before sliding my hand beneath her, releasing the clasp and leaving it there to loosen as she arched for me, as she wiggled and whined on the bed. The left strap fell from her shoulder, looping down over her bicep, and I kissed the tiny new spot it revealed.

“Take it off?” she whispered, back lifted from the mattress.

“Not yet.”

She paused, breathing heavily while I sucked at the skin just beneath her breast, my hand working to unbutton her skirt, to slide it down her hips. “Niall?”

“Hmm?”

“I ache.”

My laugh came out as a small breath on her skin. “Do you?”

“You can linger all you want just put your hand on me.”

“I’ll put my hands all over you when I’m ready. Trust me.” I’d never been able to take my time like this, to enjoy and relish and taste. Compared to my time with Ruby, my sexual experience to date felt like digital code entered bleakly into a program.

I bent, sucking at the top swell of her breast. So full and firm. I pressed my teeth into the skin, groaning. I wanted to bite and suck and consume. Her breasts made me want to turn savage, groping and biting and . . . Christ, just fucking. I imagined myself crawling up her body, pressing her breasts around my cock, and shifting over her, selfishly chasing the pleasure I craved being this close to her skin, her scent, her hoarse, gasping noises.

A small part of me curled instinctively at such a crude, bare thought, but Ruby’s voice in my mind was louder: Let go, she said. Show me what you need. Take what you want.

With a growl, I climbed over her, cupping her breasts over her bra and pressing them together, sucking at the skin where they met, sliding my tongue in and around the delicious crevasse.

Beneath me she gasped, arching, her hands working their way back into my hair, her legs wrapping around me, pulling my hips to hers so she could rock up into me.

I pulled her bra straps down her arm, tossing the garment aside before returning to her. Her nipples were the same warm pink as her lips, and without thinking—without even a moment of hesitation—I bent, pulling one into my mouth, sucking hungrily while my palm gripped her other breast.

Ruby arched from the mattress, crying out and pulling so hard at my hair that the sensation teetered between pleasure and pain. “Niall,” she gasped. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

The intensity of her response threw me; I was causing this simply by licking her breast and covering her body with mine. I wanted to own this reaction, wrapping it carefully and hiding it away. My thoughts shifted away from relieving my own ache, to giving her more of this pleasure. I needed to feed on her reactions until she was sweaty and screaming beneath me.

Her skin seemed to glow under my touch; my lips followed the fit lines of her abdomen, the perfect circle of her belly button, the sharp spike of her hipbone. I drew my teeth over each of these discoveries, following with my fingertips, hungry to know every inch. Pushing my hips into the mattress, I grew desperate for relief.

Beneath me, Ruby rocked up into my hands, mindless and begging; a fine sweat had broken out on her chest. My hair was a mess from her hands, tugging fingers and scratching nails.

Oh, she was a fucking wonder.

“Let me taste you,” she begged. “Let me touch you.”

Her words sent a spike of electricity down my spine and along my cock. “Wait, darling.”

“I can’t.”

I pushed the top elastic of her knickers aside, kissing the softest skin of her navel, just above her pubic bone.

She hissed out a Yes and gasped when I slid the light yellow lace down her hips and thighs, undressing her entirely.

Ruby was completely naked and she was fucking perfect.

I felt her eyes on me as I slid my hand up her leg, watching my fingers move over her skin, mine darker than hers, tan against pale. Her inner thigh was the softest skin I’d ever felt, and my fingers trembled slightly as I moved them higher. Inside my chest, my heart hammered. I’d touched her between her legs before, of course, but it was different at the office: rushed and intense. Here, I had hours. I could keep her up all night with my hands giving her pleasure and my mouth on her breasts, her ribs, her stomach.

My fingers reached the juncture where hip met thigh and I lingered, barely an inch away from where she wanted me. Under my hand, she shook, pushing her hips off the bed.