This time, a smile formed without him planning for it. “Another one?”
She nodded, trapping her bottom lip in her teeth. “Yeah.”
He reached up and rubbed his thumb along her full, moist mouth.
“Tell me…” His voice was so breathy that he didn’t recognize it.
“I like you, Maurice, a lot. You make me want things that I thought weren’t possible anymore, things that I gave up wanting.”
When his fingertips grazed her skin, they burned. An anguished sort of sound seeped from her mouth.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, voice rough, tone firm.
Her eyelids fluttered closed, hiding her dark, reflective eyes from him, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I want someone who’ll hold me just because. Someone who’ll answer every time I call. Someone who sees me in all my mess and never thinks I’m too much. I want…”
His arms went around her waist, drawing her to him, and he pressed his face against the satiny brown skin of her stomach. Her hands went to his hair and stroked, fingers bumping over his waves.
“Me too,” he confessed against her skin, “I want to be all that for you.”
She made a sound that was part laugh, part sob. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.” He pulled back and looked up at her. “I know you’re strong when you don’t feel like you are. I know you’re kind, even when you’re being a smart-ass.”
“Ooh, you cussed,” she said through a watery laugh.
He reached up and wiped her tears, loving how soft her cheeks were against his rough hands. He stood, and she leaned into his touch. “When I’m with you, the noise—all the rules I put in place to keep me on this side—turn all the way down.”
She cupped his face in her hands, pulling him close.
Their kiss was soft at first. Slow. Like they had nothing but time, even though they both were hyperaware that time wasn’t a friend to them.
As if reading each other’s minds, the kiss changed. His hands moved up her sides. She didn’t stop him. The robe slipped off one shoulder, then the other, before it fell to the floor.
She stood there in her blue bra and panties.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I can’t help it.”
She moved to cover herself, but he caught her hands. “Don’t. Please.”
“Maurice—”
“You’re beautiful. Every part of you.”
Pink flooded her deep brown cheeks.
Maurice yanked her closer, pulling her to him before gripping the back of her neck and crashing his mouth to hers.
“Holy fuck.” Monique writhed against him like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to push him away or get closer.
His mouth was hungry. Sloppy. Clumsy. He didn’t care.
She clawed at his linen shirt. The rake of her short nails through the fabric shot sparks through his body, and he questioned the stability of the earth beneath them. What was this power she had over him?
Their chests heaved as their kisses grew more controlled, as if Maurice were a kid at Halloween and wanted to savor the last bit of his candy. His hands, though, were greedy at first, one holding her head where he could get at her mouth, and the other firm against the small of her back. Then lower.
He palmed her left cheek like his hand was made for that expanse of her flesh. Then his fingers grazed the edge of her panties.