Page 70 of The Fate Factor

And I probably would have run from it.

Now, I roll my hips up to meet him. He pulls my thigh over his waist and I arch into him, putting pressure in a place so perfect that I can’t help but I cry out. My nails dig into his skin, and he hisses.

“Sorry,” I breathe.

“Don’t be. Look at you,” he says, propped on his hand, his other hand holding me at the waist while he watches. His hips are a careful, even rhythm, and the way I grip the sheet andgrind against him looks jerky and uncontrolled in comparison. Who knew this would be the place where our roles reversed?

I cry out again on the next stroke. It’s too much. I can’t hold back. My hands are frantic between us, running over his skin, threading through the light hair on his chest.

“I wondered what it would take to get you like this,” he says. “Wild.”

“It’s you.”

His stroke slips ever so slightly and his eyes go soft. “Yeah?”

“You get me like this. You’re the only one.”

His grip on me tightens and his hips pump harder. “Look at me, Noe. It’s so fucking good when you look at me.”

My heavy eyes drag up to his, and he’s right. I hold his gaze as my free hand slips between us, touching myself. Another thing I’ve never dared to do with anyone else, and he’s encouraging me, whisperingyes,and cursing with his lip between his teeth, while heat builds at the base of my spine.

Jamie hikes my leg up higher, and the wooden headboard slams against the wall. I squeak in surprise, and he laughs.

It’s that. Not where his hips pin my fingers in the perfect spot, not the drag of him against that valley of nerves inside me—it’s that sound I’ve come to love so much, that beautiful smile that sends heat rushing down my legs and arches my back.

I go taut with a cry, then boneless, my mind full of exploding stars, my body full of him and the pulses of pleasure he’s coaxing from me. With his name on my lips, something cracks so wide open that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to close it again.

He’s right behind me, dropping his weight, and burying his face in my neck with a muffled groan of release.

We lie there like that, Jamie’s chest rising and falling against mine, heavy but even, as I shiver with aftershock beneath him. His arm is bent, fingers tangled with mine. “That was…” Hedoesn’t finish his sentence, trailing off into a full-body shiver that I translate perfectly.

“Me too.” I’ve barely come down but I’m immediately warm again. “Jamie?”

He lifts his head to look at me, eyes sex-drunk and lazy, mouth smiling. “Yeah, baby?”

“Let’s do it again.”

twenty

Noel

Iwaketotheglorioussight of Jamie Bishop sprawled out on my pink floral sheets, his face in the mattress, his pillow propped under his ribs.

A stomach sleeper…

Bed head that could win a contest…

It wasn’t here that I saw us that night on the roof, but I knew these things before I even opened my eyes.

He’s sleeping hard and peaceful, and I stare at the ceiling, thinking about the start of all this. Our eyes meeting on that roof. How scared I was when he showed back up on my porch. His suggestion that we see what happens. And now, knowing him in the most intimate way.

God, last night was so intense and new, even I find it hard to believe it could mean anything other than the two of us were meant to do that.

I’ve never experienced that kind of intimacy. There were moments when I wondered if we’d swapped souls and Jamie’s blood was running through my veins. I feel him now in the more physical places—the soreness in my legs from the stretch of wrapping them around him, the scratch of his stubble all over my chin. I’ll be wearing him for days.

As if to remind me that contemplating the universe is hard work, my stomach growls audibly. I’d love to stay here and watch him sleep all day, but this is Jamie’s schedule—staying up late, sleeping all morning. Mine is accustomed to meals at regular intervals. And coffee.

I lift his fingers one by one from my hip and slip out of bed, creeping down the stairs to the living room to search for the shirt he was wearing last night. I find it on the floor beside the couch and pull it over my head on my way to make a cup of coffee before settling at the kitchen table with my sketch pad.

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