"Are you okay?"
Swallowing, I nod. "I'm good." The emotion clogging my chest makes the word come out too thick, and I'm afraid he knows just what this means to me. Afraid he'll take it back if he understands the magnitude of this moment.
He strokes my cheek and skims his thumb over my bottom lip. "Beautiful." He holds me behind my neck and leads me forward to his kiss. His kiss is gentle and his lips are warm, and I feel so safe and good.
Any pain from the beginning is gone as I slowly rock into him. Experimentally, I lift my hips and slide down along his length. He sets his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut, so I do it again, and his breath rushes out of him.
I'm ashamed to admit to myself that I've imagined this before. Tonight isn't the first time I've thought about making love to Arrow. I'm sure it could have been more romantic. I'm sure he would have rather been with me for the first time in a bed. But there's nothing about this I'd change.
Every move we make feels sweet and so poignant, as if he's found my heart unlocked and is carefully retrieving it.
I don't know how long I move over him before the look on his face changes. He goes from sweet and tender to something a little more desperate. From careful and controlled to something wild. Watching him lose that careful control is somehow sweeter than every tender touch before.
"Did you?" he whispers, his voice hitching.
Tonight means too much for me to taint it with a lie, so I shake my head. "It's okay."
"Mia," he murmurs. Then, like he can't handle it anymore, he buries his face in my neck, grips my hips tight, and shifts his hips under me. He rocks into me with more force than he's used to touch me all night long, and it hurts a little but I love it. I offered myself to him, and this-his pleasure, the rough sound at the back of his throat, his jerky movements-this feels like he's taking me. Making me his.
He holds me tight as he groans, and I feel him swell inside me, feel the long rush of his exhale against my neck as he comes. Then he's still. Fingers in my hair. Lips trailing up and down my neck.
"I've waited too long," he says, and I'm not sure what that means, so I just nod.
We find some tissues to clean up after, and before things can get awkward, he gathers me against him and covers us both with the blanket and holds me in a cocoon of warmth. I close my eyes for just a moment, and the next thing I know, he's whispering my name in my hair.
"The sun's rising."
I sit up, and sure enough, orange stretches out behind the trees on the other side of the lake. The sun is rising, and I'm here in Arrow's arms.
I wake up to someone kissing the back of my thigh. Soft, open-mouthed kisses on that tender skin just below the curve of my ass. Arrow's mouth. Arrow's kisses. Deft and skilled and guaranteed to make men fall short for the rest of my life.
Moaning, I start to roll over, but he places a hand on my back to hold me still. "I'm really just getting started if you don't mind." His voice is low, gravelly with sleep-the little we got-and it stirs something low in my belly.
After watching the sun rise, we came back to my apartment this morning, locked the door to my room, climbed into bed together, and napped. Or at least I did.
I look over my shoulder to where he's kissing his way up my back. "Why can't I roll over?"
He grins and cups me between my legs with one big hand. Heat pools there fast and tight. "Because." Then he doesn't need to say anything more. He strokes me, and at the same time his mouth is on me again, trailing down my back and over the curve of my ass. He kisses the backs of my thighs, then follows the path up with his teeth and tongue, all the while working his fingers over me. The angle of his touch is different than anything I've ever felt before, and the skin he teases with his mouth so much more sensitive than I could have imagined. I suddenly feel like Brogan left half my body unexplored.
The thought of Brogan makes me tense, and Arrow must notice because he lifts his head and stills his movements. "This okay?"
"Yeah. I . . ." I swallow. "It's good."
He nuzzles my inner thigh and groans. "Damn right it is." He guides my thighs farther apart, slides his hand out of the way, and replaces it with his mouth. Pleasure stabs through me-the sudden heat, the angle, the scratch of his stubble-and his lips move over my most private spot, and everything inside me coils tight and hot and needy.
When he pulls back, it's only long enough to roll me to my back and position his face between my legs again, but he just looks instead of kissing me.
"Arrow," I whisper. I want his mouth again. His hand. Both. More.
He flicks his gaze up to mine and grins. "I woke up with you and for a second I forgot last night. I thought I was dreaming." He leans forward, and I gasp as his tongue runs the length of my clit. "When I remembered . . ." He watches me as he licks his lips. "Well, I hope you don't mind if I kiss you here for a while."
His words steal my breath and make something greedy and achy coil tight between my legs. I don't have a chance to respond before his mouth is on me again, longer this time. Slower. He spreads me with his hands and explores me with his lips and tongue. And it would feel good no matter what, because he seems to know just how to touch me-how to alternate soft and hard and where to suck-but when I force my eyes open and witness the fantasy of Arrow in my bed, Arrow kissing me like this, it only adds to the pleasure.
I'm halfway there when he slides a finger inside me, and even tender from last night, I can't help but lift my hips off the bed and get his mouth closer to my aching clit. He groans and rewards me by sucking. Ever. So. Gently.
And then I'm gone. Slipping. Falling. Melting.
"What's your thing, Arrow?" The clock reads ten a.m. We're still in bed, and I'm in no hurry to go anywhere. My phone flashes at me from the nightstand, but I don't want to see a bunch of missed calls from Brogan or face reality after these amazing hours with Arrow. I will. Just not yet.
"My thing?"
I feel stupid for a minute. That day we met was so much to me. Maybe he doesn't even remember it. My curiosity wins out over my pride. "The thing you want so desperately that the idea of having it makes you as sick to your stomach as the idea of never having it?"
His eyes lock with mine, and I know he remembers. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. Tearing his gaze from mine, he rolls to his back and stares at the ceiling. "It used to be football."
I always presumed it was football, but then he never said one way or another. "It isn't anymore?"
"Football's been playing second string in my wishes for a lot of months now. My life was easier when football was my everything."
"What is it now?"
That's when he looks at me again, his eyes dark and tormented, his body tensed beside mine. The silence grows thick with everything we never say. "You."
My heart squeezes and my breath catches. There's so much in that word. A promise of what he'll be to me if I let him. A question of what tomorrow will hold. And I'm not sure what I think about either, so I just take the answer as the gift it is and remind myself to breathe.
I don't want to speak his name and break this spell, but someone pounds on the door, breaking it anyway. I pull from Arrow's touch and sit on the edge of the bed.
"Ignore it," he says, wrapping an arm around my waist.
"Mia Maria Consuela Mendez!"
"That's my brother. Shit." Nic's only been out of prison a couple of weeks, and neither of us are used to it yet. I forget that he can stop by anytime he wants, and he forgets that I'm not five anymore.
"I know you're home," Nic calls. "Your neighbor told me she saw you come in this morning."
Arrow sits up and drags a hand over his face.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"It's cool." He scans the room, probably knowing how bad this looks, considering I was his best friend's girlfriend this time yesterday. "Tell me what you want me to do."
I swallow. "Hide?"
"Mia-"
"I'm serious," I hiss. "Nic is not going to like seeing you here, and I'd rather you leave with your face intact. Get your clothes and hide in the closet."
"I'm not scared of him."
"Do it for me," I say as Nic pounds on the door again. "Please."
"Right. Okay. Fine."
While he gathers his clothes, I hurry and dress myself. I grab a button-up shirt and a pair of jeans.
"Mia, I fucking swear!" Nic calls.
"I'm coming," I say. "I was sleeping."
"It's important," Nic says. "Dad's gone on a bender and he's gotten out the gun."