I needed him to kiss me, if he didn’t, my body would curl into ash like kindled paper and disappear, please please please-Įxcept I wasn’t supposed to kiss anybody, that was the promise I made to myself nine years ago after all, and anybody included handsome American military officers.Įxcept I was certain that-somehow-he’d know I was lying. And nothing seemed more important than that right now, nothing seemed more urgent and necessary.

Because if I told him what he wanted to hear, I knew he’d kiss me. He’d need reassurance that I was old enough, that I was an adult, that my consent would have legal weight. In the same way he’d asked for permission to touch me, he’d need to know it was okay to do more. Somehow, I knew what was coming next, I knew what he’d say. His gaze fell down to my mouth, and his eyelids hooded. He smelled like a fire burning.īurn me, I thought, a little wildly. And for the first time, I could smell him. Even through the dress uniform jacket and my own dress, I could feel the firm lines of his chest and stomach. He groaned at that, lifting his head from my neck and pressing me closer to him. “Yes,” I responded, a little breathlessly. “Tell me, Greer, do you like my lips on your skin?” I was still frozen like he’d asked, and he was clearly enjoying it, running his lips down to my collarbone. Everything he was doing to me, every command and touch and caress-it was all new. I shivered-no one had ever done that before. “Don’t move until I tell you.” And then he bent down to press his lips against my neck. My head tilted back of its own accord, and his eyes dropped to the long arch of my throat. He must have seen what I felt, the echo of my words stamped all over my face:Īnd then he pulled me closer, those large, warm hands sliding behind me, one planted firmly between my shoulder blades and the other against the small of my back, and I could feel every curve of my body pressed against the wide, hard expanse of his chest. His hands came up under my elbows, cradling them as he searched my face. I thought of his lips on my finger, the bruises under his eyes, the heavy ache somewhere deep in my body. “I’d like to touch you again, if that’s okay.” He liked that answer, it seemed, because he smiled.

American queen by sierra simone