His lips touched the corner of my mouth in a brush. “You’ve got the prettiest face I’ve ever seen.” His lips skimmed my jawline, his breath was hot but it gave me goosebumps. “And that smile you give me when you’re givin’ me shit? A f**kin’ smile’s the last thing I’d ever give a shit about before I met you.“ There was a high possibility that he tapped the tip of his tongue against my jawline because I may have made some sort of weird noise in response. “But you crack me up like nobody else. I like that the most.” Dex made a noise in his throat. “Maybe."

I was flailing on the inside. Flailing and dying over and over again. I dropped my head back and looked at the headboard. “You’re too much.”

A soft laugh made its way out of his throat. “I kinda think you’re a treasure.”

That was the breaking point.

I didn’t care anymore. He was my boss, my brother's friend, a Widow, an ex-felon, and a man that I'd seen casually with other women. But he was everything that gripped me, both the good and the bad. Worst case scenario if things turned awkward between us, I could go somewhere else. I’d gotten over epic heartbreak before, one more wouldn’t kill me.

I hoped.

What did I have to lose besides continuing to live my life with carefully constructed walls?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I had to hoard all of my guts and resolve together before pressing my lips to his top one. It was a slow mold, easy. Nerves ate at the lining of my stomach anyway as I pulled my mouth just far back enough to kiss his bottom lip in the same way. Two of mine for each one of his.

I did it again. Kissing his first lip, then his bottom. Easy, chaste kisses that Dex waited patiently through. The kinds of kisses he’d probably outgrown in elementary school. I had just licked my lips with every intention of kissing him again when he pursed his in response, kissing me back with that soft puckered mouth. Soft, soft, soft. His mouth touched my top lip then my bottom. One corner of my mouth, then the other.

Those kisses were everything that our other two weren’t. Exploratory in a way that made me feel breathless and restless. They were sweet and patient up until he started sucking one lip and then the other between his. Because after that, they got wet. Slow and sensual. Dex slanted his mouth, slipping his tongue in with so much stealth I didn’t realize it until it brushed against mine.

I whimpered as his arm slid around my back. He dropped his weight until we were flush. My br**sts to his chest, stomach to stomach, groin to groin. With only the barrier of my thermal shirt, our underwear, and the thin shorts I slept in, I could feel every inch of him. That included the hard nudge of one of his nipple rings against my bra-less breast.

Holy crap.

I’d been kissed before and in between those kisses, I’d put my hand and mouth on one of my two boyfriends. So out of those few times, those few kisses, the  p**n  I'd watched, and the romance novels I'd read, I had a general idea what things were supposed to be like. But with Dex, and his hot insistent mouth, strong, possessive hands, and hard, tattooed, and angelically endowed body, I felt like I’d graduated from high school to college. Better yet, from high school straight to graduate school.

My hands had somehow managed to find their way to Dex’s waist as his controlling mouth took over. My fingers curled into the hard muscle that cushioned his hips.

I felt fingers around my waist start to drift lower, slowly gripping the hem of my thermal. I panicked just a little, ready to stop him if he tried to pull my shirt off. I wasn’t built spectacularly. I’d always considered myself pretty average by most standards. My stomach was pretty flat, and my skin was dotted with the occasional freckle.

I was okay, my body was okay, but I wasn't ready for him to know about my arm. Not yet.

So even though I knew I wasn’t shaped like a model or a bombshell, like I envisioned Dex might have been used to from what I'd seen him with before, I wasn’t too insecure. But he tugged my shirt up, up, up. Over my belly-button, over my ribs, and over my br**sts until he stopped. Thank you, thank you, thank you. He stopped, bunching my shirt just underneath my collarbones. But as Dex’s eyes landed on my bare upper body, trailing a hot path over my clavicles and landing specifically and what seemed like permanently on my br**sts, I got a little self-conscious but not enough to cover myself.

With a sigh, he grazed the backs of his fingers over my ni**les making them pucker immediately. Dex’s other hand reached up so that his thumb rested directly beneath a swell. He tested the weight of it by lifting his finger. “Iris," he said, drawing out the consonant in a hiss.

“Mmm?”

The backs of his fingers brushed over my nipple again. “Perfect, baby.” He muttered, pinching the tightened peak with his thumb and index finger, making me gasp at the sensation. “Love your pretty tits.”

I was on the verge of telling him thank you for a compliment I’m sure he was being too free with, when his head dipped down and his lips pursed around the nipple he’d squeezed. He sucked the little bud softly, tongue laving over it each time.

Dex’s mouth opened wider, taking in as much of my soft flesh as he could. With his teeth and lips, he nipped, sucked, and lapped over and over again.

All I could think was holy friggin’ shit.

Iridescent blue eyes were open and taking my face in with each tug of his hard sucks, and if what he was doing wasn’t the hottest thing in the history of the world, then Dex watching me while he did it, was. These whimpering noises deep in the back of his throat vibrated through me, turning me on just as much as what he was doing was.

I was mumbling stuff that made no sense. A mix of “Dex…God…Dex…shit,” and words in between that were the opposite of logical.

His breath was hot across my chest as he moved to bite my other nipple gently. I wanted to touch him before I burned to death from the intensity of our contact. My hands moved to cup his head, his shoulders. A back-and-forth trek that had me grazing over the short, silky ends of his messy, sleepy dark hair.

His mouth finally pulled away from my chest after a lazy lap at each wet nipple. Dex’s heavy eyes were on me, lips slightly parted before his mouth was on mine again, taking all of me without a second thought as his hand cupped over my shorts. His fingers slipped up one of my legs, pulling my bottoms and underwear to the side, his pads grazing over the seam of my sex.

He made a husky, raw noise in his throat. “Jesus,” he murmured over my mouth, fingertips grazing over the moist line of my lower body.

I was too turned on to care that I was, in fact, really wet, and too wrapped up in my own little world to care that I had a damp spot on my underwear to tell that story. And that little—or maybe not so little—spot was held captive by Dex’s palm.

All of his fingers except his thumb fell away, leaving his thickest digit to brush lightly along the slit. “You’re so hot, baby.”

Holy crap. Holy crap.

Dex swept his thumb over me again and again. He didn’t ask for permission when his index finger spread me wide, his thumb brushing over me once more with a feather-light touch.

Oh my sweet lord. Holy craaaaap.

I dropped my head to the pillow below me, breathing hard as he parted me open, letting the heat of his hand sweep over me. “Iris, Iris, Iris,” he chanted, one of his fingers grazing directly between my legs before continuing its path lower until the tip of a long finger dipped into me. Then dipped deeper. Dex’s eyes closed before he slid it gradually completely inside, palm flush against my outer flesh.