The gasp that slight brush elicited from me was guttural and automatic, so violent that my eyes shot open. But Clay kissed me even more fervently as his hand continued trailing down, his palm warm and confident when it settled over the inside of my thigh.

It was possessive, the way he cradled me, the way he pulled me in tighter, kissed me harder, his hand slowly pushing up under the hem of my skirt.

I gasped, head arching back as Clay moved easily from my mouth to my neck once more.

And again… I opened.

The signal didn’t come from my brain, but from a longing so powerful in the very core of who I was that it was impossible to fight against. My legs uncrossed, knees spreading just enough to let him push that hand up under the fabric of my skirt even higher.

My next breath was shaky and shallow, and Clay pressed a feather-light kiss to the skin just beneath my ear.

“Okay?” he asked, simple and soft. That one word seemed to ground me, to bring me back to the room, to reality, to him.

I think I nodded. I think I gave some sort of murmur of affirmation before his tongue licked along my jaw line and back to my mouth. He pressed his forehead against mine, and when my lids flickered open, I found his emerald eyes blazing down at me.

Time stuttered to a stop, the noise of the party dying on a breath. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of where Clay’s breath met my mouth, where his chest swelled and fell in rhythm with mine, where his hand crawled achingly slowly up, up, up.

The rough pads of his fingertips slid tenderly along my inner thigh, the skin so beyond sensitive I couldn’t do anything but quake and hold onto him for dear life. It was unmarked skin, never touched by anyone but me.

Clay dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, plump from kissing me senseless, and his eyes held mine as he dared to go even higher.

I spread my legs wider, letting him in.

Until he ran the entire length of his index finger right along the soaked cotton of my thong.

I whimpered, a gasp of a moan roaring out of me at the touch, at the feeling of his sure, steady palm against the most private and sensitive part of me. And when he felt my desire, he groaned, his mouth capturing mine just as he retracted his finger only to glide it along that same line of fire with more pressure.

Stars.

No, not stars, a black hole, suffocating and life-ending, was born where he touched me. I gasped, eyes flying open, heart seizing in panic beneath my tight ribcage.

“Meow.”