Breaking the hold of our hands, I cup his face, my nails scratching at his beard that’s grown out of it’s neat trim for our engagement party yesterday. My fingertips coax something out of him, like I’ve lured a hungry bear from its cave after a long winter. Between swallowing the tail end of his moan and gasping for my next breath, he’s brought a thick, strong thigh on top of mine. The weight of him sandwiches my legs tighter together, teasing me with friction.

“Fitz…”

God, the warmth of his leg nudging mine open heats me from head to toe. Immediately, I clamp down on it, and he hisses against my mouth, the sound some sort of key to an ignition I didn’t know I had been carrying around.

The missing piece, I think to myself.

Fitz glides a hand to my hip, his fingers stretching and slipping beneath the thin fabric of my tank top. When I let out a moan, he curses against my lips before pulling his mouth away and leaning his forehead to mine.

“I want to touch you.” His words are quiet, but the desire that echoes behind them is deafening. “But only if you want it. Only if you tell me it’s okay.”

His eyes are cast down at our tightly packed bodies. I bite hard into my lip—so intensely I might draw blood, but I can’t help it. Watching the way his mouth parts and his eyes darken as I grind into his thigh only makes me throb harder.

Fitz sucks in a hefty dose of air through his nose. “God dammit, Parker. I need you to say it.”

I don’t even realize how intensely I’m circling against him until I feel my pajama shorts gathering and bunching together. I don’t realize how hard he is until I slide higher up his thigh.

“I want you to touch me. I need you to.”

When our lips meet again, they do so openly. Our tongues tangle, playing a game of catch as we toss noises back and forth—whimpers from me, deep groans from him. It’s a vicious and exhausting and yet I don’t want it to end. I only want to broaden the sphere, so I trail a hand down his bare chest and head south. But with a quick reflex, Fitz catches my wrist, leaving only my fingers to dust against his straining length.

“No. Show me first,” he says against my mouth. “Show me where you want me to touch you.”

My fingers flex, desperate to find him even though Fitz has my wrist gently restrained. I’ve been touch starved before. But this, the way I’m desperate to feel every inch of Fitz, this is a famine.

Fitz’s face softens, like he’s about to give me what I want before it twists, and he shakes his head.