But in the cold light of Lexie’s bathroom, I feel their crudeness, their roughness. It’s not art, really. It’s years of desperation, and loneliness, and anger, and grief, written right into my skin like a confession for the world to see.
For her to see.
“They’re beautiful,” she says softly, after a moment of her cool nimble fingers exploring my skin.
I touch her temple, stroking wet curls back from her face, watching her earnest eyes as they take me in. I’ve been following her, to look out for her, to protect her, and I wasn’t going to touch her tonight. I was resolved not to fall into her whirlwind love again. But then she kissed me in the alley. She looked me in the eye with defiance and bare honesty and passion. She told me to fuck her.
And now I can’t walk away.
“Did you think of me?” she asks suddenly, her voice so soft and threadbare I might not have heard her. When she looks up, her eyes are bright with tears. “In there?”
I trace her cheekbone with my thumb, then her lips, full and wet. I nod, once, because I don’t trust myself to speak.
“Will you stay tonight?” she asks, touching her palms to my ribs and gazing up at me.
A tear slides down her cheek. I bend down and kiss it, then her nose, then her lips, taking her hips and pulling her soft body against mine.
“I’ll stay,” I say against her mouth, “if you want me to.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and stands up on her toes, kissing me back, deeply. She doesn’t need to say a thing.
* * *
We shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself. I trail after her out of the shower, water snaking from her hair, glittering between her shoulder blades, vanishing into the blue towel she slowly lowers when she walks into the bedroom.
Lexie, I think, a warning, but don’t say. She scoops her wet hair over one shoulder, towel sliding to the floor. I gravitate to her, summoned. Again, she says nothing as I drop my own towel, the chill that clings to the walls razing my skin with goosebumps.Keep me warm, Lexie.
It’s been too fucking long since I held someone. This is wrong, it has to be wrong, but it feels so right that suddenly everything else is fading away in rapid time, disappearing like it never existed: our past, prison, bloodshed and revenge and everything all falling apart.
There’s just this: us. Now. No consequence or prerequisite.
I trace her damp shoulders, bend to kiss the place beneath her ear. Her breath feathers and I slide my hands down over her breasts, my own breath hitching at how perfect they feel beneath my palms. She shifts slightly, arching her back so her nipples meet my fingertips. There’s no fervor now. Suddenly we have nothing but time spilling out before us. I stroke her softly, pleasure and hunger stiffening my cock as her eyes flutter shut.
I slide my hands over her stomach, between her thighs. She’s wet already, and at my touch she makes a soft mewling sound that turns my knees to water. Lexie moves away from me, sinking onto the bed and lying back, her eyes heavy-lidded and her legs spread wide, inviting.
Fuck.I take a sharp breath, then move to meet her, forgetting the time we have in a wave of sinking desperation.
“Liam,” she whispers, seeming to understand, her hand going to my cock in easy quick answer, drawing me toward her. “Tell me this isn’t the last time.”
“Not a chance,” I say, and against everything in me, I mean it. She’s guiding me between her legs, lifting her hips to wrap her thighs around my waist. I’m blinded by hunger for her, for how badly I want this, how badly I need her, how truly and soundly and suddenly she feels like the answer to everything. “Not a fucking chance.”
Her eyes flash. A dare, or a promise.
She slides my cock inside her, gasping sharply. Pink floods her cheeks and she arches her back, lips parted in delight.
God. I’d do anything to keep that look on her face forever.
Can’t last.
I ignore that, the cruel truthful voice in the back of my head. Nothing matters but her, her pleasure, the way she’s slowly rocking her hips into me, the way her breasts bounce and her moans are rising, quick and hungry and fevered.
“God, I missed you,” she moans. She grips my biceps, fingers digging, her body clenched tight around my cock. “I told myself I didn’t, I couldn’t—”
I thrust deeper and she cries out, the sound ripped raw and honey-sweet. I duck my head and wrap my mouth around her breast, savoring the way her voice goes ragged with pleasure.
“No talking,” I say against her sweet skin.
“No talking,” she agrees, her rocking growing quickly desperate, her hands grasping tighter, her moans ratcheting higher, higher,higher—
