He waited for me, always. I saw the muscles pulled tight across his shoulders, felt it in the way his fingers dug into my ass. He denied himself—refusing to let go until I was coming apart—and that realization left me disorientated, suddenly seeing my relationship with Patrick from a new vantage point.
I nodded, and flattened Patrick against the pillows with my hands on his chest and my knees squeezing his hips. The angle was new, rasping against my clit in the most incredible ways and hitting right where I needed him, and it unleashed a flood of arousal as my hips fell into a rolling motion. He let me set the pace for several minutes, moaning and cursing and sucking my nipples until I swore they could conduct electricity, but an impatient snarl ripped through his chest, and I knew there was a limit to how long he could hold back.
Patrick’s hands landed on my hips with a growl, grinding me against his cock. Suddenly he was harder and deeper than ever before, and I almost felt him throbbing inside me. His hands held me in place, his fingertips claiming me and marking my skin with small welts while forcing my clit over his pelvic bone as we moved together. The slight edge of pain cut through the waves of pleasure crashing over my system.
My eyes were half-closed, mouth hanging open while unintelligible babble leaked out, and I probably looked ridiculous, but slow and hard was quickly shutting down the majority of my brain—and I didn’t want it any other way. Would it always be this way, this intense, with Patrick? Could it?
Close.We were close. It was new for me—unfamiliar—yet for the first time, neither uncomfortable nor unwelcome.
Patrick surged up, driving deeper inside me, and I screamed—actually screamed, surprising myself to no end—doubling over while my orgasm ripped me apart like a fucking tornado tearing through my body. Patrick’s arms folded me against his chest while he thrust, and I heard the growl—that primitive, predatory sound announcing his release and commanding my inner muscles to clench around him just a few more times—rumble up through his diaphragm before it filled the room. Patrick’s body tensed for a long beat before collapsing against the pillows.
“Fuuuuuck, Andy,” he groaned into my hair. He rolled us to the middle of the bed and drew the blankets around us. “Fuck.”
Patrick’s arms twined around my waist and he settled his head between my breasts. My fingers tugged at his hair, his smiling eyes drifting shut. I wanted to remember him this way forever—my Sex God.
All of a sudden, he stopped being the larger than life visionary who steered my architectural philosophy and taught me to how preserve history one cobblestone at a time, and he turned into a flawed, precious man who preferred speaking in bulleted lists and leaving love notes on my skin in the form of teeth marks. It wasn’t the sad story that made him mine—the sad story made him real.
As I stared at him, I started to understand what he meant when he said it wasn’t just sex. That’s how it seemed to be with us: he was one step ahead, figuring it out, taking it to the next level, asking for what he wanted. He might be waiting for me to come, but he wasn’t waiting for me to move this—us—forward.
Chapter Seventeen
PATRICK
Ibrought ashaking hand to my mouth, passing it over my lips to catch any drool that slipped free.
Wrecked. I was totally fucking wrecked.
Andy twisted out of my arms with a promise to return soon, and I tested the strength of my limbs while she was in the bathroom. Even my toes felt languid, and the effort required to discard the condom was equivalent to lifting a Volkswagen.
I didn’t know much about slow sex. My skill set ran to quick, hard fucking, and I assumed everything else was reserved for the sad fools who still couldn’t find the clit.
But this, with Andy? This proved I knew exactly jack shit, and while I definitely wasn’t the fool who couldn’t find the clit, I was fast becoming the guy who wanted to talk about feelings after sex. That’s the special treat built into asking for more than ‘just sex.’
Andy returned wearing black panties and a thin gray camisole, and reddened patches scratched over her breasts. Logically I knew it was weird to want to see my mark on her, butfuck—it looked so good.
Dishes of pistachios and blueberries teetered in one hand when she nestled beside me, her long legs crossing in front of her. “Are you going to kick me out for eating snacks in bed?”
I tore my eyes away from the stubble rash on her chest to tuck a wayward curl over her ear. “The only reason I’ll ever kick you out of bed is to fuck you on the floor.”
“Good, good,” she smirked. “Glad we had that talk.”
Andy balanced the dishes on either knee, alternately sampling from each while my fingers traced the smooth expanse of her shin. I wanted to ask about the troubled look in her eyes when she appeared at my door, to understand what transpired between us just now, to know she was staying the night in my arms, but my eyes landed on twin markings on Andy’s inner ankle bones.
“Youhavebeen hiding something under those socks,” I murmured, sitting up and dragging an ankle to my lap.
It blended flawlessly, and without the close study that I intended to give her body, would go by undetected. Craning my head to follow the tiny words circling the bulge of her anklebone, I read them several times before meeting Andy’s eyes in question.
She smiled, nothing revealed in her expression.
The other ankle was less straightforward, and I felt Andy forcing back a smile while my finger traced the bisected circle enclosed by an equilateral triangle centered on her bone. It didn’t resemble a geometric principle I used with much regularity, and I would be far from surprised to hear Andy rattle off an ancient theorem. There was no way it was an ordinary inscription of shapes. It meant something to her.
“Tell me about this one,” I requested, my finger following the words. “‘The ones that love us never really leave us.’ I like that.”
There were moments when Andy beguiled me, and then there were moments when I was stunned by our similarities and similar yet separate experiences. Those moments opened my eyes to the reality I knew her soul.
The meaning was obvious, and I didn’t need to know anything about the quote’s origin to understand the importance. I turned the words over in my head a few times, testing them out.
“It’s fromThe Prisoner of Azkaban,” she said, and I blinked, wondering if I was supposed to know what that meant. “Sirius Black?Harry Potter?”
