I wanted those things, too. So badly that it hurt me to even exist. But none of that changed the past or the present. It didn’t change the fact that I was scared.
Silence crept into the space between us, save the pounding of the rain outside. Flames danced in the darkness. He stepped toward me slowly, as if testing the water.
“No.” I held up my hands. My voice broke as I said, “Wait.”
“I love you.”
I gaped at him. But why would it surprise me? Hadn’t I known it all along? And didn’t I love him, too?
That had never been the problem. Believing love was enough—thatwas the problem. I’d thought that same thing as a girl, and my idealistic heart had been torn in half for it.
I shook my head. “No, David, no. I can’t . . .wecan’t.” I felt the threat of fresh tears. “You can’t love me.”
He stepped closer and pulled me into his arms. “I love you.”
I pushed against his chest. “No,” I said loudly.
He took a step back. “I loved you from the start, don’t you know that? I never stood a chance.”
Lightning illuminated his face, and an unsteady, hazy future flashed before my eyes. Thunder rumbled low above us before cracking like a whip. I burned and yearned, my fingertips tingling with impatience to feel him.
Instead, I looked down. The carpet sprouted between my toes, and I wished I could crawl into the floor to hide in its welcoming softness. Because I knew what would happen next. The pendulum of emotion inside me swung high and fierce. I felt like crying, like running into the rain and letting it merge with my tears.
When I looked back at him, he basked in the soft yellow glow. Desire to be owned and dominated by him again pulled deep inside. He didn’t even need to touch me.
He fell to his knees in front of me, pulled up my sweater, and kissed the skin underneath. Slowly, he unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down before running his hands over my legs.
His lips explored me, kissing the backs of my sweat-dampened knees, the insides of my thighs, then my pubic bone through my panties. My legs trembled as I stepped out of my pants, away from him. He cast them aside and pulled me forward by my sweater. He rocked back off his knees and leaned forward to put his mouth on my parted lips but stopped inches away. He remained there as though sucking my spirit out through my mouth, and not only my spirit butmy heart, which beat faster and faster because . . .
I’m afraid, David, so afraid.
His body heat radiated and mingled with mine. I wondered when he had removed our clothing. Despite my nakedness, I was flushed. My eyes searched his face. I almost couldn’t decipher the words when he breathed, “I love you.”
I shook my head, blinking back tears. One escaped and drifted down the side of my cheek, over my cheekbones, falling to our feet. “No,” I said. “This is something more.”
I threw my arms around his neck, and our shaking bodies absorbed one another in an urgent kiss. His hands ran along the sides of my breasts and then down to encircle my waist, clutching me against his hard body. Every touch was real and inspired chills over my skin.
We fell back into the carpet that had promised refuge only moments before. My legs steepled, and he drove all the way into me. My hands raked through his hair, his cheek scraped against my neck, and he began to fuck me. When I clenched him inside me, he released a shuddering cry against my skin. His pace hurried, and his thrusts became so powerful that soon our bodies dripped with sweat.
“Look at you,” he rumbled in my ear, “so fucking sexy. So tight, grabbing onto me.”
My hips eagerly met the force of each delicious plunge. “I want to make you come,” I rasped, “harder than you ever have.”
“For you, and only you, I will,” he growled. Thunder vibrated the room. He bucked harder,deeper, a drop of sweat trickling from his body onto mine. I craned my neck to watch as his abs flexed with each drive, and as I swallowed up the thick base of his cock.
As I approached the edge, there was only him to cling to. My vision speckled with white flashes as my body responded, constricting around him and trembling under his hulking body.
“Never letting you go,” he uttered hoarsely. “You feel so fucking amazing.”
“Come,” I begged. I grasped urgently at his hair and pulled him down until our foreheads touched. “I need you, David,” I said against his mouth. “I need you, all of you.”
“No,” he hissed. “Not . . . until . . .”
He’d said it before. He wouldn’t come in me until I belonged to him. And in that moment, I did.
“I’m yours,” I cried. “I’m yours, David. I’m yours, I’m yours.”
“Olivia,” he moaned. His muscles tensed and released, his body convulsed, and he finished me off with unwavering focus. I gasped, arching from the floor as my nerves shattered into a million divine pieces. I writhed into his punishing final thrust, and with a deep grunt, he erupted inside me, claiming me finally.
