“Hmmm,” I moan. “More.”
He keeps his pace, not changing our momentum for what seems like a while, and I don’t mind it. Not when it feels this good, and not when I feel him this deeply and this much—somehow more than I ever did before. I might even be able to do this forever.
Despite the loud moans and heavy breaths, this is the quietest sex we’ve ever had. Softer, gentler. Too tender for my poor heart right now. I do not deserve tenderness right now, not today. He isn’t spanking me, he isn’t calling me hisgood girl,he isn’t being as rough and claiming—and I can’t handle it.
“Fuck me, Rowan,” I moan in his ear, and I gasp when he thrusts harder, my nails in his skin.
The next thing I know, Rowan is kneeling. And I miss his weight above me, his warmth against me. He sniffs and pushes his hair back before his hands come around my hips and lifts my lower half onto his lap, and that’s when his thrusts become hungrier. Harder.Rougher.
He’s doing exactly what I asked for and yet the emotion swells in my heart and head, pressure growing behind my eyes as my vision blurs. I see the shape of him behind clouds oftears so I blink them away, needing to see him—one of the people I feel the most safe with somehow.
And now, I’m even safer in the dark with the tears in my eyes and scars on my skin hidden.
I sniff, and it’s a mistake because his eyes move from where he disappears inside me to my face. “No,” he breathes, his thrusts slowing. “No, no, sweetheart, don’t do that to me.”
Rowans stops moving and comes back over me, forearms on either side of my head. “Natalia, baby, please,” he rasps. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart. Don’t cry.”
“Keep going,” I croak. “Keep going.”
His hips slow, his thumb caressing my cheek. “My sweetheart,” he breathes so quietly, I would have missed it if I weren’t this close to his lips.
My hand cups his nape to press his lips back to mine. “Please. Please, Rowan.”
Rowan’s body comes to a painful stop. “Natalia.”
I hiccup and my hands go to his lower back, pressing him down into me. “Rowan.”
His eyes say everything he doesn’t, and I can’t figure out why it hurts to be looked at like this—byhimmost of all. What if I don’t deserve to be looked at like this? I know the answer to that: I don’t, and I should push his face away from mine. I should walk out of this room and tell him he deserves better, but I won’t.Thatis something I’m not strong enough for.
Regardless, Rowan brushes his lips across my cheek, then presses a kiss at the corner of my eye. “My sweetheart,” he whispers, his voice carrying from my ear to my heart.
Finally, he moves, but he does so slowly. Reverently.
“Don’t be gentle,” I whisper, my fingers burrowing into his back, urging him on.
Rowan, being the man he is, listens. It starts slow, careful—almost as though he is scared of hurting me. Then I’m overwhelmed by the sound of skin slapping against skin, feeling him so far up in my stomach that I gasp with each thrust, and my nails and heels burrow into his back. Then my body trembles, harder and harder as I near a blinding peak of pleasure, and I scream out his name just as he grunts mine.
Rowan is bent over me and his arm slides beneath the curve of my spine, his other hand firm on the bed, and he lifts me just slightly. The backs of my thighs press into the front of his, and his forehead is pressed into mine. Our open mouths allow our oxygen to mingle, to get to know each other before we breathe each other’s air.
“Oh my god,” I breathe, feeling myself fall into an abyss there is no rescuing me from.
He fucks me relentlessly, mercilessly, until my body reaches new heights and jumps off the diving board—sensations that have accumulated exploding like a cannonball. He sets me down gently, driving into me aimlessly.
Moans fall from his lips that turn me on even more, and if I weren’t already tired and limp, I’d want him again. And again and again.
“Natalia,” he growls. “I’m gonna come.”
“That’s okay,” I pant, reveling in the way his body presses so far into mine. Adoring the way his skin feels against mine. “Come, Rowan.”
“I’ll pull out,” he groans.
“Okay.”
It only takes a few more jerky thrusts while his thumb circles my clit, trying to pull another mind-bending orgasm out of me before he comes. Breathlessly, he rasps, “Natalia…”
“It’s okay,” I breathe and his hips pull back.
Rowan groans as he comes on my stomach and I moan as he does—the sight making my mouth water, unabashedly. I never realized how much of a turn on that could be for me.
