Right now, I was documenting something else.
His hands slid under my tank, callused fingers skimming my stomach before pushing higher. The sensation was almost too much after months of nothing but my own hand and my imagination.
He hesitated when he reached the band of my bra, fingers flexing.
“You sure?” he asked again, voice rougher. “Because?—”
I arched into his touch. “If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to bite you.”
His eyes darkened. “Promises, Emerson?”
I glared at him. Then I sat up, shoved his hands away, and pulled my own top off.
His breath hitched.
Good. Let him feel off-balance for once.
“You want to stop?” I asked sweetly. “Because I’d hate to?—”
He cut me off with a kiss that stole the rest of the sentence and whatever oxygen I had left.
After that, thought got fuzzy.
Clothes went, piece by piece, in between kisses that were too rough to be tender and too desperate to be anything but honest. His mouth wandered, his hands mapping out a body he’d already known once and apparently hadn’t forgotten. Mine did the same, rediscovering the lines of him, the way he shuddered when I dragged my nails lightly down his spine.
We moved like two people who knew exactly how dangerous this was and chose it, anyway. Every touch was an argument, every gasp a counterpoint. I hated him. I wanted him. I hated that I wanted him. I wanted to crawl inside his skin just to see if he hurt the way I did.
When he finally pushed inside me, the world narrowed to the heat and ache and the way my body welcomed him like it had been made for this exact shape.
I bit down on my own knuckles to keep from crying out.
He caught my hand, laced our fingers together, pressed them into the mattress by my head.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I want to hear you.”
I turned my head away, eyes squeezed shut, because it was too much—his voice, his body, the way he was looking at me like I was both salvation and punishment.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I rasped.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m not just a mistake,” I said. “We’re a mistake. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
He thrust deeper, and my argument broke on a gasp.
“Speak for yourself,” he said.
After that, words stopped making sense.
There was only rhythm and friction and the relentless slide of skin on skin. His mouth found mine, stole my breath, gave it back. His hands held me down and held me together, and every time I thought I’d found the edge, he dragged me further.
When release finally hit, it tore through me so hard I saw white. My back arched, my fingers digging into his shoulders, his name punched out of my chest like it had a right to be there.
He followed a heartbeat later, body tensing above me, a rough groan ripped from his throat. For a moment, he stayed there, braced, breathing hard, forehead dropping to the crook of my neck.
We lay like that, tangled and shaking, hotel air conditioner humming uselessly in the background.
I hated how right it felt.
