I track his pumps, the hypnotic slide of him ramming into me, coated in my cum, until I finally lift my chin and assure him, “I see. Perfect.”
“Fucking perfect,” he echoes. “So tight. Mine.”
All his.
“Yours,” I whisper.
The depth is similar to when he was behind me in the escape room, but his ardent blues are latched to mine, and his fingers swirl my clit, and he’s glistening and wet and the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.
“Mine,” he repeats in a wolfish haze. “I need to see you fall apart again. You’ve got another one in you, beautiful. Give me more.”
I’m so sated, dizzy with the lingering high of whatever heavenly voyage his mouth imparted. I stretch my hand up tobrush my fingertips over his handsome face. “Feels so good, but I don’t think I can come again.”
“You will, Merce.” His insistence is fierce, brooking no room for debate. “I told you I’d lavish you with pleasure and that I’d be here to stay. We’re just getting started.”
He illustrates that point by pulling out, flipping me onto my stomach, and flattening my chest on the bed. He slides a pillow beneath my hips, and with my ass in the air, he thrusts inside me.
I moan at how deep he hits, and his hand snakes around to tease my clit again, but he doesn’t employ the predictable circling. He pinches the sides, clamping them, and the bundle of nerves pulsates deliciously inside that vise grip, as if it could burst free like a firework. It steals my breath.
“Holy … oh my … Ryker.”
“You like that, Viper?”
It’s then that I realize he’s learning me, studying my reactions to see what I enjoy most, even though I already came and he hasn’t. I’m not sure why that hits me so hard, rips me open and reminds me whose arms I’m in. He’s shown me how much I mean to him in a million different ways, but he abstained for years, and still, he’s chasing my pleasure instead of his own. Because what he needs most is to be certain I’m in this with him.
“So, so good. Maybe I could come like this, but I want to see your face. I need your eyes on mine.”
Everything slows. He shifts us—him against the headboard, me straddling his pelvis. When he lowers me onto him, inch by glorious inch, we both hiss out in unison, and I memorize every crinkle of his eyes. The way his dimple quickly flashes me and his lips part and his hands immediately roam, sailing through the valley of my breasts and docking on my scar.
“I’ve dreamed of you riding me, but this … Merce, you’re a vision. A goddamn masterpiece.”
His vibrant coloring of all the parts of me as something to be in awe of—whether the world would deem them unfortunate flaws or acceptable features—chips away at the steel fortress I erected around my heart. This is the man who knows me best, and yet the shading of who I am hasn’t dulled with time or wear. It’s only grown more brilliant.
Rising to the balls of my feet, I grip his shoulders and bounce with a subtle swivel that has him so on edge and desperate to fly that a fresh wave of satisfaction surges through me. While he tweaks my nipples and explores my curves, I keep drinking him in. The bob of his Adam’s apple, his shallow breaths, the twinkle in those captivating blues. His smooth golden-beige skin is littered with the streams of our luxurious dip, glimmering over his tattoos—works of art crafted by Jax and odes to us, to me, to our beginning and our future.
“I dreamed this too. You and me.” My confession emerges strained because this has all been a lot—fast and slow, a whirlwind at a snail’s pace. “I was afraid, but you’ve always been my fantasy.”
He fists my drenched hair, mouth crashing to mine with a soul-searing fusion, fingers squeezing my clit while I maintain my thigh-burning cadence. Heat builds and blooms in my abdomen, my core throbs, and my nerves sizzle with a frenzy. All of it declares the veracity of our claims.
I purr into his mouth, and he bites my lip.
“Those fucking sounds, baby. You’re killing me. So damn sexy. I feel like I’m hallucinating. Delusional.”
That makes me laugh. “Lack of sleep and alcohol bathing will do that.”
“It’s you, Mercy.” He growls those words, cradling my face with one hand while the other supports some of my weight and steadies my rhythm. “I’m drunk on you. I can’t breathe withoutyou, can’t see straight with you. I certainly don’t deserve you. I’m not a good man, but I’ll be everything you need. Everything.”
It’s a plea and a promise, a vulnerable admission. He’s terrified I’ll abandon him, maybe not physically since we both know he’ll never let that happen. But emotionally. The pain and apprehension are products of my actions. His forgiveness may be present, but his fear is too.
“You already are, Ryker.” I drop to my knees, angling myself so I can grind my swollen clit against his pelvis, which instantly has me groaning. “You’re all I need.”
My arms curl around his neck, my chest pressed to his until we’re sealed to one another. No me without him. Fire and frisson and a baptism of beginnings at every point of contact. He rasps praises in my ear, cups my ass, and clutches me against him like he’s shielding me from everything beyond this room. And as his mouth glides over me, it all zooms right back to that rapturous sanctuary.
“I’m gonna …”
“Tell me,” he growls as his hips piston and his scruff grazes my cheek.
“Come with me,” I manage just before my body prepares for takeoff. “Fill me up. Make me yours.”
