I closed my eyes when he moved, expecting the brutality of his fucking, but instead of slamming into me, he licked the trail of the tear from my cheek to the corner of my eye. Then he started to move at the same pace I’d set—slow, but with such a contained power that I felt it bone deep.
An animal was always an animal by instinct, but instead of trying to ravage my heart, my will, my stubborn nature, he was accepting me as is, because I was no longer fighting to keep what was his away from him.
We both came in a moment that seemed to rock the house harder than the thunder rattling the panes. My eyes were shut tight, but after a minute, I could feel him watching me. I opened my eyes slowly to meet his, and after studying my face for another minute, he pulled out of me and came to sit beside me on the bed.
The sudden loss of heat, of him, made me shiver, and I curled into myself. He sighed, and the sound of it made me tremble even harder. He moved slowly on the bed, getting a little closer, until finally, he wrapped his arm around me, kissing me behind the ear. Reaching out with his empty hand, he pulled the quilt from the bed over us, and settled in with his head close to mine. We were pressed skin to skin.
“When did it start to storm?” His voice was raw.
I started laughing, real quiet, shaking in his arms.
He grinned against my cheek, his lips lingering where another tear ran from my eye again. He’d broken something in me that no one else ever had before. A tear duct.
“I meant it, my darlin’,” he said, “when I said that you were the most dangerous thing to me.”
“I know,” I barely got out, “that you love me, Cash Kelly. Just as much as I love you.”
“Grand,” he whispered in my ear. “Just fucking grand.”
I intertwined our fingers, holding on tight.
“Keely Kelly,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I need you more than a heart needs blood.” He wrapped his hand around my wrist, applying pressure to the pulse there. “The only addiction to ever have power over me. The only soul to ever conquer my chaotic soul with complete peace.”
We both stared at the steam on the windows, condensation making strange patterns as it ran down the panes, snippets of the storm coming through the cleared paths. I fell asleep wrapped in his arms without realizing it; the pounding of his heart against my back was a song, soothing the mayhem surrounding us.
28
Keely
Iblinked at the bright light coming in through the windows. The sun had burnt through the night while we slept, and the room had turned stuffy and humid from the storm.
My skin was still against his skin.
His arm was around me, and his nose was close to my ear. He was snoring.
A slow, satisfying grin came to my face at the faint sound of it.
He barely slept, and when he did, it was light. The nights must’ve caught up to him, like my evenings without dinner had caught up with me. He needed sleep as much as I needed food. My stomach made an obnoxious noise at the thought. But I had other needs that felt more important.
He was hard, and after I pushed my ass into him, he pushed himself inside of me and groaned deep.
“I wasn’t hungry for food, Kelly,” I said, breathless. “I was starved forthis.”The connection.
“When I close my eyes, I dream of this,” he said, sinking into me even deeper. “You fuck up my body and settle my mind.”
He worked my body hard—gasping for breath, slick with sweat, his handprints on my skin—before my body submitted to his and his to mine.
Afterward, I felt like I’d taken a free fall from heaven. I sank deeper into the mattress, the pillow, and my eyes closed.
His breath fanned over my ear when he laughed. “No time for sleep, my darlin’.”
“There’s always time for sleep, my thief of hours,” I said. Maybe I dozed off for a second, but when I came to, it was with a jolt. Someone had slammed a fist against the front door, and I heard it open with a creak.
Cash sat up, rubbing his face, and then went to the bedroom door. The golden light coming in through the window lit up his naked body, every spectacular angle of it. He looked around for a second, and after he didn’t find what he wanted, he left the room.
