It wasn’t soft or cautious. It wasn’t even patient.
It was a collision. A shattering.
His mouth was desperate as it crashed over my aching lips, stealing the very breath from my lungs. I gasped as he surgedforward, swallowing the small sound as he pushed me back against the wall.
His body pressed against mine, warm and solid and shaking with restraint he was quickly losing.
His lips moved over mine like he’d been starving and finally found sustenance. Like he’d been drowning and had finally broken the surface.
His kiss was heartbreak and longing and relief in one brutal, beautiful thing.
My hands slid up his bare chest, fingers tracing the hard planes of muscle, tracking the steady thrum of his heart. He groaned, and the sound vibrated straight through me.
He broke the kiss, only to let out a ragged breath against my mouth. “God, Quinn…you undo me.”
I didn’t have time to respond before he kissed me again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding against mine, slow and devastating.
He tasted like heat and fear and something I couldn’t name—something that felt too close to home.
His hands roamed my body like he wanted to learn every inch of it, every dip and curve. He lingered on my waist and hips, fingers sliding deliciously up my ribs and chest.
He shuddered when I threaded my fingers into his hair and pulled him closer.
We were unraveling each other.
Piece by piece, he pulled at my carefully woven threads of steel and ice. The tapestry I’d cocooned myself in since I had been broken beyond repair started to come apart at the seams, and under it all, I was becoming something new altogether.
He pulled back again, his breath a soft tremble against my lips. His hands framed my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, voice raw and pleading.
“No,” I gasped. “I want you.”
I hadn’t realized how much until this moment. Until his arms and hands and mouth were all over me. I never wanted him to stop. He had already stopped himself too many times; I wasn’t going to give him up anymore.
His eyelids slammed shut like that confession wounded him, and then he kissed me again—harder, hungrier.
My feet left the ground as he lifted me. My legs automatically wrapped around his waist, and he groaned into my mouth, hands gripping beneath my thighs as he carried me toward the bed.
I didn’t break the kiss.
I couldn’t, even if I was suffocating.
He laid me down on the mattress but didn’t climb over me at first. He hovered above, his chest heaving, drinking me in like he couldn’t believe I was real.
His hand slid up my arm, slow and reverent, stopping over the bruises Preston had left. His thumb brushed them, featherlight.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
“Not anymore,” I breathed.
He lowered his forehead against mine for a moment, and then he turned his head, kissing down the side of my face, my neck, and down my shoulder until he came to the bruise on my upper arm. He kissed that, too, soft and gentle, like he was trying to rewrite the memory with something better.
He lifted his head, moving across my body to kiss the other arm banded in purple before leisurely making his way back up the path he had trailed from.
“Graham,” I murmured against his lips.
I pulled him down against me, needing his weight, the anchor of him. He came willingly—fitting his body against mine like he’d been made for me and me alone.
