And he seemed desperate to draw all these lines.
She knew why. It was clear that everything with his parents was painful. Complicated. It was clear that it had created a situation where something about emotional intimacy terrified him. She didn’t fully understand. But she wanted to. And if this was the doorway, then she had to let him open it like this. If this was what he needed, then she needed to let them have it. Needed to let it go all the way, because somehow she had a feeling that on the other side of it she would find that way to him. That perhaps this would demolish the wall just enough for her to climb over.
Or maybe she just wanted him. All of him. His good, his ugly. His hard and his soft. His rough and his tender. She certainly didn’t want it from anyone else.
She was incapable of it. He forced her down onto her knees, and she trembled as he undid his belt. There was a place for making him beg. But there was a place for her to beg as well, and she knew that this was the moment.
“Please,” she said. “Let me have you.”
“You want this,” he said, gripping himself at the base and bringing his hardness to her lips.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Even when I’m like this?”
“Especially when you’re like this.”
He pushed his way into her mouth, and began to thrust hard against the back of her throat. Every moment that they’d resisted was leading to this. Not to that first time, but to this moment.
He was pushing her. He was testing her, and she was going to pass. She was going to do more than pass. Because she didn’t just tolerate this. She loved it. She wanted it all.
He wasn’t too powerful for her. If anything, she was too powerful for him, and this moment was proving it.
Because he was at the end of himself, and he needed her. Needed her strength. Needed her touch.
She could be there for him. She would.
He pulled her mouth away, and brought her back up to her feet, kissing her, deep and hard and bruising. She gasped as he reached around and cupped her ass, squeezing her tight before turning her away from him, wrapping her hair around his hand again as he bent her over the bed. “Ask for it,” he said.
“Please,” she said. “Please take me.”
He thrust into her from behind, one hand on her hip, the other holding her hair fast as he lost himself inside of her. As he pushed them both to the brink.
This was what he needed.
This was what they both needed.
He released her hair, reached around and gripped her chin, held her face and turned it back toward him as he leaned down to kiss her, violently as he continued to thrust inside of her. Like he was reminding himself of who he was with. As if he needed the reminder.
“Romeo,” she said, saying his name because she knew that it would undo him. Because she knew that however much he was more powerful than her physically, she had a different power altogether.
He growled, leaned down and bit her shoulder as he thrust hard into her one last time, coming hard as he pushed her right over with him. He rested his forehead against her back, and she could feel the sweat on his brow. Could feel all of his intensity. All of his anger. Everything.
She turned, uncoupling with him and kissing him deep on his lips, moving her hands through his hair. “I love you,” she whispered against his mouth.
His whole body shivered.
“I do,” she whispered. “I love you. Do you know how much? That’s why we can be friends. That’s why we can be friends and we can be this. We can be both and everything.”
He pressed his forehead against the curve of her neck. “My mother had another episode today.”
“And you didn’t fly to Vienna?”
“No. I didn’t. Because today had to be about our child. Because everything has to be about our child.”
“I don’t agree,” she said. “I’m glad that you did that. But I hope that you did it for you. Because you’re allowed to live, Romeo. Your life matters apart from her. It just does. And you shouldn’t be made to feel like you have to drop everything to give her whatever she needs.”
“You understand. It’s me. I’m not any different from her.”
