His chest bumped into mine, and I braced myself on his hips as I struggled onto my tiptoes, brushing my lips across his. It was just a whisper of contact, a dare. I was testing the waters.
He didn’t react. In fact, he didn’t doanything.I searched his eyes, looking for something, but they might as well have been a mirror reflecting all of my own uncertainties and insecurities right back at me. His brow creased so faintly that I barely noticed, and his eyes betrayed him with a brief flick to my lips before he resumed focused eye contact.
I kissed him again, wrapping my arms around his neck as I anchored myself to keep my balance. He stood still, not reciprocating. My mind begged for his lips to part, anything. I pulled away, looking back at him but other than the tensing of his jaw, it was as though I hadn’t done anything at all. Honestly, it would have been more comfortable if he’d pushed me away, but he just continued to stand there.
“If you do that again—” His voice was a low, rough rumble in his chest.
It was a threat, but I didn’t care. I kissed him on his jaw this time, and then his neck.
“What are you going to do?” I whispered.
His restraint snapped before my very eyes.
Halo was quick when he needed to be, and it surprised me that a man that size could move so fast. He snatched me into his arms before I had time to gauge his reaction to what I’d said. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he pushed us back towards the dresser where the television sat. As soon as my ass hit the top of the dresser, his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone. His hands were under my shirt, palming my breasts through the lace bra, and then he was under it, fingers teasing my nipples until the sound he pulled from my throat didn’t even sound like me anymore. I kissed him then, or maybe he kissedme; I couldn’t tell where either of us started. It was a feverish collision.
The kiss was long and deep, like he was drinking everything I had to give him. My hands fumbled with his belt, and he helped me, yanking it loose with a violent snap as our bodies ground together through layers, friction between us building.
“Tell me to stop,” he growled as he grasped the waistband of my pajama pants. He pressed his forehead against my cheek, rocking into me as he waited for me to tell him this was enough. He would stop if I asked him to. I knew it.
“You touch me, or I’ll scream.”
It was all he needed to hear. He jerked my pants and panties off at the same time. In one brutal motion, I heard the fabric tear. I gasped, trying to stifle the sound so I didn’t… what? Scare him away? Scarehimaway? Was that what I was worried about?
In the next moment, he shoved the tv onto the floor with a crash and spun me around until I was on my back along the length of the dresser. My legs were on his shoulders, and then his head was between my thighs.
“Hal—oh,oh my God.” His name broke apart on my tongue, disintegrated into breathless noise as his mouth claimed me.
My hand flew to my mouth, but it didn’t stop the sounds: the heat, the wet intensity of his tongue working me with ruthless precision. He didn’t hesitate. There was no more fear in his touch. Just desperation. Like he was making up for every second he’d spent resisting me. He was consuming me with his mouth like he was starved for the taste of me, like he'd held back so long it had mutated into something feral. His tongue moved with slow precision, teasing, tasting, until my back arched and my hands scrambled for anything to hold. One found the edge of the dresser, the other tangled in his hair.
I bit into my own hand, trembling, as if that could keep me from unraveling under him. My climax was building so fast thatI couldn’t breathe – too fast, really. The excitement and anxiety of the entire situation amplified everything I was feeling, and I wished my body would just slow down so I could savor this. But Halo didn’t stop. If anything, he grumbled into me like my restraint offended him, like he needed to pull every single sound out of me as punishment for the silence I tried to maintain.
This meant something to me. I had the sickening feeling that it meant something to him too, and that’s exactly why he’d hate himself for it later. That realization struck me in the chest.
It made my eyes sting.Don’t cry, I told myself, biting my palm, breath hitching in my throat. Not from pain or from pleasure, but from that terrifying swell of emotion that shouldn’t be here. Not now, with him between my thighs and his fingers digging into my hips like he wanted to tear me apart.
I came against his tongue, my core twisting itself into knots before it came crashing apart. I made a helpless sound in my throat. My body was jelly, floating, raw and I wasn’t sure I could have moved if I wanted to. I could feel his own breath hot against me as I pulsed and tightened, he was panting. He pulled back slowly, breath ragged, lips and jaw glistening. He looked dazed, like he’d just surfaced from underwater.
Halo grabbed my thighs and pulled me back against him, reaching down to unbutton his pants.
Yes,yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. I tried to grip something, anything, my nails scraping against the wood. This is what I wanted. Finally.
Then his eyes met mine, his hands froze on my hips, and his breathing turned erratic. I saw it happen in real time: the fear, the self-loathing, the weight of everything he hadn’t said crashing down on him all at once. I saw the second it hit him that he'd broken his stupid rule. His hands slacked, his entire energy changed as he looked down at me.
I reached for him, but he stood frozen, like if he touched me again, it would destroy him.
“Fuck,” he growled, voice breaking into a panicked pitch. He turned away from me and ran his hands through his dark hair. His whole body shook with restraint he barely managed to claw back into place.
“Halo…”
“You don’t understand,” he said hoarsely, voice like broken glass.
“I do.”
“This is just going to hurt you.I’mjust going to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” I said quietly, struggling to sit up. “You didn’t hurt me. That was—”
I slid off the dresser, trying to gather my clothing and thoughts, but my legs were shaky and my chest worse. I was exposed, literally and emotionally, and he was already retreating back into that shell.
