“No. This has been a twenty-year slow burn. We just have to let it happen.”
He stripped his shirt off, and she was overwhelmed by her desire for him. When the rest of his clothes came off, she lost the ability to think. The ability to speak.
He was so perfect. So utterly and completely perfect. And Sam. Precious to her in ways no one else had ever been. Her lifeline. Hersanity. The only one who knew her. When he began to take her clothes off, she felt truly exposed for the first time in her life. Like he was taking off not just her clothes, but all her defenses, every bit of protection she’d ever had.
Because he knew she wasn’t tough. He knew she was that girl who had gotten on her knees in the dirt and asked a Ouija board if anyone would ever love her. He knew she was broken. He was kissing her anyway. He was looking at her like she was something beautiful and precious anyway.
He took her bra off, cupped her breasts, and looked up. “Jesus Christ.”
It might’ve been a prayer, it might’ve been a curse. It was impossible for her to know. He moved his thumbs over her nipples, pleasure arcing through her.
He kissed her like she might be fragile, then picked her up and pressed her against the wall like she was unbreakable. His fingers dug into her hips as he lifted her off the floor and wrapped her legs around his waist. She was topless, only wearing jeans, while he was naked and glorious, and she didn’t think they were going to make it to a bedroom. And that was just fine.
They had already done the crazy thing. The thing that terrified her. They had admitted that it had never really been only friendship.
He had been right. He was the most intimate relationship she had, and she had convinced herself that as long as she kept sex out of it, she was never going to have to expose herself. She was never going to have to take the risk.
But now she was risking it all. A gamble. Betting it all to try to have it all.
He laid her down on the couch, and she scrabbled up onto her knees, kissing his stomach, hard and well muscled, moving down to take the head of his arousal into her mouth. He was so hot. Gorgeous. She wanted all of him. Wanted him to touch the back of her throat, claim her, make her his. He gripped the back of her hair and thrusthis hips forward, her name a growl on his lips as she continued to pleasure him.
Because she knew him, she knew just what to do. Because he knew her, he didn’t take it slow or gentle.
Because life had been rough with them, so this might as well be rough in the best way possible.
“Fuck,” he said, jerking away from her suddenly. “I can’t ... Not like that.”
“One of these times it’s going to have to be like that. Because I want you. All of you.”
He pushed her down onto her back, leaned in, and bit her neck. “I want it too. But I wanted to be inside of you for as long as I’ve known such a thing was possible. You are my sexual awakening, my darkest fantasy. And I need it. Now.”
She moaned as he wrapped his arm around her and lifted her hips up off the couch.
“Do I need to get a condom?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I have an IUD.”
“Perfect.”
He thrust into her, and it was like everything made sense. Like all the pieces of her were finally together. Not sporadic. Fractured. Like she was a little creature hoarding bits of treasure in different places so that she was never in danger of losing it all. He was the entire treasure. Her best friend. Her lover. The love of her life. It was risky. So risky.
But she didn’t want anything else. Couldn’t stand to have anything else. Not when she needed him.
Oh, she desperately needed him.
He moved deep inside her, her desire ruthless and uncompromising. This wasn’t pleasure like she’d known it before. This was something new. Something different. Sharp and glorious and dangerous all at once.
She wondered if the roof would cave in. If the very delicate ecosystem that was her life would suddenly be out of balance, out of control in a way she could see or feel. If the whole world would end.Because that was what this had always felt like. Like it would be world ending. Like it would be the kind of catastrophe neither of them would ever be able to come back from.
Instead, Sam was holding her, touching her face, whispering her name as he kissed her lips, and it wasn’t strange or wrong. It was like things were right for the first time ever.
It was like what had been out of place before was suddenly locked in, and it just felt good. She had spent so many years not touching him. Not knowing what it was like to taste him. Not knowing what it would be like to have him inside her.
It was a waste. But then, maybe she wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it then. Maybe back then they would have blown it all to hell. Maybe they would’ve sabotaged it. Themselves, each other. But not now. Not now that they were thirty-five. Not now that she’d had other relationships, had been in a marriage that hadn’t worked. Not now that they had done some important healing from childhoods full of trauma. Most of all, not now that she knew they would both do anything for each other.
The way he moved inside her was a revelation, and all the words in her brain evaporated as she clung to his shoulders and surrendered to the moment. To the deep strokes of his cock and the intense, sharp desire that grabbed her by the throat and held her there. Not docile or submissive but enjoying full surrender.
She looked into his eyes as he lost control. He was always so stoic, his features hard as granite, but now they trembled just a bit. As tears filled his eyes and tears spilled from hers in response. As her orgasm gripped her along with sobs, and she dissolved completely. A mass of need and clinical destruction utterly reduced and remade in his arms.
