I couldn’t. Not with him buried deep inside me, my body gripping him, every nerve firing with sensation. Not with hiseyes showing me everything he felt, everything he wanted. Not with the terrifying knowledge that I wanted it too. Needed it.
“Move,” I whispered instead, heels pressing into his lower back, urging him on.
He did, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The force of it pushed me up the table. He gripped my hips, holding me in place as he set a relentless pace. Each powerful thrust drove him deeper, hitting a spot inside me that made stars burst behind my eyelids. The table creaked beneath us, the sound lost beneath my gasps and his guttural groans.
“Fuck, Vi,” he groaned, his pace quickening, driving into me with raw, primal intensity. “You feel incredible. So tight. So perfect.”
He leaned down, capturing a nipple in his mouth again, sucking hard while his thumb found my clit. The dual stimulation was overwhelming. Pleasure coiled tighter and tighter, a spring wound to its breaking point. I felt every ridge of him inside me, every pulse of his cock against my inner walls. My legs tightened around him, pulling him deeper still.
“Look at me!” One hand tilted my chin up, forcing my eyes to meet his burning gaze. “I want to see you.”
The intensity of his stare, the perfect friction of his cock hitting that spot deep inside, the relentless circles on my clit... everything converged, hurling me over the edge. I shattered, crying out his name as waves of pleasure crashed through me, stealing my breath, my thoughts, everything but the sensation of him inside me, the feel of his skin under my hands, the sound of his ragged breathing.
My release triggered his. With a guttural groan, he buried himself deep, pulsing inside me as his body shuddered against mine. His hips jerked erratically, emptying himself into me with a final, broken moan against my neck.
For endless moments, we stayed tangled together on the table, breathing hard. His lips brushed my temple, my cheek, finding my mouth in a kiss softer than any before. Gentle. Tender. Devastating.
Reality seeped back slowly. The cool wood beneath my back. The lingering scent of risotto and sex in the air. The stickiness between my thighs.
We didn’t use a condom.
Panic flared. I’d never let anyone come inside me. Birth control pills were my safety net, swallowed religiously every morning, but still, the intimacy of it, the sheer recklessness, sent a jolt through my system.
And yet… beneath the panic, a traitorous warmth spread through my chest. A deep, undeniable sense of rightness that it was with him.
Which made everything infinitely worse. Because if I was glad it was him, if I wanted this, wanted him, then what was I protecting? Why couldn’t I silence the screaming warnings about my father, about the inevitable heartbreak when he moved on to the next shiny thing? Why did the thought of walking away feel like tearing out a piece of my own heart?
It wasn’t fair. How the universe could create someone who fit me so perfectly, made me feel so much, and then surround us with a thousand reasons we couldn’t be together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GRIFFIN
Her pulse thrummed against my lips, a staccato beat under sweat-damp skin. Mine hadn’t slowed either.
Amusing, really.
All that stubbornness, all that cold restraint, shattered the second I had my mouth on her. She thought she could resist me. Could shove me into some neat little box labeled off-limits and pretend she didn’t want to climb inside it with me.
One kiss, and she fucking folded.
A smirk pulled at my mouth. I dragged my nose along the curve of her throat, just to feel the goose bumps spread down her arms, just to remind her that she was still pinned beneath me, exactly where she swore she wouldn’t be.
It was unfair, really. The way she made me feel like I’d won something massive and impossible, like outmaneuvering her meant more than trophies and podiums and crowds chanting my name. Ridiculous how this sharp, quiet victory thrummedthrough my veins, more intoxicating than champagne sprayed across a winner’s podium.
I braced on my forearms, keeping my weight off her, but I let my fingers drift down, tracing the dip of her waist before settling on her hip. Holding her there. Not that she was trying to move.
Violet’s fingers twitched against my ribs, hesitant. A silent warning.
I pressed my lips to the corner of her jaw. “Don’t start thinking, Princess.”
Too late.
A tremor ran through her shoulders, and I pulled back. She blinked up at the ceiling, avoiding my gaze with a steadfast determination that sank beneath my skin and made my stomach flip with dread.
Fuck. I knew that look. The one that meant she’d started calculating risks, weighing consequences, remembering all the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this.
I braced both hands on the table, elbows locked, keeping her trapped beneath me. The wood creaked under our combined weight.
