I fell forward again, one hand clinging to his hip, the other flying to my dick. I gritted my teeth again, but then pleasure forced my mouth open, unhinging my jaw.
Locke curved his body around me, his heated skin sliding with mine, his breathing a rough mess of deep grunts and low groans.
He took my hand off my dick. “Wait for it.”
I had no idea what he meant. Then it crept up on me, ambushing me with a hot slam of pressure-laced ecstasy.
Fuck. Holy fuck.
I buried my face in the mattress, a thundering wave taking me under. An unearthly noise fell out of me, and I came... I came so fucking hard.
Locke slowed, milking my climax, drawing out his own, and the shot of wet heat pushed me to a new high, his wild groan a sound I’d never forget.
He didn’t stop straightaway. He eased down, in and out, eking every shiver and shake until he pulled out entirely.
Ruined, I fought for breath, letting him roll me over and search me for who the fuck knew what.
I grabbed whatever part of him I could reach.
His hand.
He squeezed my fingers. “Status check?”
“Target destroyed.”
Laughing, Locke lay down beside me, still rock hard. Despite coming six seconds ago, he wasn’t a one-and-done kind of dude.
He was a kind one, though. Caring and warm. He rubbed my chest. My hips. My stomach. Waiting on me to return to earth.
It happened slowly. When I opened my eyes, he slipped a cigarette between my lips and lit it for me.
Best smoke I ever had.
Like almost everything else, we shared it, and even Locke’s quiet sigh felt like my own.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
It didn’t compute. “The fuck for?”
“That this was difficult for you. I wish it hadn’t been. You didn’t deserve it.”
Deserve. That word had done a lot of heavy lifting recently. But what did it actually mean? Locke hadn’t deserved the nightmare the Crows had inflicted on him, but without it, I might not have ever met him.
Did he deserve better than me?
Without doubt.
Did he deserve better than Orla?
Nope. No one did.
I finished the cigarette and crushed it in an ornamental dish on the bedside table. “It was easy in the end. And it’s easy now. It wasn’t after Rubi, I kept waiting for the devil to strike me down.”
Locke frowned. “Literally?”
“Maybe.” Safe in his arms, I let my thoughts drift back in time. “My cousin, Finn. Our fathers are brothers. My uncle told my dad Finn was gay, and my dad never spoke to him again. Years later, we found out Finn had schizophrenia. My dad said it was God’s punishment, and I believed him for the longest fucking time.”
I thought of my kind, talented, wonderful cousin and a knot lodged in my throat.
