I haven’t held anyone’s hand since Vinnie died in my arms. None but Skylar’s. But though my heart thrums so loud I thinkImust be fucking dying, this is nothing like the night I lost Vin.
Skylar has his sleeves pushed up, his inked forearms bare to the cool night, lean, corded muscle on full display. Or it would be, if I could tear my gaze from his eyes and let it wander.
But I can’t. I’m ensnared by him. Transfixed. And in a world as fucked-up as mine has been for too many years to count, this moment is kind of perfect.
It’s timeless.
I stare at him for hours. Fordays. I forget that no night lasts forever, even this one, and stillness presses down on us, forcing us both to sink with it.
Wrapped in mine, his hand warms up.
I shift a little closer, forcing my body heat on him. Skylar takes a slow breath, his only reaction to the current crackling between us, and I wonder if he might sleep. If I might. But that current…it’s a loaded gun. I can’t ignore it, neither can he, and the quiet grows heavy, tension building with each parched inhale.
Too close.
Me.
Him.
Definitely me. It’s his fucking room. Hisbed. But the iron will that’s kept me alive long enough to be here with him picks the wrong side, and I don’t even try to make myself move.
My grip on him tightens. Skylar’s gaze flashes to our clasped hands, a faint tremor wracking his fingers, a low sound of frustration spilling through his clenched jaw.
“Get out of my room.”
A plea, not an order.
And the devil in me answers. “No.”
Skylar makes that sound again. Then he strikes with no warning, and wecollide, tension imploding, debris flying in its wake, the fuse planted in the roots of us finally burned out.
Heat and breath.
His mouth.
Mine.
We crash together, and it’s not soft. It’s not careful. It’s not sweet.
It’sneed.
Tongue and teeth. And I feel every nuance of it shoot through my nerves.
Not sure if I haul him there, but Skylar winds up over me, his chest to mine, free hand tangled in my shirt, fisting the fabric. I slide my own up his bare spine and grip the tousled hair at the nape of his neck, tilting his head to bite at his lips, and another tight sound escapes him. Like he’s barely holding on, andfuck, if I don’t know how that feels.
That sound. It does something to me. Something wild. Arousal rockets through me and I surge up, tipping him onto his back, pinning him with my weight, knowing, like I always have, that he might try and kill me for it.
But he doesn’t. Skylar arches his spine, his slim hips lifting from the bed, the hardness in his faded sweats seeking the stone column in my shorts, and it’smewho groans this time. Me who can’t keep the strangled noise contained, when I’ve spent my entire adult life training and honing myself to be utterly fucking silent.
The friction is killer. Too much and light years from being enough. I want more. Ineedmore. I want inside him. I want him insideme, a desire that should startle some coherent thought into my brain. It’s been fuckingyearssince I’ve let someone fuck me.
But that doesn’t happen either. I kiss Skylar harder, ravaging his mouth, weathering the fierceness he gives off in return, fucking revelling in it, chasing the rush through every door he kicks open for us. Everyalmostmoment we’ve shared has led to this—to this dam breaking, and I’m here for every shred of destruction as we kiss and kiss and kiss, as if it’s the last time as well as the first. As we claw at each other, rough and bruising, all skin and breath, and broken pieces that still somehow fit.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Alarm bells finally sound in my head, blaring through the fiery haze in the same moment Skylar rips his mouth from mine and shoves me off.
