“Move,” I demanded. “Harder. Please.”
He did.
First thrust stole my breath. Second had me scoring his back. By the third we were frantic, skin slapping, bed creaking, my hips rising to meet every deep drive.
He hitched my leg higher, changed the angle, deeper, grinding against my clit with every stroke.
“There, God, right fucking there?—”
“I’ve got you.” His accent thickened, voice a growl. “Let me have this tight little pussy, Rose. Let me ruin you.”
His thumb found my clit, circling, pressing, while he fucked me harder, faster, the wet slap of our bodies obscene.
I felt it building again, coiling, vicious.
“Come for me,” he ordered against my ear. “Come on my cock, love. Squeeze me tight.”
I broke.
The second orgasm was deeper, darker, my walls pulsing around him, milking, as I screamed his name. He swore, Scottish curses I barely understood, then slammed deep once, twice, and came with a guttural groan, hips jerking, face buried in my neck.
We stayed locked together, shaking, breathing ragged.
Eventually he eased out, dealt with the condom, came back, and pulled me against him. Arm heavy across my waist, fingers tracing my hip.
I let him hold me. No armor. No calculations.
“Stay,” I whispered. “Tonight.”
His arm tightened around me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the scariest part.
I wokein the middle of the night, disoriented by the warmth of another body in my bed.
Graham was asleep beside me, one arm slung across my waist, his face slack and peaceful in a way I’d never seen when he was awake. He looked younger.
My throat ached looking at him.
What are you doing?The voice in my head, the practical one, the one that had kept me alive and solvent and sane for twenty-seven years.You know how this ends. You know he’s leaving. You know you can’t keep him.
I did know.
But lying there in the dark, with his arm around me and his heartbeat steady against my back, I couldn’t make myself care about endings. Not yet.
I’d let someone in. Let someone see me. Let someone touch the parts of myself I kept hidden from the world, and not just the physical ones.
It terrified me.
It also felt like the first real thing I’d done in longer than I could remember.
I closed my eyes and let myself fall back asleep, my body curved against his, the doors I’d kept locked for years standing open behind me.
Tomorrow, I could figure out what it meant.
Tonight, I just wanted to feel.
