I love his strong form covering me when he dips down at the end of each thrust, his t-shirt tickling my lower back. He’s larger. Stronger. My very own protective shadow. He’s corporeal. He’s real. He’s not a fantasy, he’s a man, but that’s what makes all of this a thousand times more intense.
He stops driving into me for a full moment and just lets me feel him pulsing and kicking inside of me. I respond, my pussy closing on him, tightening down his length like it wants to keep him inside of me.
It makes himwild.
He grasps my hips, harder than he has yet, and drives into me. The bed shakes. This whole apartment shakes. I’m just glad that no one is working late tonight at the shop. He fucks into me, filling and emptying, filling and emptying, over and over again.
His breathing is a wreck, so much rougher and louder than mine. I love it. I love each and every breath, every sound, every groan and curse he makes.
I know he wants to hold himself back, but he can’t. He’s half a wild animal behind me, bucking and thrusting, filling me with a passion that’s nearly violent. I brace myself and drive back, undulating with him, our bodies like a wave. When he pushes, I pull, when he pulls, I push back.
There’s no warning before he lets out a roar that fills up the room. He bands an arm around my waist and fucks me so hard that he hits places that both hurt and cause a blinding white light to short out in front of my eyes. I’m tipped straight into a hot climax that grips me, waves of pleasure wringing me out, twisting me. I pant and whimper, arch and moan, half a wild animal myself. The pleasure is hot and sharp, doubly so because I can feel the kick of Shadow’s cock and his hot seed filling me as he shatters apart with me.
He went first and brought me with him. That’s the only thought that cycles through my mind as I come down from the obliterating high. That, and how much more beautiful it was than I ever knew it could be.
Tears of bliss, and more emotion than I can unravel, sting my eyes, but I blink them back. I don’t want Shadow to notice. He’d see them and I know he’d think that he did something wrong when everything he did wasperfect. I don’t regret a single second of this. It wasn’t wrong. All I feel is warmth, more than just post sex bliss.
He wraps his arms around my middle and leans forward, arching over me to rest his sticky forehead against the small of my back. I keep myself supported with one hand and set the other on his clasped fingers. Every single one of his breaths feels like a benediction.
His ragged panting hasn’t even slowed before he pulls away. He doesn’t leave, though, like I picture him doing in my head—gathering up his jacket and helmet and going out the door without so much as a word.
He adjusts his clothes and spreads out along the edge of the bed. I roll to face him, drawing in a sharp breath at his expression. He looks shyer than I’ve ever seen. Boyish and vulnerable, flushed and sweaty, and still fresh out of the shower fully clothed.
I can’t help but set my hand on his sweat damp cheek. He blinks at me, his eyes dark and unfathomable, but he nuzzles into my palm. I leave my hand there for a moment, until I can’t resist the urge to trace his neck, to press my fingers against his slamming pulse, and guide them lower, over his t-shirt, to his thundering heart.
“Are you okay?” It’s a dumb question.
“I thought I was the one who was supposed to say that,” he says.
The last thing he needs is my guilt or asorry. Or to feel like I didn’t want this. Whatever this is.
“Am I still the hero in your mind?” he asks. The question is jokey. An asshole move, but I see the pain in his eyes. Like he’s expecting me to say it shouldn’t have happened.
“You’reyou.” I trace his beautiful lips with my thumb, then sweep my finger to the scars along the side of his jaw. “Beautifully. Wonderfully. Perfect to me. Always.”
He’s so still. Even his breaths have slowed to almost nothing.
“I want your skin against my skin,” I say, half a plea. “I want to touch you. Hold you. Feel you. Will there be a next time?”
His eyes flick to the wall above my shoulder. “I’m betraying a man I hold the utmost respect for, but I’ve known that since the second I kissed you back.”
“There’s no betrayal.” I told him before we did this, but I can hear how badly he needs me to say those words again.
“Your dad wants more for you. He wants the best.”
Those words cut me deep. I can hear the pain in his voice. “I have the best. Right here.” I press my palm against his chest, finding the curl of his pec and then the rapid beat of his heart. “Right here in my palm.”
He’s allowing this intimacy, he’s here with me, and that means everything. I’ll focus on what he’s giving me and not what hecan’tyet. My arm wraps around his neck and I shift closer, until there’s no space between us. My hand splays over the back of his head like I can shield him. I draw him to me and kiss him tenderly, savoring him, trying to soak up his pain from all the bad that has ever happened to him. I want to draw the poison out, to be his antidote, to heal and to mend him.
I roll his bottom lip between my teeth, sucking and licking it playfully. “Does this mean that you’re definitely coming to the symphony?”
He grunts. “I said I was.”
“I thought maybe you’d change your mind.”
“Now that I have to face Preacher?”
I look up into his beautiful, haunted face. “This isn’t for anyone but us, until we’re ready for it to be. No shame. No hiding. No secrecy. It’s nothing furtive or sneaky. I think that we deserve our privacy.”
