Audrey couldn't breathe. The analytical mind that governed her life entirely shut down, overridden by a desperate, agonizing need. She was freezing, and he was the only source of heat in a world that had gone completely dark.
The thread snapped.
Nate stepped into her space, his hand coming up to cup the back of her neck, his fingers tangling urgently in her hair. When his mouth crashed down onto hers, it wasn't a tentative exploration. It was an explosion.
Audrey gasped into his mouth, the keys slipping from her fingers and clattering onto the asphalt. Her hands flew up to grip the lapels of his coat, pulling him violently closer, anchoring herself to his solid frame. The kiss was a brutal, beautiful collision of grief, ten years of buried longing, and the absolute, staggering desperation of two people trying to prove they were still alive.
It tasted of dark beer, the crisp night air, and ruin.
Nate groaned, a deep, guttural sound in the back of his throat. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him, backing her up until her spine hit the cold metal of her car door. He devoured her mouth, his tongue sweeping past her lips with a deep, consuming hunger that made her knees buckle.
"Come with me," he breathed against her lips, his breath hot against her freezing skin.
He didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed her hand, their fingers intertwining tightly, and they stumbled blindly across the dark, quiet street toward the small house he was renting.
They didn't make it past the entryway before the desperation took completely over. Nate slammed the front door shut, the deadbolt clicking like a gunshot in the quiet room. He backed her against the wall, his mouth descending on hers again, hot and bruising.
He stripped her coat off, letting it fall into a discarded, heavy heap on the hardwood floor. His hands mapped her body with a frantic, worshipping urgency. His mouth mapped her collarbone, his tongue leaving a burning trail up her neck that made her arch into him with a helpless whimper.
He pushed her blouse off her shoulders, his hands finding the bare, heated skin beneath. With a ragged exhale, he traced the curve of her breast, his thumb circling until he found the hard, sensitive pick. He dipped his head, taking the tight peak into the hot, wet heat of his mouth, the deliberate, agonizing friction drawing a shattered gasp of his name from her lips.
Audrey was entirely undone. She tore at the buttons of his Henley, her cold fingers seeking the blistering heat of his chest. Every touch was an electric shock, burning away the ghosts of the past, replacing the agony with a pure, blinding fire.
He dropped to his knees in the dim hallway. His hands gripped her hips tightly, holding her in place as he pressed his face to her stomach, before lowering further. When his mouth found her, devouring her center with a desperate, worshipping heat, Audrey’s head fell back against the wall. A shattered, feral cry tore from her throat as the pleasure crashed over her in suffocating, violent waves.
Before she could completely shatter, Nate stood up, his breathing ragged. He swept her into his arms, carrying her thefew short steps into the bedroom. They fell onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs, the last of their clothes discarded in a blind, breathless rush.
There was no gentle seduction. There was only a harsh, urgent need. Nate positioned himself above her, the muscles in his shoulders corded tight, his face a mask of beautiful agony. He reached blindly for his discarded jeans, his hands shaking slightly as he tore open a foil packet and rolled the condom into place.
When he finally pushed inside her, the sensation was so intense, so overwhelmingly consuming, that they both gasped simultaneously—a sharp, desperate intake of air that stole the remaining oxygen from the room.
"Look at me," Nate demanded, his voice a hoarse, guttural rasp, his hands pinning her wrists gently above her head, anchoring her to the bed. "Audrey, open your eyes. Look at me."
She forced her heavy eyelids open. Through the blur of pleasure and tears, she saw his hazel eyes locked onto hers, burning with an intensity that tethered her soul to the earth.
"I'm here," he whispered fiercely, leaning down to lick a tear from the corner of her eye. He began to move, driving into her with a heavy, relentless rhythm that shattered the very last remnants of her grief into a million pieces. "I've got you."
Audrey surrendered completely to the storm. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, losing herself in the absolute, devastating perfection of their shared pleasure.
Chapter 16
Audrey
Consciousness returned to Audrey not with a sudden jolt, but with a slow, disorienting warmth.
The light filtering through the unfamiliar bedroom blinds was pale and sharp, casting thin, horizontal shadows across the tangled white sheets. For a brief, suspended second, her analytical mind struggled to process the sensory data. Her bed at home was massive, pristine, and freezing. This bed was narrow, chaotic, and entirely consumed by the blistering, heavy heat of another human being.
A heavy, muscular arm was draped securely over her bare waist, anchoring her flush against a broad chest. The slow, rhythmic rise and fall of breathing moved against her spine. The air in the small room smelled of old wood, bergamot, and the distinct, heavy musk of everything they had done in the dark.
The memories of the night before rushed in, entirely bypassing her defenses.
Audrey squeezed her eyes shut, her pulse suddenly fluttering like a trapped bird against her ribs. She remembered the desperate, breathless collision in the hallway. Sheremembered the blinding heat, the whispered confessions, and the absolute, staggering surrender that had reduced her rigid control to ash.
She waited for the regret to hit her. She braced herself for the crushing, toxic wave of shame that was supposed to follow a reckless, impulsive mistake.
But the regret never came.
The profound, physical ache in her body was a testament to the fact that for the first time in months, she had felt entirely, undeniably alive. She didn't regret the fire. She didn't regret the way Nathaniel had looked at her, or the way he had meticulously, thoroughly dismantled her grief.
