I almost lost my courage after the third knock, and maybe it would’ve been better if I had, but like I said, sometimes fate has already decided for you.
I heard the swift click of the lock as it came undone and the jiggle of the doorknob as it turned and opened the door.
E stood before me in nothing but thin sweatpants that hung low on his trim waist, with nothing underneath them. His hair was perfectly disheveled, and the dim light cast shadows that made the cuts of his muscles look even more defined. He rubbed one eye as he held the door open and squinted with the other as he tried to make sense of me.
His hand came down to his side, and he licked his lips, pulling them into his mouth as he assessed me. My eyes traveled all over his body. Across the wide span of his chest, over his toned, structured arms, his strong hands I remembered the feel of. They followed down the long trail of his flexed abs that led right to a bold outline of the only thing beneath his thin covering.
He tilted his head back, and looked down the bridge of his nose at me as my eyes snapped up to his.
He took a deep breath and tongued his cheek with a drop of his head as he widened the entrance to let me in.
I turned to face him as he closed the door and leaned against it with his hands in his pockets.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was a sexy rasp, one that confirmed I had woken him. His gaze was guarded and strong, like he was trying to protect himself while he sorted out what I was doing there.
“I know.”
My entire body was buzzing with adrenaline, the effects of alcohol mere remnants in comparison. I took a slow step toward him, closing the small gap between us. He tensed, but he didn’t move. My eyes stayed on his as he looked down at me, then fell to my hands as I placed them on hiswarm, bare chest. I could feel the quickened race of his heart. I could see the depth of his controlled breaths.
Suddenly, I could hear my own heartbeat again, drumming in my ears like a marching band. I could feel the coming relief of that first new breath after suffocating so long.
“What are you doing, Syd?”
“I just…” I swallowed hard, but I didn’t stop. My hands stayed there on his chest, memorizing the feel of him beneath them, the blaze that arose in me when we touched.
His lips parted, and my eyes shot to them. My breath was shaking, but my hands were steady. Sure. I was starting to burn just how I needed to. I was coming alive.
I brought my lips to his chest, and I kissed him softly. He inhaled deeply and bit his lip. His voice was strained and gravelly, like he was being pleasured and tortured at the same time.
“If you want me to stop you, I won’t,” he warned. “I can’t.”
I nodded.
My lips were almost against his. “I know.”
“Tell me what you want, Sydney.”
“You.”
His lips crashed onto mine with force. His hands wrapped into my hair as he pulled my head back and consumed all of me. He lifted me up, effortlessly and quickly, and rushed us into the wall behind me, bracing the impact with his hand. I groaned, moaning into him as his tongue lapped against mine. I broke away and pulled off my camisole in one swift motion, reveling as his hands came tomy breasts and squeezed. His tongue and lips traced between them, over my collarbone, up my neck.
He carried me to his bed, our mouths trapped against each other, and laid me down at the edge of it. His throat vibrated against me as he licked and kissed from my navel, over my breasts, making his way up until he landed at my lips once more.
My hands gripped his hair as I pulled him firmly against me, and I moaned into his mouth when the hardness of him hit the perfect spot. He groaned as he felt me against him. Then he stood up before me and brought my knees together as he reached for the waist of my leggings. I lifted my hips as he pulled them down my legs and threw them to the side. I watched him in awe, breathless with anticipation as he rested my leg against his shoulder. He kissed my ankle, my calf, my knee, my thigh, and he caressed my legs as he worked his way to me, worshipping every inch.
His hand kept working me as he stood up between my thighs. His dark, feverish eyes marveled at me there, naked, in his bed with his hand between my legs. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of him, letting him watch his effect on me as my back arched and my body shivered through the waves of pleasure that washed over me. When my eyes met his again, I sat up and reached for him. My starved body tingled, knowing the want it had always begged for would finally be satisfied. I pulled his pants below his waist, kissing his chest as I moved. I reached and took him into my hands and delighted in the slow, pleasured close of his eyes, the gentle tilt back of his head as I stroked the length of him.
He grabbed my neck and brought my mouth to his in a blaze of passion that burned me all the way through. Hisfingers worked against me firmly, and he swallowed my moans as he gently pressed a finger into me. And then another. He leaned over me, guiding me backward as he laid me down. Then, just as I could take no more, he aligned himself with me and slowly entered me until I was completely full—and then he devoured me.
Our bodies moved in deep, sensual motions that slowly unwound the years of our tangled desire, one crumbled thread at a time.
It was filled with every emotion we ever felt—love and loss and want and need. Regret, and desire. It was all pouring from each of us and into the other. He pressed his forehead against mine and held me close against him as he pushed into me in a steady, earth-shattering rhythm. My legs wrapped around his back, and though he had filled me more than I’d ever been, my body begged for more of him, in every way I could have him. Just as if he’d read my mind, he exited, turned me around, and gave me what I wanted next.
He brought one strong hand to grip my waist, and I arched my back as I pushed back onto him, inviting the new depth. His other hand wrapped into my hair, and I felt my knees grow weak at his touch. He brought his mouth down to my neck as he thrusted into me, and he kissed and sucked his way up to my ear.
“Look at me,” he whispered, his deep gravelly voice radiating through me. He held my hair tightly as he turned my head to meet his gaze. I obliged willingly, and when my eyes met the passion in his, I basked in it.
This was what I wanted. This was what I needed. The anger. The hunger. The desperation. I wanted to feel it all. Iwanted him to make me feel what he had felt, and then I wanted him to let it all go. He thrusted again and the pleasured expression on his face, how his eyes hung lazily and pierced me with fury, how his lip sank beneath his teeth—it sent electric waves through me with a burn I longed for. It was the moment I came completely undone.
