"Give it to me." My hand slides between us, finds her clit, and works it with the same relentless pressure. "Come on. Give it to me, Leah."
She comes apart with my name in her mouth and her whole body convulsing around me, and the feel of her—God, the feel of her tightening and shaking and trusting me with this, trusting me with the messy, ugly, desperate parts of both of us—drags me right over the edge.
I come so hard my knees buckle.
I press her against the dresser and hold us both up with nothing but willpower and shaking arms, and I breathe her name into the curve of her neck like it's the only word I know.
We make it to the bed eventually.
Collapsed on top of the sheets, breathing hard, covered in sweat.
Her legs are tangled with mine and her head is on my chest.
Neither of us speaks for a long time because speaking requires brain function and I'm not sure either of us have any left.
"That was different," she says finally.
"Yeah."
"Different good?"
"Yeah."
She lifts her head. Her hair is a disaster. Her lips are swollen. There are marks on her neck that I put there, and she's wearing them like they belong on her.
"Both," she says. "I want both. The gentle and the—" She gestures vaguely at the dresser, which has moved approximately four inches from the wall. "that."
"I think I can manage that."
"I think you can manage a lot of things, Colton Adkins."
My real name.
Not Coin—Colton.
Angelica said it a dozen times tonight and it sounded like a weapon.
Coming from Leah, in this bed, after everything… it sounds sweet.
A man. Not just a father, not just a brother, not just a Secretary.
A man, with a name, in a bed, with a woman who sees all of him—the controlled parts and the dangerous parts and the desperate, lonely parts underneath—and isn't running.
"Stay," I say.
"You keep saying that."
"I'm going to keep saying it."
"Then I'm going to keep staying." She puts her head back on my chest. Her fingers find the coin on the nightstand. I don't remember putting it there, but it's there, and she picks it up and holds it above us, turning it in the dim light.
"Three generations," she murmurs.
"Three generations."
"Think they'd approve?"
I think about my grandfather. Steady hands. Kitchen table.Figure out what you're actually angry about before you swing.
