April moaned. Liam's expression shifted, the careful control fracturing.
"God," he breathed, and the rawness in his voice was so unlike his usual refined tone that April felt it everywhere. "You're perfect. Absolutely perfect."
He moved like nothing else was happening, slow deep thrusts that stayed with her body and nowhere else. Each stroke measured, like he was learning exactly what pulled gasps from her. The angle created a pressure that built with each movement. She could feel him everywhere, stretching her, filling her, the friction making her thighs shake.
He gripped her hips, pulling her into each stroke. The rhythm was controlled, but she could see what it cost him—the tension in his jaw, sweat beginning at his brow. His hips snapped forward harder, and she heard him grunt. She clenched around him.
"I thought—" His voice broke slightly, the cultured drawl fracturing into something raw. "I thought I could be civilized about this."
He watched her expression change when he shifted his hips, cataloguing the exact moment her mouth parted.
The pace increased, the Sterling composure dissolving with each thrust.
The pressure built from his cock hitting that spot with each stroke. Inner muscles drew him deeper, nerve endings firing with each drag of his length against slick inner walls.
"Turns out," Liam said, breathing harder now, his voice wrecked, "I was catastrophically wrong."
He adjusted his hips once.
Her breath caught on the next stroke.
"There," he murmured, almost to himself. "That's the angle."
One hand left her hip.
Found hers.
Fingers slid over hers, then threaded through, palm to palm.
He moved again, still holding her.
And the careful precision gave way to something more desperate. More honest.
"I want to watch you touch yourself," he said.
April's hand flew to her clit, and the combination of his cock inside her and her own fingers drove her higher, fast.
"That's it," Liam gasped, his rhythm faltering, the last of his control unraveling. The polished words were gone. Broken sounds, grunts and half-formed curses that didn't sound like him at all. "I want to feel you."
"I need to feel you," Liam said, and his voice finally broke. "Please."
It pulled from her like a promise. Her fingers clenched in his. Her inner walls tightened around him, and he thrust harder, faster, palms locked together, until he came with a shudder and her name.
He pulled out slowly, breathing hard, looking stunned, he'd surprised himself with how thoroughly he'd lost control. Neither of them moved.
His thumb brushed her cheekbone.
"Thank you," he said, and the formality was gone from his voice, leaving honest vulnerability.
April reached for him and pulled him down into a desperate embrace, arms clinging to him, head against his chest like she could remove every inch of space between them. When they broke apart, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her, forehead resting against hers. Around them, the room had gone quiet, giving them the moment even though the clock was still running.
After a long breath, Liam helped her sit up and pressed a kiss to her forehead before stepping back.
"Time?" he managed, voice still wrecked.
Sterling heir on his knees, coming apart for her. Add it to the collection of moments she'd replay later when this was over and she was back to being regular April who made bad relationship choices and ate lunch alone.
"Seventeen minutes, eighteen seconds," Arthur reported.
