Maggie couldn’t stop touching — Gwen’s shoulders, her jaw, the smooth line of her back. All the restraint, the distance, the cold civility of the past months — gone. Torched.
Gwen kissed her like she was reclaiming something. Maggie kissed back like she was setting fire to it.
Then Gwen lifted her, easy, strong. Maggie let out a startled laugh that dissolved into a groan as Gwen carried her into the room, dropping her onto the untouched of the two queen beds.
“You still mad?” Gwen asked, hovering above her, voice low and ragged.
Maggie stifled a grin, still defiant but breathless. “Furious.”
And then Gwen was on her again, and the rest dissolvedinto heat, hands, mouths, years of longing crashing into the present.
They were all teeth and hands and years of frustration, every kiss edged with anger, every touch like proof they still knew each other’s bodies too well to pretend otherwise. Gwen’s mouth dragged down her throat, sucking hard enough to bruise, and Maggie arched into it, half moan, half challenge.
“You’re infuriating,” Gwen muttered against her skin.
“Good thing you like that,” Maggie shot back, gasping as Gwen’s hands gripped her hips, holding her down.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was frantic, clawing, Maggie’s sleep shorts and Gwen’s pants stripped and tossed aside like none of it mattered except skin against skin. Gwen’s weight pressed her into the mattress, solid and grounding, but her touch was everywhere at once — urgent, greedy, like she couldn’t get enough.
Maggie clawed back, nails in Gwen’s shoulders, teeth at her jaw. The taste of her, the heat of her. It was too much and not enough. They rolled, Maggie straddling her, riding the line between fury and hunger. Gwen’s hands gripped her thighs, guiding, demanding, as if neither of them could decide who was in charge.
They kissed until Maggie’s lips ached, until her chest heaved, until she was sure she’d break apart from the sheer force of it.
She shifted until she was riding Gwen’s thigh, taking her own pleasure from Gwen’s body, her hair dripping and Gwen’s fingers tracing the droplets down her breasts, her stomach.
It was all sensation — skin slick with sweat, the rasp of Gwen’s hair against her cheek as she bent, the salt of her collarbone under Maggie’s tongue. The hotel sheets tangled around them, twisting as they fought for control, neithergiving it up, both desperate to win and desperate to lose at the same time.
“You drive me insane,” Gwen muttered, and Maggie could feel the words hot against her ear, could feel the tremor of it all the way through her.
“Good,” Maggie gasped, rocking against her harder, reckless, drunk on the power of Gwen’s hands clutching like she’d never let go.
It wasn’t tender. It was raw and fast and too much, every movement building like a storm, their breaths colliding, bodies slamming together like they were trying to bruise the distance out of each other.
The intensity of Gwen’s eyes as she watched Maggie was enough to make Maggie squeeze her eyes shut. Gwen finally held her hips, pushed her over the edge of orgasm. When everything broke open, it was with a desperate, angry tenderness that undid her.
Maggie clung to Gwen, trembling, hating and loving her in the same breath.
Gwen kissed her like she was angry about it, teeth scraping Maggie’s lower lip hard enough to sting. Maggie bit back, a hiss against Gwen’s mouth, and the sound only seemed to make her hungrier.
But they didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Because months of restraint had snapped, and now they were just two people devouring each other, desperate to feel, desperate not to lose the thread.
Every time Maggie thought they’d die from exhaustion, Gwen pulled her back under, mouth at her neck, hands roaming like she was memorizing every inch all over again. And Maggie gave it back — messy, greedy, biting hard enough to make Gwen curse against her skin.
The room smelled like sweat and perfume, the sheets kicked half off the bed, tangled around their legs. Maggie was vaguely aware of her own gasps and broken sounds shewould’ve been embarrassed by if Gwen hadn’t been answering them with her own.
They flipped again, Maggie pressed into the mattress, Gwen above her, steady and relentless as she spread Maggie’s knees, watching as her fingers slid inside, her thumb circling exactly where Maggie needed it. Then Maggie clawed at her, dragged her down, rolled them over, the two of them locked in this constant struggle of want.
By the third orgasm — or fourth, she lost count — her body was trembling, slick with heat, throat raw from moaning Gwen’s name like it was the only word she still remembered.
And Gwen — god, Gwen — looked wrecked. Hair plastered to her temples, lips swollen, eyes dark and unguarded in a way Maggie had never seen.
They kept going until sleep finally overtook them, until Maggie’s limbs were heavy and her skin hummed, until she collapsed against Gwen’s chest, too wrung out to move. Gwen’s arms came around her automatically, pulling her in, holding her tight.
Maggie wanted to protest — wanted to remind her that she was still furious — but her eyes slid shut instead. The last thing she felt was Gwen’s hand smoothing over her damp hair, steady even now, before sleep pulled her under.
CHAPTER 20
Gwen
