“Will you stay?” she asked, and the words nestled into the center of his chest like they’d finally found a soft place to land.
Not ‘you can stay if you want’.
Not ‘do you want to stay?’.
Nate’s throat worked around the sudden tightness there, something raw and reverent blooming beneath his ribs. He nodded. Swallowed.
“Yeah,” he said, quiet and certain. “Of course.”
And then she leaned in and her mouth brushed his like a question she already knew the answer to. Soft. Sure.Absolutely fucking devastating.When she climbed into his lap a few seconds later, straddling him with aching purpose, his breath caught and left him in a sound that was half-exhale, half-prayer.
“Holly,”he rasped… but he was already lost.
She kissed him again, lips melting into his with intent. Her fingers threaded through his hair like she owned it, tugging just enough to tip his head back so she could kiss him more deeply, as though she was trying to memorize the exact way he tasted when he wasn’t braced for it. And fuck,maybe she was.Maybe this was her way of saying all the things she couldn’t find the words for.
Nate’s hands slid to her hips, bracing her as she shuffled closer until her thighs bracketed his hips, the hem of her T-shirt hitching higher with every slow grind of her body against his.Nothing about it was frantic or for show. It wasneednow, not want,and it lived in every brush of her fingers, every flicker of her breath against his lips.
“We don’t have to,” he murmured, even as his hands devoured her. His palms swept over her thighs, up her spine, and down the soft, trembling slope of her waist again, like his hands couldn’t help but chase what his heart already wanted.
“I want to,” she breathed, leaning in. Nate went still, as if his whole body had forgotten how to function under the weight of it. There was no flirt in her voice. Just truth, naked and terrifying.She needed him,not because she was lonely or hurting, or because he’d made himself easy to have. But because shechosehim.
And that? That fucking undid him completely.
He cupped her face with both hands and kissed her like she was oxygen and he’d been drowning for years. Her thighs tightened around him, and his hands slid beneath her T-shirt, caressing her back as he pulled her in tighter, deeper, closer.
She moaned into his mouth, the sound shooting through him like a live wire straight down his spine. Her hands slid beneath his shirt, fingers splaying across his ribs like she needed to anchor herself to something solid, even as her hips rolled down in a rhythm that was all sin and slow destruction.
He was panting before he even realized it, chasing the friction, chasingher. They didn’t rush. Didn’t speak. The air between them was thick with heat and heartache, every movement a vow they hadn’t dared put into words. He undressed her like she might vanish if he moved too fast, like every inch of bare skin revealed was a secret she was trusting him with.
She undressedhimas though she needed to learn him by touch alone, soft movements sweeping over muscle and bone, reverent and relentless. And when he finally slid into her it was slow and deep, a connection that felt like it rewrote something in his chest. Nate let out a groan that startled even himself, a sound dragged from the part of him no one else got to see.
Fuck,he couldn’t breathe. She was sitting in his lap and riding him as though he was her new favorite pastime, tits jiggling right in his face. He leaned in to suckle one of her nipples, making her hiss and grab a fistful of his hair in retribution. His head fell back willingly, because she knewexactlywhat she was doing to him. His blood was on fire, his pulse a thunderclap, and all he could do was hold on, hands braced around her hips, deeper,closer. Riding out the storm that had always been brewing on the horizon between them.
Holly whimpered insistently, and he felt her clamping around his cock like a goddamn vise. Her legs tightened at his hips, pulling him deeper, and Nate couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything butfeel. Her breath stuttered against his mouth, both of her hands in his hair now as though she was afraid he might disappear.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Not now.Not fucking ever.
She moved with him, every slow roll of her body a promise, every shift of her hips designed to unmake him. He was drowning in her. The heat, the scent, the goddamnmiracleof being inside someone who wanted him like this.
“Holly,” he choked, his voice like gravel.
She leaned in, lips against his ear.
“I’m gonna come, Nate,” she murmured breathlessly.
And he felt her fall. Her whole body trembled as she tightened around him, another soft cry escaping her lips as she broke apart in his arms. AndGod, she clung to him, her nails digging into his shoulders like she needed to stay tethered to him. He groaned with sheer disbelief as she rode him all the way through her release, feeling each little fluttering aftershock like a flash of lightning to his core.
His own orgasm hit seconds later, rough and raw andfucking infinite. It tore through him like wildfire, molten and brutal and completely outside his control. He buried his face in her neck, groaning her name like it was the only thing left in the world. His whole body shook with the depth of it, thetruthof it. This wasn’t sex. It wasn’t release.
He was hers. And she’d finally let him be.
Eventually, she stirred, pressed a soft kiss to his cheek… then stood and held out her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Shower?” she murmured, voice still husky from everything they’d just given each other. Nate nodded, throat too full to speak, and followed her down the hall like he was tethered.
She soaped his back in quiet circles, kissed his jaw like she’d done it a hundred times, and threaded her fingers through his wet hair like he was hers to touch. He let her take her time. Let himselfbehers, for as long as she’d let him.
When they were dry, she disappeared and left him blinking in the bathroom’s silence, heart still pounding in a rhythm he didn’t know how to calm. His throat was tight, but he knew he couldn’t rush her. Didn’t dare push or crowd her in, not whenshe was already bearing so much weight. So he dressed slowly, trying to quietly exit before she had to ask him to, and it got awkward. He was finally ready to go, even though every part of himachedto stay.
