I slow my thrusts, giving her a moment to come down from her peak, then withdraw completely. She whimpersat the loss, looking back at me over her shoulder, her face flushed and eyes glazed with pleasure.
“Turn over,” I command, already helping her shift onto her back. “I want to see your face when you come again.”
She complies, spreading her legs for me as I position myself between them. This time when I enter her, it’s slower, more deliberate, watching her face as I fill her inch by inch. Her mouth falls open in a silent moan, her eyes locked on mine, and the connection between us in that moment is so intense it nearly breaks me.
“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, bracing my weight on my forearms, caging her beneath me. “So fucking perfect.”
I start moving again, finding a rhythm that’s less frantic but no less intense. My mouth finds hers in a deep, passionate kiss that swallows her moans. When we break for air, I trail my lips down her neck, stopping to suck a mark just below her ear.
“Anthony,” she breathes, her nails digging into my back through my shirt.
I slip a hand between us, finding her clit, still swollen and sensitive from her first orgasm. “Come on, baby,” I urge, circling the bundle of nerves with my thumb. “Be a good girl and come on my cock.”
Her body responds instantly to my words, her back arching off the chair as another orgasm rips through her. This time, I let myself follow her over the edge, my hips jerking erratically as I spill inside her, filling her with pulse after pulse of my release.
“Fuck, Lila,” I groan, collapsing on top of her, careful to keep most of my weight on my arms.
We lie there for a moment, our breathing gradually slowing, bodies still connected. I press soft kisses to herface, her neck, anywhere I can reach. A gentler counterpoint to the roughness of our lovemaking.
When I finally pull out, I watch my come start to leak from her, a primal part of me deeply satisfied by the sight. She’s marked inside and out as mine now.
“Stay here,” I tell her, pressing one more kiss to her lips. “I’ll get something to clean you up.”
She nods, looking too blissed out to move anyway. I tuck myself back into my jeans and head to the bathroom attached to the library, wetting a washcloth with warm water and grabbing a dry towel. When I return, she’s in the same position, a contented smile playing at her lips.
“Feel better?” I ask, gently cleaning between her legs.
“Much.” She sighs as I tend to her, the intimacy of this moment just as powerful as the sex we just had. “I think I’ve successfully made a new memory here.”
I laugh, helping her sit up and straighten her clothes. “Happy to be of service.”
Once she’s put back together, we turn our attention to the books. She moves around the room with new energy, pulling volumes from the shelves and placing them carefully in the boxes. I follow her lead, helping where I can, struck by how much more at ease she seems now, how the tension that gripped her when we first arrived has melted away.
“This one was my favorite,” she says, handing me a worn paperback with a dark cover. “I read it the night you first watched me through the window. I could feel you out there, you know.”
“I hoped you couldn’t,” I admit, taking the book from her. “I thought I was being stealthy.”
She laughs, the sound echoing in the room. “Not even close. But I wasn’t scared, strangely enough. It felt... different from when Eli watched me. Less threatening, somehow.”
We work in comfortable silence for a while, filling box after box with her collection. Romance novels, thrillers, classics, poetry, her taste is eclectic and fascinating. Another glimpse into the complex woman I’ve fallen in love with.
By the time we’ve worked our way through half of one wall, the boxes are full, stacked by the door ready to be loaded into her car.
“We’re going to need more boxes,” I observe, looking at the still-packed shelves.
Lila nods, surveying what’s left. “I didn’t realize I had quite so many.”
“Want me to run back to the print shop and grab more boxes? You can stay here and sort through what you want to take next. You don’t have to stay here alone if you don’t want to.”
She considers this for a moment, then nods. “That would be great. The keys are in my purse on the chair. Could you drop these books at Mia’s while you’re out so we have room in the car?”
I kiss her quickly, grabbing her keys. “Yup, I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Keep sorting and think about what new memories you want to make when I get back.”
“I like the sound of that,” she says.
I fill the back of her car with the boxes of books we’d packed and head for the door one last time before heading out. My heart is so full of pride for her. This is a huge step in her healing and I’m so glad I could be a part of it.
36
