She shoved at her waistband, her movements jerky as pleasure already began to build deep in her core, and he pulled away to help strip them off. When he returned, he settled between her thighs again, his eyes sweeping over her naked body, his other hand stroking the thick outline of his erection beneath his briefs.
“Are you sure you’re ready forme?” she asked, lifting her chin, matching his dare, but she was smiling like an idiot. He grinned, too, and shook his head, leaning over to grab the condom.
“No,” he said. “I’ve wanted you so long, I’m half expecting this to kill me. But there are worse ways to go than buried in that perfect pussy.”
She felt herself flush from head to toe, watching hungrily as he finally ditched his boxer briefs and got fully naked, too. It wasn’t until he started to roll the condom on that she noticed his hands were shaking.
He sat back down on one of the cushions, gently guiding her upright until she was kneeling over his lap, and suddenly—too soon and not nearly soon enough—her world had narrowed tothe sensation of him lining himself against her entrance, of her sinking down slowly, slowly, lighting up nerve endings she didn’t know she had, so impossibly full and deep that she had to fight to catch her breath.
Neither of them moved for an endless moment as they recalibrated to this new reality, foreheads pressed together, their breathing labored, Merritt’s eyelids fluttering.
“God,” she breathed, shifting in his lap, the slight movement enough to draw a groan from deep within his chest. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her as she began to move, the barest motion of her hips sending shivers of pleasure through her. She scraped her fingernails through his hair, sucked at his neck, swallowed his groans on her lips as she increased her range of motion, his hands abandoning their roaming to grip her ass, his hips rocking to meet hers as they found their rhythm.
“Fuck. Hold on. Wait,” he groaned, suddenly lifting her off him and shutting his eyes, gripping the base of his cock. “I need a second.”
Merritt barely had time to process what was happening before he’d nudged her onto her back, hooked his arms behind her knees, and slung her thighs over his shoulders. It all happened so fast that she let out a surprised laugh—quickly overtaken by a moan as his tongue began to work.
She had no complaints about the last time she’d had his face between her legs, but now she fully understood the benefits of undivided attention—on both their parts. Tension built low in her belly, a tight knot of sensation that was almost painful in her need for release.
“Niko,” she whimpered, the wave cresting, her hands clutching helplessly at the blankets next to her as he fucked her with his fingers again. She was so goddamn close.
The warmth of his mouth disappeared, and she cried out inprotest, but he was bracing himself on top of her, pushing into her again in one smooth stroke, and she would’ve been embarrassed about the noise she made if she weren’t too far gone to care. He rolled his hips, setting a deep, languid rhythm, and she was immediately on the edge again, pleasure building endlessly as her nails scraped over his back and shoulders.
“You feel so fucking good.” His voice was a desperate rasp, sending another bolt of pleasure through her. “Tell me what you need.”
“Just this,” she gasped, tilting her hips up, grinding against him at the exact right angle, all that pressure finally reaching an excruciating peak before shattering, turning her into a gasping, shuddering mess beneath him. He let out a strangled moan and his rhythm faltered before he picked up the pace, and she could sense that tension coiling tighter and tighter in him, too, before he finally stilled, thrusting himself as deep into her as he could go, groaning into her neck, her legs holding him tightly to her.
They lay like that for a while, still joined, trading deep, lazy kisses as Merritt traced her fingers up and down his sweat-slicked back.
I love you.
The words tightened her throat like a sob. She forced herself to swallow them down—and not just because the depth and intensity of her feelings terrified her. She’d been fooled by this kind of limerence before, acted thoughtlessly and recklessly under its thrall. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
But mostly because if she said those three words out loud, they’d become a weight around his neck, tethering him to a life he was dead set on moving on from. Who was she to hold him back, when her own life had been saved by the freedom to pick up and start over?
“Still alive?” she murmured instead. He let out a rough laugh that she felt more than heard.
“Barely.” He brushed her hair off her forehead. “I forgot the rose petals.”
“I didn’t even notice.”
Eventually, he got up to deal with the condom, and she sat up, blinking, dazed as she started to gather her clothes. She wished they didn’t have to leave, but it was late, and even though they’d made it as comfortable as possible, her joints already ached from being fucked into the wood floor.
“Do you want to come over and spend the night?” asked Niko, as if reading her mind.
She hesitated. If she went home now, she’d be spared her walk of shame in the morning, slinking back in while Dev and Olivia were eating breakfast.
But what did she care? Now that they knew everything, what did she have to gain by still pretending there was nothing going on? They’d judge her no matter what she did, and at least this way, she’d get to sleep next to Niko for the first time since the power outage.
“Yeah,” she said. “I really do.”
27
Weeks drifted by, dreamy andlazy as a permanent Sunday morning. Niko couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so perpetually dog-scratched-under-its-ears content.
He was with Merritt every day and most nights. When he wasn’t working, they’d hike to the top of the peak, usually getting sidetracked at his favorite lake, stripping off their sweaty clothes and diving into the crystalline water, the bank lined with fir trees as thick as false eyelashes.
He strung up a hammock between two trees on her lawn, and they’d cuddle there together, talking or napping or slowly but surely making their way throughOf Darkness and Destiny.Sometimes they’d watch movies in the evening, Jo or Simon joining when they were home, but just as often, she’d curl up on his lap in his lounger, reading, while he played video games, sneaking a kiss in between levels until he got distracted enough to put his controller down.
