Once she’s seated fully, she leans forward, her damp skin pressing against my chest, her hair veiling us both. She doesn'tmove. She just stays there, buried deep, letting the pulse of her body mock my desperate need for rhythm.
"Don't move," she whispers.
"You’re playing with fire," I rasp, my hands hovering over her hips, itching to take back the pace, to flip her over and finish this the way I started it. My control is a thin glass thread, vibrating with the effort of not bucking upward.
"I'm the one holding the match," she counters.
She begins to move in a slow, grinding circle of her hips that makes my vision go white at the edges. It’s an agonizingly delicious friction, hitting every nerve ending with a precision that’s almost cruel. She’s milking the breath from my lungs.
I reach up, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her waist, trying to urge her faster, but she bats my hands away. She leans back, her spine arching, her breasts high and proud as she continues that torturous, slow grind.
"I didn't say you could touch," she murmurs, her voice a low, lush vibration that hits me harder than the physical contact.
I’m a man of shadows, but right now, I’m burning up in her light. I can feel the pressure coiling in my gut, a heavy, molten weight that’s becoming impossible to contain. Every time she slides up, nearly losing me, only to sink back down with a wet, heavy thud, I lose another piece of my mind.
I’ve had enough of her games. The thread finally snaps.
I reach up and seize her waist. Heaving her upward, I flip her in one fluid motion, the world spinning for a heartbeat before she’s facedown against the back of the velvet chair, her weight supported by the plush fabric and her own trembling hands.
I’m on her in an instant, a dark shadow reclaiming its territory. I don't wait for her to settle. I drive into her from behind.
"You want to hold the match?" I growl, my voice hot against the back of her neck. I wrap one hand into the mess of her hair, pulling just enough to arch her spine, while my other hand reaches around to find the slick, sensitive heat of her center. "Then watch it burn."
I set a pace that is pure, unadulterated wreck. The chair groans under the slap of skin on skin, and the sound and the sight of her drives me on. I can feel her fighting for breath, her fingers clawing at the velvet, but she isn't pulling away. She’s pushing back, her hips meeting mine with a frantic, desperate hunger that tells me she’s loving every second of the ruin I'm wreaking.
"Please," she sobs, the word a shattered thing. "Yes—just like that. More."
Her plea is the final spark. I pick up the speed, my movements becoming a blur of friction and heat. I’m buried so deep, I can feel the frantic thrum of her pulse against me. I reach down, my thumb finding that hardened, electric peak and moving in a fast circle that matches the heavy thud of my hips.
She breaks first.
I feel the first tremor start deep inside her as she lets out a long, high-pitched moan, her head falling forward as her body gives up its last defense, shattering into a thousand shards of pure pleasure.
The sensation of her coming around me is the end of my world.
The dark, heavy tide I’ve been holding back for an eternity finally bursts the dam. I let out a low, guttural roar, my eyes slammingshut as I drive into her one last, final time, burying myself to the hilt. Everything turns to white noise and molten gold.
I collapse against her back, my heart a dying bird against my ribs, our skin slick and fused together in the cooling air.
I don’t move for a few seconds, just letting my pulse settle so I don’t treat her like an opponent when this part is done. She’s breathing hard, hair everywhere, skin flushed. I reach for the blanket on the arm of the chair and pull it over her shoulders. “You okay?” I ask.
She nods once. “Yeah.”
I brush her hair off her face with the back of my fingers and check her eyes. She looks satisfied. I grab the bottle of water from the table and hand it to her.
“You’re quiet,” she says after a minute.
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
I sit back on the edge of the chair and rest my elbows on my knees. “About whether this is smart.”
She studies me instead of reacting. “And?” she asks.
“It isn’t,” I say honestly.
She smiles and takes a sip, and I immediately notice that her hands aren’t shaking. She’s not nervous about any of this, especially considering the fact that Iknowshe’s hiding something, and there’s more to her than just a pretty face with a killer body and even better brains.
