Reaching up, I placed my hand between her breasts, feeling for the soft thud of her heartbeat. It was there, strong and steady, as was my own. They synced, the thudding inside me and the tempo in her chest, and the same sense of calm that I felt when kissing her washed over me.
I didn’t know how she could do this, or what about her made me feel like this. I only knew that now I felt it, I didn’t want to lose it. I couldn’t lose it. Grazing over both her breasts, I traveled lower, tracing the small scar on her abdomen before pushing away the blanket entirely.
I should have let her sleep. Fuck, I should have been sleeping, but I wanted to see it one more time before I let the nightmares consume me. I needed to see it and I needed to feel it. Because, shit, there were no more guarantees, only that death was coming for us all. And if death was coming for me sooner rather than later, I was goddamn going to see that look on her face as much as I could before it took me.
Pushing her thighs apart, I looked my fill of her, still slightly awed and angered that she’d actually come back here. Why had she come back? And what the fuck was she thinking coming back here for me?
She didn’t actually give a fuck about me, did she? And if she did, I couldn’t figure out why. I hadn’t exactly done much in the way of ensuring that would happen. Or had I?
I didn’t know; I didn’t fucking know these things. True, I’d been with many women, but I’d only ever been with one I gave a shit about.
Was that what this was? Was I giving a shit again? I didn’t want to answer that. No, fuck that, I refused to answer that. Forget that I already knew the answer, I wasn’t going to say it and I wasn’t going to think it. Whatever this was, it just was. I wasn’t going to give it a name, because giving it a name would give it a voice. And I didn’t need any more voices inside my head.
It was just me wanting her, and her wanting me. It didn’t need to be anything more. I couldn’t handle it being anything more.
“Wake up,” I said, and nudged her. “Squirrel, wake the fuck up.”
Her eyes opened just a fraction as her lips worked silently. “Mmm.”
Leaning over her, I dropped my head and pressed my face against her neck. As I sucked her soft skin into my mouth, I cupped her between her legs.
Her arms came up around me as she grew wet beneath my fingers. Just barely awake, and she was already ready and wanting. Laughing silently, I pushed her back and sat up beside her. She muttered a soft, mewling sound of protest but remained as she was, just lying there, watching me and waiting.
Sliding one finger up inside her, I watched as her breathing hitched and her eyelids flickered. My heartbeat picked up and my body tensed. I might have been spent, but I wasn’t immune to her. Not at all.
“Sore?” I asked.
She nodded.
Good, I thought, grinning as I pushed another finger inside her.
In and out I slid my fingers, picking up speed, hungrily watching the changes in her expression, the way her muscles tightened and loosened, and the damn near growling moans she was trying and failing to suppress.
Her thighs clenched around my hand, making it harder to move. Her head lolled to one side and her eyes began to close. Maneuvering myself over top of her, I grabbed her chin and forced her face to me.
I wanted to see it.
I needed to see it.
Working her faster, I watched as she struggled, trying to keep her eyes open, trying to keep them locked with mine, when all they wanted to do was close.
Her moans became cries, and then her cries turned breathless and panting. She was in the thick of it now, in the eye of the storm. One of her hands wrapped around my wrist, and the other fisted the blanket beside her. Her body arched, her breathing stopped, and ...
There it was. That was what I’d wanted. That was the high I’d been chasing. The look in her glossed-over eyes as she blinked up at me and her body relaxed beneath me. It was the look that made me feel something other than dead inside. It was a look that sent a surge of greedy strength and power straight through me.
It was a look that told me she gave a shit without me having to hear the words, and more importantly, without forcing me to say them back.
“Go back to sleep,” I told her as I pulled the blanket up to her chin. “I got shit to do.”
Pushing myself off the mattress, I turned away from her and shoved my hand down my jeans, adjusting my half-hard dick.
“E?”
Glancing over my shoulder, I found Autumn with her eyes closed and her mouth wide open in a yawn.
“What?”
She cracked an eyelid. “Good night,” she said sleepily, and within moments she was snoring again.
