Traitor.
I stripped down to my boxers, quiet and efficient, and slid in behind her, careful, keeping the mattress as still as possible.
The second I drew her closer, she responded.
Not awake. Not even close. Just instinct—a soft, sleepy sound, and then she was pressing back into me, easy and unthinking, like the question had already been answered.
There it was again. That pull. Stronger now, and a hell of a lot harder to dismiss than it had been on the roof.
I settled my arm around her waist, and her warmth bled into my skin until I stopped being able to locate the boundary between us. Her breathing stayed steady against me.
Whatever this was, it didn’t operate by any rules I recognized. No urgency. No sharp edges. Just warmth and weight, and the slow, creeping certainty that if I didn’t move soon, I’d stop wanting to.
My thumb traced a slow trail across the bare skin of her hip. Her breath shifted—barely, just a soft catch at the edge of sleep—and something low in me responded to that. I let my thumb continue its path anyway. Some part of me had already stopped pretending it intended to stop.
For now, I told myself. I needed sleep—real sleep, not the shallow, vigilant half-rest I usually managed. The next storm would come, and when it did, we’d need to move fast. I couldn’t do that running on empty. This line of thinking served no tactical purpose, not while she was warm against me.
That’s what I told myself.
I let my eyes close.
Her breathing had gone slow and even against my chest—she had no idea what that did to me—and with her tucked against me, I stopped fighting it.
And let myself drift.
Twenty Three
When This Happens Again, Not If -Libby
Iwoke to his mouth on my neck—as if he’d decided where to put it long before I opened my eyes.
Then his hand.
It slid over my stomach, fingers trailing lower, leaving heat in their wake, until they brushed the waistband of my panties, and I sucked in a sharp breath as they slipped inside.
He pushed in without preamble—two thick fingers, deep.
The sound that escaped me was embarrassing, low, and open-mouthed. I was soaked, slick, and throbbing.
“Fuck, Libby.” His mouth pressed hot against the shell of my ear, his voice rough with sleep and something darker, hungrier, underneath it. “I’m sorry. I tried to let you sleep.” His fingers stroked inside me, knuckles pressing where I was most sensitive, and my hips jerked off the mattress. “Apparently, I lose my goddamn mind when it comes to you.”
I gasped, my back arching, but he didn’t give me space for it. His free hand clamped over my hip, pressing deep enough to bruise—claiming—and the roughness pulled a sound from me I hadn’t intended. My thoughts scattered before I could catch them. This version of him—greedy, half-feral with want—undid me.
“Finn—” I started, but a low, guttural growl cut me off. He flipped me onto my back in one smooth motion, pulled my panties down my legs, and before I’d drawn another full breath, his hands shoved my thighs apart—obscenely wide—and his mouth descended on me.
No warm-up. No teasing. No concession to patience whatsoever.
His tongue slid up my entire length in one slow, devastating stroke—tasting everything, taking everything—then his lips sealed around my clit, and he sucked hard. A sound I didn’t recognize tore from my throat, raw and broken and loud enough that I should have cared, but couldn’t get close to it.
“Fuck—Finn!” My hands flew to his hair, fingers knotting in the dark strands and gripping tight. My hips bucked against his face on pure instinct—desperate, seeking—but he growled against my skin and slammed his forearm across my lower belly, pinning me flat with a strength that sent shivers through me. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t squirm. Couldn’t escape a single thing his mouth inflicted on me.
His tongue turned ruthless—flicking, circling in fast, relentless strokes while he sucked in a steady, maddening rhythm, drawing my swollen flesh deep into the heat of his mouth as if he had nowhere else to be. He pushed two fingers back inside me without warning, and immediately set a brutal pace—pumping, targeting that spot. White light fractured behind my eyes.
“Oh god—right there—don’t stop.” My voice splintered into something high and unrecognizable. He didn’t stop. The suction on my clit intensified, exquisitely painful, while his fingers drove into me with rough, unrelenting thrusts. The slick sounds of my body filled the room alongside my ragged breathing. Every time the intensity climbed too high and my hips tried to twist away, his forearm pressed down harder, pinning me, forcing me to take every last thing he chose to give.
He pulled back just long enough to spit directly onto my clit—hot, unashamedly filthy—then his mouth crashed back down, his tongue even more vicious than before. His fingers drove deeper until I sobbed his name into the dark room as if it were the only word I still knew. My entire body burned, pleasure so acute it dissolved the line between exquisite and unbearable. My inner walls clenched around his fingers as another wave built.
He growled—a deep, vibrating sound that shot straight through my core—and sucked my clit between his lips again, his tongue rubbing the swollen tip in rapid, merciless flicks while his fingers hit that spot inside me without a single concession to mercy.
