Page 113 of A Sweet Destruction

Surely, this was a dream, nothing more than my deepest fantasies. Surely, this wasn’t my reality.

“There’s, um,” I swallowed, suddenly feeling a pinch of nerves. “It’s only been you.”

I don’t know what I expected, but the look of near glee that lit Ford’s expression was not it. I couldn’t help commenting on it.

“I’d understand if there was someone before me, that’s not it,” Ford said, hands massaging my thighs in a way that made it very difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. There was a slight edge to his voice that betrayed him. “But, yes, I’m relieved to know there was no once since. Even with everything…”

Suddenly, there was a horrible, bone-deep wash of panic that swept over me. “Please don’t tell me if you—” my throat closed over the words. Intrusive thoughts slammed into me from all sides, imagining what Ford may have done when he went to visit his family, if he’d ever snuck out or— “I don’t want to know.”

It was probably a little childish, but I didn’t care.

“Esme,” Ford said, yanking on my legs so that I was swept under him. He placed a hand on either side of my head and bent down, bringing our noses nearly to touch. This close, with his pupils this dilated, it was like staring into the night sky. “There has been no one else since the day I met you.”

“It would have been okay if you had,” I lied, not even entirely sure where it was coming from. Maybe guilt that he’d felt some type of duty to me, when from his perspective, I had been an equal partner in the rejection of the Bond.

I felt Ford’s laugh on my mouth. “No, I don’t think it would have been.” He bent down to lick across my lips, causing a sharp spike of desire at my core that had me digging my nails into his wrist. “Need I remind you what happened a few days ago?”

“Oh, shut up,” I said against his mouth, knowing I’d lost the battle and, honestly, not even caring anymore. All that seemed important was accomplishing my goal of fusing our bodies together.

Ford seemed happy to comply, chasing my lips for another deep kiss. His entire body moved in time with his mouth, which brought our hips flush together.

I could feel him against me, the heat of his length even more intense than I could have imagined. Before I could make quick work of taking off his boxers, Ford ripped his mouth from mine and started trailing hot kisses down the length of my neck.

My head tipped back on instinct, giving him easier access. I didn’t feel all that in control of my body, spun past the point of awareness, but I was pretty sure my hand looped around the back of his neck and threaded through his hair. I might have pulled a little bit.

I was sure that I had done so when Ford groaned against the skin of my upper chest. I felt the vibration in every corner of my being.

Everything started to move a little faster, then. Ford’s movements became more hurried, more of a continuous pass of heat over my chest then breasts then stomach.

My body was starting to move in a desperate way, my hips tipping up and back, not quite able to get what I wanted in either direction. They slowed under Ford’s grip, his hands settling on either side and gripping tight.

Ford looked up at me again, holding my eyes for one prolonged beat, searching for my okay. I was going to kill him if he hesitated a second longer, and told him so.

With a smile that had my insides buzzing even more intensely, Ford pushed my legs apart and licked up my center.

The sound that left my throat was inhuman. When his lips closed around my clit, I managed a broken, “Oh my God.”

I was having a hard time understanding how something could feel this good. This had to the Bond or something about Ford in particular, because this was past the point of belief. Ford seemed to know exactly what to do to wind me higher and higher, focusing on long, suctioning pulls at the apex of my thighs and teasing the core of me with two fingers.

I could feel myself barreling towards release, and something about that felt wrong. I wanted him inside me.

“Ford,” I tried, but he was undeterred from his mission. If anything, it felt like he knew I was going to ask him to stop and was digging his heels in. Every place he touched me inched up in intensity, punctuated with a poignant nip at my center that made my vision black out for a second.

I had no choice but to start pulling on his hair, grappling with him to try and pull him up to me. “Ford.”

That made his eyes rise to mine, but he didn’t move just yet. He flattened his tongue and took his sweet time leaving me, before finally, finally moving to rise over me again.

The second he was in reach, I pulled his face to mine. Our foreheads rolled together as we both tried to catch our breath.

“I want to feel you,” I said.

I’d seen Ford bleeding in a hundred different ways, and I still didn’t think I’d seen as pained of an expression on his face as I did in that moment. “Baby, I’m trying really hard to stay in control right now. Please don’t beg. I’ll lose it.”

Well, that was just asking for it. “Please.”

In a borderline inhuman feat, Ford had his boxers off and was back over me in a second. For all my insistence, I clearly wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like for him to come back to me and for the length of him to push up against the crease of my thigh and rest on my pelvis.

We both reached down at the same time, though I beat Ford to it. My hand curled over the length of him and the groan that spilled out of his lips made me feel like I could lift a hundred times my weight.