Chapter 23 #3
He has to swallow back the building emotion as she reaches between them, sheathing him with the condom. He’s hard and aching for her, has been since he was on his knees with her legs around his neck. Incredible, really, that he can feel so many things for her at once.
With his cock gripped in one hand, he nudges her entrance, drags himself through her slickness. And there, watching the way she reacts to him, the flutter of her lashes and the quiver of her mouth—his confidence comes back.
“Beg me again,” he says, because there might not be a single thing he loves more in the world.
“Please. I need to feel you, I need—”
He doesn’t break her gaze as he slides in, pulling a gasp from her throat, or maybe from his, and—god, she feels absolutely unreal. Warm and wet, squeezing him just right.
On a heavy exhale, his body stills. Half because he wants to give her a moment to adjust. Half because he’s certain he’ll be done too quickly if he goes too fast. He lowers his body to hers, placing one hand on the bed and tangling the other in her hair.
Drops his mouth to her neck while she presses fingertips into his shoulders.
He hopes she leaves a hundred half-moon imprints behind.
“You feel…really fucking fantastic.”
“So do you,” she whispers.
Nick lets himself sink deeper. Slowly. Gently. She’s so beautiful like this, her hair wild and her legs wrapped around his waist. Every inch he gives her, he feels the tightest thread unspool inside him, until he’s fully seated inside her. “Talk to me?”
“Hi,” she says with this sweet, airy laugh, and it makes him laugh too, remembering their awkward greeting when she first arrived. “I’m not sure why that was my first instinct.”
“Well, hi. You’re good?”
“Very. Never been better.”
When she makes a desperate little motion with her hips, he pulls back for only a second before he thrusts himself forward. That instant pleasure—he sees it reflected on her own face, mouth falling open and pulse flickering in her throat. He kisses her, wet and rough and utterly out of his mind.
“More,” she says against his lips, and he’s always loved following directions. He moves his hips faster, burrows deeper. “I feel like we’re both about to become extremely unproductive. Because—oh my god—I’m going to want to do this every time we’re together.”
“That can definitely be arranged. Productivity is—overrated.” Now it’s his turn to trip over his words. “Oh—fuck.”
The new rhythm turns them both frantic, clenched fists and gritted teeth and the slick, vital snap of their bodies.
Maybe she’s the reason nothing has felt right for so long: because it was always supposed to be the two of them, stumbling alone in the dark before their worlds collided in a burst of light.
He’s already embarrassingly close—or maybe it’s not embarrassing, but he’s not about to finish without her. So he flips them over and then immediately wonders if this was a terrible idea, because the sight of Ramona on top of him is obscene in the very best way.
She leans forward, the ends of her hair skimming his chest. A kiss planted to his racing heart. “You want me to ride you?”
“Yes. Please,” he says, running a hand along the curve of her ass. “You set the pace. Fuck me however you want.”
With her eyes locked to his, she lifts her hips to readjust his cock inside her. He misses her heat for only an instant before she’s grinding back down on him, taking him deeper than he’s been so far. Christ. He’s not sure how much longer he can hold on.
“You just”—a gasp as she rocks harder—“you’re going to have to write me a note or something, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to do any of my homework again. Ever. Just—too obsessed with you.”
Obsessed. The confession turns him inside out, even as he fights a laugh at the idea of writing a note to himself.
“Absolutely. Consider it done.”
He brings his hand to her mouth, thumbing at her bottom lip before she sucks his finger inside. Sinks her teeth into his skin. Once she releases him, he drops his thumb to her clit—and nearly shatters when she throws her head back on a moan.
“That’s it, honey,” he says as he strokes her, remembering how she reacts to his praise. Like each word is liquid gold. “Take exactly what you need. You’re so gorgeous like this. So fucking perfect.”
Now the sparks climbing his spine are just as urgent as the whimper in her throat.
She rides him faster as he drags his hips up to meet hers.
Push and pull. Give and take. They’re damp with sweat, a flush spreading from her face down between her breasts, and he lunges forward to put his tongue right there.
Her words from earlier in the night ring back in his head. I really like you. You have no idea how much.
He does have an idea, he thinks. Because his feelings for her are their own gravitational pull, yanking him closer, closer, closer.
When she falls apart on top of him, it’s brash and loud and unapologetic—all his favorite things. He meets her there a moment later, the orgasm crashing through him as they press their foreheads together, breathing each other in.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says when he finds his voice. “I think I’m obsessed with you too.”