Chapter 11 #2
He gave me more. One finger sliding inside me while his thumb kept working my clit, a rhythm that had me writhing beneath him.
I was making sounds I'd never made before—desperate, keening things that should have embarrassed me but didn't, not when his eyes were dark and hungry and fixed on my face as if he wanted to memorize every reaction.
"Another," I gasped. "Please—"
A second finger joined the one already inside me. He curled them, found a spot that made stars explode behind my eyes.
"There?"
"There, there, don't stop—"
He didn't stop. He fucked me with his fingers, deep and deliberate, his thumb relentless on my clit. The pressure built, coiling tighter, and I was close, so close—
He pulled his hand away.
"What—" I practically sobbed. "Why did you—"
"I want to taste you when you come."
He slid down my body before I could respond. Settled between my thighs. Looked up at me with those gray eyes gone black.
"Okay?"
"If you don't put your mouth on me in the next three seconds, I'm going to—"
His tongue licked a stripe through my center and the threat died in my throat.
He ate me with single-minded focus. No teasing, no preamble—just his mouth on me, tongue working my clit with a dedication that bordered on obscene. My hands flew to his hair, fisting, holding him in place as my hips rolled against his face.
He moaned against me. The vibration shot straight to my core.
"Callum—I'm—"
He sucked my clit into his mouth. Slid two fingers back inside me. Curled them.
I shattered.
The orgasm tore through me, my back bowing off the bed, his name ripping from my throat. He didn't let up—kept licking, kept stroking, drawing out every wave until I was shaking and oversensitive and pulling at his hair to make him stop.
He kissed his way back up my body. I tasted myself on his lips and moaned into his mouth.
"Good?" he asked, and the bastard was smiling.
"Get inside me."
"Condom—"
"Hurry."
He reached over me, fumbled with the drawer. I took the opportunity to shove at his pants, desperate to get him naked. He helped, kicking them off along with his boxer briefs, and—
Oh.
He was big. Thick. Already leaking at the tip.
I wrapped my hand around him and stroked. His whole body shuddered.
"Willow—" His voice cracked. "If you keep doing that, this is going to be over embarrassingly fast."
"Then get the condom on."
He tore the packet with his teeth. Rolled it on with hands that shook. Positioned himself at my wet slit.
Our eyes met.
"I want you," I said. "I want this. Stop being careful and fuck me."
He pushed inside.
The stretch was exquisite—fullness, pressure, the ache of being split open by someone who fit as though he was made for me. I gasped. He groaned, dropping his forehead to mine.
"You feel—" He pulled back, thrust forward, and we both made broken sounds. "God, you feel incredible."
He started to move. Long strokes at the start, giving me time to adjust, but I didn't want gentle. I wrapped my legs around his hips and dug my heels into his ass, urging him deeper.
"Harder."
He gave me harder. His hips snapped against mine, driving into me with a force that rattled the headboard. I clung to his shoulders, nails scoring his back, matching his rhythm with rolls of my hips.
"Willow." My name in his mouth sounded reverent. "Willow, I'm not going to last—"
"Touch me. Make me come again."
His hand slid between us, found my clit, and rubbed. The dual sensation—him inside me, his fingers on me—rebuilt the pressure with oxygen-stealing speed.
"That's it." His voice was ragged, his thrusts turning erratic. "Come for me. Let me feel you—"
I fell apart. The second orgasm hit harder than the one before it, my body clenching around him, pulling him over the edge with me. He buried himself deep and groaned my name as he came, his whole body shuddering, his arms shaking with the effort of not collapsing.
We stayed locked together. Breathing hard. Neither willing to move.
Eventually he shifted, pulling out with a gentleness that made me wince anyway. He dealt with the condom, then collapsed beside me, pulling me against his chest.
Silence. The good kind.
"So," I said.
"So."
"That was..."
"Adequate?"
I laughed—a real one, startled out of me. "I was going to say life-altering. But sure. Adequate works."
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. I felt his chest shake with quiet laughter beneath my ear.
"Three more days," I murmured.
"Hmm?"
"Until my apartment's fixed. Three more days as your temporary roommate."
"Does that arrangement still apply? Given the current circumstances?"
I propped myself up on an elbow, looked down at him. In the low light from the windows, he looked younger. Unguarded. His hair a disaster, his mouth swollen from kissing, his eyes soft in a way I'd never seen during our coffee shop sparring matches.
"What circumstances would those be?" I asked.
"The circumstance where I'm falling for you." His voice was even, but I caught the tremor underneath. "The circumstance where this stopped being an arrangement approximately six minutes after I agreed to it. The circumstance where I want you to stay not as a temporary roommate, but as—"
I kissed him. Cut off the sentence before he could finish it, before the declaration made this more real than I was ready for.
When I pulled back, he raised an eyebrow.
"Too fast?" I said. "I'm scared too. But I don't want to slow down."
"Neither do I."
I settled back against his chest. His heartbeat drummed under my ear—slowing now, drifting toward sleep.
Tomorrow there would be complications. The coffee shop and its dying equipment. Elena's visit looming on the horizon. The expiration date of an arrangement that no longer applied but still hung over us. The seventeen-year gap that didn't bother me but might bother the world.
Tomorrow I'd have to face the reality of falling for a man I'd pretended to date, in an apartment I'd stumbled into by accident, in a life I'd never planned and couldn't control.
But tonight—
Tonight I was exactly where I wanted to be. In Callum Hayes's bed. In Callum Hayes's arms. Feeling more seen and wanted and certain than I'd felt in years.
I closed my eyes.
Slept.
And if I dreamed, I didn't remember—only the warmth of his body against mine and the quiet conviction that whatever came next, I wouldn't be facing it alone.