Chapter 20
twenty
Stevie
A Few Minutes Later
We don’t talk in the Uber.
Padraig’s hand stays wrapped around mine, warm and unshakable, our fingers meshed together like muscle memory.
The driver whistles along to the radio, Manhattan’s skyline streaks past in fractured neon. Every red light feels like it’s dragging me forward and holding me hostage all at once.
I sneak a glance at him. His gaze is locked on the city rushing by, the muscles in his forearm shifting as his thumb moves slow, steady circles against my skin.
It’s a familiar motion he’s always used to calm me down when life spins out of control.
Exams. Family drama. Scary movies. Late-night fights about the future.
No matter what we’ve gone through, it means, “I’ve got you.”
God, it’s too easy to fall back into the gravity of this man.
The lobby of the Courtyard by Marriott bustles with a surprising number of late check-ins and elevators groaning their way up the shaft.
Padraig doesn’t release my hand as we cross the tile.
Or in the elevator. Or when we step inside the standard room with beige curtains and a generic king bed tucked beneath a washed-out landscape print.
He drops the keycard onto the dresser with a soft clatter and turns toward me. He scans my body and gulps.
I drop his hand and shift back a step, the distance suddenly unbearable and necessary all at once. “Padraig…”
His eyes flicker over me. “I want to see you. To have five minutes without an audience. That’s all.”
“It isn’t all.”
He moves toward me, methodical and intense, until he’s so close I have to tip my chin up to see him. My breath catches when I see the intention in his eyes.
“Stevie…” He sounds unsteady. “I had to bring you here. To see if we can…”
He trails off. I want to tell him I understand, but the words don’t come. The walls I’ve spent over a year stacking brick by brick start to loosen.
I love him. I never stopped.
Will never stop.
But Cooper. Steady, patient Cooper. He shows up for me in the small ways. Gives me space without disappearing. He’s steady and kind in a different way than Padraig. We have fun. Lots in common. I can see a future there, even if we’re not officially a thing.
I edge back another step, though every cell in me wants to lean in. “Padraig, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
He studies me for a heartbeat, expression unraveling. Then reaches out, slow enough to let me stop him. His fingers brush mine with a familiarity making my knees feel weak. “Yes, you do. Stay with me tonight. Please.”
The air between us buzzes with everything we’re not saying. My pulse trips hard in my throat. My soaked pussy clenches from wanting him inside me, where he belongs.
Padraig waits, letting me set the pace.
I step forward.
His breath catches when I curl my fingers into his shirt and pull, hard enough so the soft cotton stretches at the collar. His mouth crashes against mine with the force of something we’re used to. Inherent desire. Deep love. Unwavering passion.
There’s no talking. No hesitation.
We tear at each other, hands clumsy and hungry, pulling buttons apart, dragging layers over heads, tossing clothes where they land. My back hits the mattress as presses me into the sheets with the full weight of his body, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he doesn’t pin me here.
“Stevie,” he rasps against my throat, kissing me open-mouthed, down to the hollow between my breasts. His hands slide under my bra and yank it aside. His tongue circles a nipple and the sharp heat makes me arch into him. He growls when I do, the sound vibrating against my skin.
I push his jeans down, dragging at the waistband until they’re gone. He’s already hard, so thick and solid against my thigh it sends a spike of need straight through me. I palm him, desperate and shaking. He hisses, hips jerking into my hand.
“Touch me, God, touch me,” he moans as his fingers hook my panties and rip them down in one motion, leaving me bare and aching.
Padraig’s mouth finds its way back up to mine, kissing me until I can’t breathe.
He’s inside me in a single, brutal thrust that makes me cry out.
I clutch at his shoulders, my nails dig into his warm, flexing muscle as he sets a punishing, relentless pace.
Every stroke lands in the precise spot inside me, pulling a whimper from my throat.
On each pass, he whispers my name like a prayer and a curse, forehead pressed to mine. “God, Stevie… I love you—”
“Fuck me,” I demand to silence him, lifting my hips to meet every thrust. “Please, fuck me.”
So he does. It’s messy, sweat-slicked skin, tangled hair, lips swollen from too much kissing. Muscles straining from hard fucking. He grips my ass and pounds until I’m unraveling. My orgasm tears through me so violently I scream.
He follows almost instantly, flooding me with his release. Face buried against my neck, grunting and groaning until he’s empty.
We collapse together. For a long time, there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing. My fingers trace the edge of his shoulder, memorizing the shape even though I know I shouldn’t.
Once isn’t enough. It will never be enough.
Padraig’s hands are already on me, greedy and rough, pulling me back into him. He sits up on his knees, flipping me effortlessly onto my stomach. My breath hitches when he spreads my legs wide and presses a knee between them, yanking my hips up until I’m arched and open for him.
“Jesus, look at you,” he growls, running the blunt head of his cock through the wet heat along my slit. “My come is dripping out of your pussy. I’m not done with you. Not even close.”
“Then don’t be,” I gasp, burying my face in the pillow, fingers curling hard into the sheets. “Keep fucking me, Padraig. Please.”
He drives into me in one brutal thrust, knocking the air from my lungs. The slap of skin meeting skin fills the room as he pounds into me from behind, deep and hard, every stroke hitting my spot until my vision goes white.
I push back against him, wild and feral, wanting all of him, needing it. His grip on my hips tightens until it’s almost painful. His rhythm so hard and fast I can barely keep my knees under me.
“Don’t stop,” I choke.
“I’m never stopping,” he grinds out, leaning over me, his chest against my back, breath hot on my ear. “I want you to remember my cock inside you every time you close your eyes.”
My orgasm rips through me with a scream as my body seizes around him. He pulls out with a strangled groan, rolls me onto my back, and doesn’t give me a chance to catch my breath before he’s between my thighs again, filling me in one raw, unrelenting thrust.
“God, you’re so tight,” he pants, hooking my legs over his shoulders to change the angle, and I arch off the mattress, clawing at his arms.
“Padraig!” I cry, tears slipping down my temples. “Oh my God—”
He kisses me punishingly, swallowing my sobs as his motion turns erratic. His face contorts into an ecstatic grimace when he comes with a guttural, broken sound. The entire experience tears something open inside me.
I cling to him through it, his body shuddering over mine.
When it’s over, he doesn’t move. He stays inside me, our ragged breaths filling the silence.
Finally, he pulls out slowly, still hard, still trembling, and slides down my body without a word.
“Oh, God…” My voice cracks, but he doesn’t answer.
Instead, he pushes my knees apart and buries his face between my thighs, licking me with such desperate hunger it makes me squirm. The taste of us, of what we’ve just done, has him groaning low in his chest, his tongue fucking me deeper, lapping my pussy with an almost reverent need.
“Too much,” I gasp, tangling my hands in his hair, but he doesn’t stop. He sucks my clit into his mouth, drawing hard, like he’s trying to drag my soul out through my skin.
Another orgasm rips through me again, harder than the others, leaving me thrashing against the mattress, my cries muffled by the back of my hand. He stays there licking and tasting every drop of our combined release until I’m shuddering uncontrollably,
When Padraig finally climbs back up my body, his face is wet with us. His eyes blaze and he kisses me so I can taste us too. I sip from him, desperate for the reminder of what we were and what we’ll always be, no matter how much I try to forget.
He doesn’t break the kiss when he slides back inside me, slowly until his hips are pressed flush against mine.
“Don’t ask me to fuck you,” he whispers against my mouth. “I’m making love to you, Stevie. Every inch of you. Every part I’ll never get back if you walk away. Because I love you and I’ll never love anyone else.”
Tears sting my eyes as he starts to move, deliberate and tender, his cheek resting against mine.
“I love how you never give up on anyone.” He cups my breast and thumbs my nipple.
“I love how you see the world. How you see me, even when I can’t see myself.
I love the way you laugh, how you look at me like I’m worth something, like I matter, even after I made the biggest mistake of my life by keeping things from you. ”
He kisses my cheek, the corner of my mouth, whispering every word into my skin as his body rocks against mine.
“I love the girl who stayed up with me all night when things sucked at home. I love the woman you’ve become, even if it means you’re going somewhere without me. I love you, Stevie Hayes. Always and forever.”
My heart feels like it’s splitting in two. This isn’t possession. It’s devotion. It’s everything we are and everything we’ve ever been, laid bare.
We make love like it’s the last time, because deep down, we both know it probably is. He finishes by flooding me, every muscle locked when he comes.
I wrap my arms around him and hold him, wishing I could stop time. My fingers trace the familiar slope of his spine, the ridges of muscle I’ve known since we were teenagers. It feels so achingly right, for a moment I almost forget why I can’t let this continue.