Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“I want it slow. I want it gentle. I want to… feel it.”
“Lie back,” I say. “Relax.”
My lips meet hers, then descend to her neck, to her chest, her breasts, then lower still until I'm kneeling between her thighs, my mouth tracing a path down her stomach that makes her muscles jump and twitch beneath my lips.
She tastes like salt and heat and something underneath that's purely Molly — fierce, alive, impossible to forget.
Her fingers thread into my hair, grip tight, and I feel the war in her body: the instinct to close, to guard, to pull away, fighting against the part of her that's already falling open. I press my lips to the soft skin below her navel, and she makes a sound that's half sigh, half whimper.
"Evan," she breathes, and there's a warning in it, but also permission.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her jeans and look up at her, waiting.
Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and she nods once — quick, almost impatient.
I work the button, the zipper, and she lifts her hips to help me slide the denim down her legs.
Her boots are still on, which makes the whole thing awkward and clumsy, and she laughs when I have to stop and unlace them.
"Smooth," she says, but there's no edge to it. Just warmth.
"I'm working on it."
The boots hit the floor. The jeans follow. And then she's laid out before me in nothing but a pair of black cotton underwear that shouldn't be sexy but somehow is — because it's Molly, and everything about her makes my blood run hot.
I press my mouth to the inside of her knee, then higher, to the soft skin of her inner thigh. She tenses, then forces herself to relax, her breath coming in quick, shallow bursts. I can feel her pulse hammering against my lips.
"You're shaking," I murmur against her skin.
"Shut up," she whispers, but her hand finds the back of my head and holds on.
I take my time. I owe her that. I owe her more than that, but time is what I have right now, and I'm going to spend every second of it like currency I'll never earn again.
My fingers hook into the elastic of her underwear, and I drag them down slowly, letting the anticipation build. She lifts her hips again, helping, and when the last barrier is gone, I just look at her for a moment — flushed and wanting and so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest ache.
Then I lower my mouth to her.
The sound she makes is raw and startled, a gasp that breaks into something desperate.
Her thighs clamp around my ears, then relax, then clamp again like she can't decide whether to pull me closer or push me away.
I use my tongue like I'm learning her, mapping the terrain of what makes her breath hitch, what makes her hips roll, what makes her fingers tighten in my hair until it stings.
"Fuck," she breathes, and the word is torn from somewhere deep, somewhere she rarely lets anyone hear. Her back arches off the mattress, and I slide my hands beneath her, cradling her hips, pulling her closer.
I keep going — steady, deliberate, relentless in a way that isn't about power but about proving something I can't say with words. That she's worth the patience. That someone can hold still for her without wanting something in return.
Except I do want something. I want everything. And the guilt of that wanting sits like a stone in my chest even as my tongue traces circles that make her spine bow.
Her hips lift into me, and I feel the moment she lets go — really lets go, not just physically but somewhere deeper. The tension in her thighs eases. Her grip on my hair softens from desperate to something almost tender. She stops fighting it.
"Right there," she gasps. "Don't stop — please don't —"
I don't stop.
I feel the orgasm roll through her like a wave — her whole body seizing, her thighs clamping hard against my jaw, a sound wrenched from her throat that's half sob, half moan. I keep her there, riding it out, giving her every second of it until she's gasping and pushing at my shoulders.
"Come here," she pants, voice wrecked. "Get up here. Now."
I climb up the length of her body, kissing as I go — her hip, her navel, the scar, the soft underside of her breast. By the time I reach her mouth, she's already pulling me down, kissing me with the taste of herself still on my lips and not caring, not flinching.
Her hands find my belt, clumsy and urgent. "Off," she demands. "These need to be off."
I help her, kicking free of my jeans and boxers, and when there's nothing left between us, she goes still beneath me. Her eyes are open, watching, waiting. Not hiding.
"I love you," she whispers, and the words crack something open in my chest.
"I love you too," I say, and I mean it more than I've ever meant anything. More than the lies. More than the mission. More than the fear that keeps me awake at night.
Those words are going to ruin me.
I position myself and pause, forehead to forehead, our breathing ragged and mingled.
"Slow," she says. "Please."
"I've got you."
I press into her — slow — and the world narrows to a single point of contact, a single breath, a single sound that comes from both of us at once. Her hand finds the back of my neck and holds on, her eyes never leaving mine.
I move gently. Each stroke is deliberate, measured, like I'm trying to say something my mouth can't form.
Her breath hitches on the first one, steadies on the second, and by the third she's meeting me — not rushing, not fighting, just matching.
Finding the rhythm between us like it was always there, waiting.
"There," she breathes. "Like that."
I keep it there. Keep it exactly there. My arms tremble from the effort of holding back, from the weight of wanting to give her everything at once when she asked for it piece by piece.
The headboard doesn't move. The bed barely shifts.
It's just us — skin on skin, breath on breath, her fingers pressing five small bruises into the back of my neck that I'll carry like a trophy.
She makes a sound — quiet, surprised, like she didn't expect it to feel like this. Like she expected rough and got something she doesn't have a name for. Her eyes go glassy, and for a horrible, beautiful second I think she might cry.
She doesn't.
Instead, she reaches up and grabs me by the back of the neck, pulling my lips to hers. Urgent, desperate, she kisses me, filling my mouth with the taste of her — desperate and loving and everything I don't deserve. Everything I’m going to lose.
My hips roll into hers, and she gasps into my mouth. Her legs tighten around me, heels digging into the small of my back, and I feel her body open up in a way that has nothing to do with anatomy and everything to do with surrender. Everything I don’t deserve.
"Evan." My name in her mouth sounds different now. Wanted. Loved. At home.
"I'm here," I say, and I mean it more than I've ever meant anything. I wish I could say these words forever. Wish they didn’t have a timer. Wish they weren’t a lie.
She pulls me deeper, and I go willingly, burying my face in the curve of her neck where her pulse hammers against my lips. The rhythm we've found is something I didn't know existed — unhurried, devastating, each movement a conversation neither of us has the courage to have out loud.
I feel her building again beneath me. It's in the way her breathing changes, becomes shorter, sharper, the pauses between inhales growing longer, like she's trying to hold on to something slippery.
Her body tightens around me in increments, muscles clenching and releasing, and I adjust — just barely, angling my hips the way she responded to before — and she rewards me with a whisper of a moan, swallowed before it fully forms.
I slow down even more, which shouldn't be possible, and she makes a frustrated noise against my shoulder. "Evan, I swear to God."
"I've got you," I say again, and this time she doesn't tell me not to say things like that. She just digs her nails into my back and holds on.
I feel her crest. It's different from before, this time; it’s quieter, deeper, rolling through her like an earthquake that starts miles underground.
Her whole body locks against mine, spine arching, breath seizing.
Then she breaks apart in my arms with her mouth open against my neck, soundless, shaking so hard I have to hold her through it.
I press my lips to her temple and keep moving, gentle now, carrying her through until the tremors ease and she goes boneless beneath me, chest heaving, eyes shut.
"Hey," I whisper. “I’m here.”
Her eyes open. They're wet. Not crying — just full.
"You’re a real bastard, you know that?" she says, but her voice is ruined, all the sharp edges sanded down to something raw and tender.
I smile against her cheek. "Yeah, I know."
"Good." Her hand finds the side of my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. "Now fuck me like you mean it.”
Something inside me snaps — not violently, but completely.
I bury my face in her hair and let go, let my body take over, let the rhythm build from that aching slowness into something urgent and honest and raw.
Something I want and need. Something that knows that this may be one of the last times I’m with Molly, and that I want her with an urgency that has nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the fact that I'm already grieving her.
She meets me thrust for thrust, her hips rising to mine, her fingers clawing at my shoulders.
I feel everything. The heat of her skin against mine.
The dig of her heels in my lower back. The way her breath breaks apart against my ear in ragged little pieces.
The pressure builds at the base of my spine like a fist closing, and I know I'm close, know I'm right there at the edge where thought dissolves.
"Molly," I say her name as if it's the only word I know. The only word that matters.
"I'm here," she says, and her voice cracks on it.
I come apart inside her with a sound wrenched from my chest like a confession.
My body locks, every muscle seizing, and for three or four heartbeats the world goes white and silent and still.
There's nothing — no Midnight, no June, no timer, no lies.
Just her. Just the heat of her wrapped around me and the impossible softness of her hand on the back of my neck.
I collapse against her, and she takes my weight without complaint, her arms wrapping around my back, her cheek pressed to my temple. We lie there, breathing together, our heartbeats slowly untangling from the frenzy into something that resembles calm.
Neither of us speaks. For a long time, there's just the sound of breathing and the distant hum of traffic through the walls. I don't move, and she doesn't push me off. I press my lips to the hollow of her throat. Her pulse is slowing beneath my mouth, settling from a sprint into a walk.
"Can I stay?" she whispers.
"Stay," I say. “Please.”
She shifts, draping herself across my chest, cheek on my shoulder, breathing soft, content, open. Her fingers trace lazy shapes on my skin as if she’s claiming something without admitting it.
When her eyes meet mine, I see everything she's been trying not to show me, and feel reflected every one of the crimes I'm committing against her.
“Your bar looked insane today,” I say lightly, trying to pull us back to the surface.
Molly makes a sound that’s half a groan, half a laugh. “Don’t talk about work.”
“Bossy,” I murmur.
“Efficient,” she corrects again, and pinches me.
I hiss and she smiles—small, satisfied.
It should feel like victory.
Instead, the room feels like a trap tightening around my ribs.
Because I can feel it now—how deep she’s letting me in. How easy it would be to ruin her without meaning to. How I’m going to destroy someone no matter how this ends.
Her.
Or June.
No matter who I save, I will pay the price.
Molly lifts her head, eyes narrowing as if she senses the shift.
“What is it?” she asks.
I force my mouth into something that passes for a smile. I cup the back of her neck, press a kiss to her forehead.
“Nothing,” I lie.
She watches me for a beat longer, then settles back down, fingers curling into me again.
And I stare at the ceiling, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and skin, knowing I’m running out of time.