5. Vale
Vale
I should step back. That’s the first clear thought I have.
I should release her wrist. I should put distance between us. I should remember every rule I’ve lived by for years—control, restraint, discipline.
Instead, I feel her pulse fluttering beneath my fingers.
She’s not recoiling. She’s not looking away.
She’s looking at me.
At me.
I lose the argument with myself.
Her hand is still twisted in the fabric of my shirt, knuckles pale, as if she expects me to disappear. The wall is at her back, cool concrete pressing through the thin material of her shirt, and I’m standing too close, close enough that I can feel the heat of her body through layers of fabric.
I should step away. Instead, I bend.
The kiss begins almost cautiously, my mouth brushing hers as though I’m testing something fragile. I expect hesitation. Fear. Regret.
I find none.
She inhales sharply at the first contact, not in protest but in surprise, and then her lips move against mine with a boldness that knocks the air from my lungs. She’s not passive. She’s not fragile. She meets me.
My hand slides from the wall to her waist before I realize I’m moving, fingers spanning the curve of her hip as if I need to confirm she is real. She feels solid. Warm. Alive. I deepen the kiss slowly, deliberately, giving her space to break it.
She doesn’t.
Her fingers push into my hair, pulling me closer, and the small sound she makes against my mouth is soft and reckless and far too intimate for a room like this.
The sunlight has climbed high enough now that it fills the space entirely. It reveals everything—the rough weld marks in the metal cross on the wall, the bare lines of the concrete floor, the narrow bed with its military-tight sheets. There is nothing gentle about this room.
Except her mouth against mine.
I press her more firmly into the wall without meaning to. My thigh settles between hers, grounding her there. She shifts slightly, and the movement sends a sharp jolt of awareness through me that I’m not prepared for.
Her body responds. She exhales against my lips, and the sound is almost a question.
I pull back a fraction, forehead resting against hers, our breaths tangled together. “This is a mistake,” I say, but my voice lacks conviction.
Her eyes are wide but not frightened. There is heat in them, curiosity threaded through fear. “Then stop,” she whispers.
I can’t.
My mouth finds hers again, slower this time, exploring rather than claiming. I trace the seam of her lips with mine, memorizing the way she tilts her head instinctively to fit against me. I taste the faint sweetness of whatever she drank last night, layered with something entirely her own.
My grip on her waist tightens, not to restrain but to anchor myself. She trembles under my hands, and I realize it’s not from cold or fear. It’s the same tension thrumming through me—want colliding with disbelief.
No one has looked at my face the way she did and then stepped closer.
No one.
My thumb drifts upward along her side, slow, uncertain, until I feel her breath hitch again. The reaction is immediate and honest, and it does something dangerous to the part of me that has always equated desire with punishment.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing,” I tell her again, softer this time.
Her lips brush mine when she answers. “I understand that you kissed me.”
The simplicity of it unravels something in me.
I kiss her once more, deeper now, not rough but no longer restrained. My body presses closer, drawn by instinct rather than permission. The wall behind her is unforgiving, but she arches into me anyway, closing whatever distance I left.
She makes a small sound, soft and startled, and it cuts straight through every defense I’ve ever built. My restraint fractures. Splinters. Collapses.
My hands are on her before I can stop myself—gripping her hips, sliding lower, feeling the warmth of her thighs through the thin fabric of her clothes. She feels breakable and alive under my fingers, and some part of me knows I should back away.
Instead, I lift her. Her breath catches as her body rises with almost no effort, her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist. The moment her thighs tighten at my hips, something inside me snaps in a way I don’t recognize and don’t want to analyze.
I pin her against the wall. The impact is soft, controlled, because even losing myself like this, I will not hurt her. But the second her back hits the concrete, her body presses into mine, and the heat of her—God, the heat of her—is too much.
My cock grinds against her without permission from anything but hunger.
And she gasps. Her nails dig into my shoulders, and that tiny, involuntary sound from her throat nearly brings me to my knees. I thrust against her again, slower but with purpose this time, dragging every inch of myself along the place she’s warmest, feeling the friction pulse through both of us.
“Tell me to stop,” I manage, but the words come out strangled, a failing leash on a starving animal. “Fuck… tell me to stop.”
She doesn’t answer, and her silence is permission. Or temptation. Or the beginning of my destruction—I can’t tell which, and right now I don’t care.
I move again, rolling my hips into hers, feeling the soft heat of her respond—her body arching, her breath shattering against my mouth. Her thighs tighten, dragging me closer, and the pressure of her, even through clothes, is enough to blur the edges of my control.
“God… you feel…” The sentence breaks apart because I can’t finish it, not when her body is clenching around my hips like she needs me as badly as I need her.
She looks at me—eyes dark, lips parted—and something in that look steals whatever sense I was clinging to.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper against her jaw, my voice wrecked.
She pulls me closer. Her hips lift into mine, seeking more friction, more contact, more of anything I’m willing to give. When she grinds back against me, the pleasure hits so hard I choke on it, my forehead falling to her shoulder for one breath before I force myself to meet her eyes again.
I need to see her. I need to know she’s not afraid.
But what I see is worse—need, real and immediate, shining back at me.
I drag my cock against her again, harder this time, grinding up into the soft place between her legs, and her reaction—her shuddering breath, her fingers tightening in my hair—undoes whatever was left of my sanity.
“Say something,” I breathe, thrusting slowly, deliberately, my control thinning to a thread. “Anything. I need—” I break off with a low groan because her hips rise to meet mine, perfectly, like she was made to fit against me.
“Tell me to stop,” I say again, but my mouth is at her throat now and my body is already moving against hers. “Please.”
And in the space between one heartbeat and the next?—
She doesn’t stop me. She pulls me closer. She arches when I reach her chest.
The thin fabric of her shirt does nothing to hide the shape of her breasts, the way her nipples tighten under the brush of my breath. I hear her inhale, shallow and quick, and that sound is all the permission I need to push the hem of her shirt up and expose her to the cool air of the room.
She gasps again when my mouth closes over her.
Her nipple hardens against my tongue, and the noise she makes—soft, unguarded, needy—shakes something loose inside me.
I suck gently at first, then harder when she presses her chest into my face like she can’t help it, her fingers tangling in my hair and tugging as if she needs to anchor herself.
“Please—” she whispers, and that single sound is my undoing.
I drag my tongue across her breast, slow and claiming, then take the other one into my mouth, sucking until she trembles. She’s warm everywhere, heat rolling off her in waves, her hips shifting against mine with restless, instinctive need.
With one hand, I unbutton her jeans and jerk them down enough for me to slide my hand underneath the waistband, between her legs.
Even through her panties she’s soaked, her body reacting to every grind of my hips, every pull of my mouth on her skin.
I rub her slowly, letting her feel my fingers, letting her feel how easily she responds to me.
Her hips jerk forward, trying to catch my hand, my rhythm, anything.
“Please,” she breathes again, barely a sound.
I hook my fingers beneath the fabric and push it aside. She’s wet and hot and soft in a way that steals my breath. The moment my fingers slide between her folds, she gasps—sharp, desperate—and her thighs tighten around my hips, pulling me closer as if she can drag the pleasure deeper.
“God,” I whisper against her chest. “You’re—fuck.”
She’s trembling. Not from fear. From need.
I press two fingers inside her, slow at first, feeling the way her body clings to me, welcoming every inch. Her head falls back against the wall, lips parted, breath stuttering. I curl my fingers upward, finding the spot that makes her moan—a soft, broken sound she tries to swallow but fails.
“Don’t stop—” she begs, voice thin with pleasure.
I don’t.
I thrust my fingers into her steadily, my thumb circling her clit in small, precise motions.
Her whole body tightens, hips rocking helplessly into every stroke.
She’s close—God, she’s so close. I can feel her tightening around me, can hear the rising pitch of her breath, can feel her thighs trembling against my sides.
She’s seconds from coming. I feel it. She feels it.
Her hand fists in my hair, pulling me harder against her chest. Her hips grind down onto my fingers, chasing the last bit of pressure she needs.
And that’s why I stop. I pull my hand back just enough to break the rhythm.
“No—don’t—please—” Her voice breaks on the last word, her hips still searching for my hand, her breath shattered with denial.
I step back half an inch, chest heaving, heart pounding like I’m the one who almost came apart under her.