Chapter 28 #2
She gasped as her body stretched. When she was fully impaled by him, her hands ran through his hair, nails scraping his scalp as her eyes locked with his and she rested her forehead on his. So many feelings she had but she wasn’t sure she could process or express them.
She wanted to say more, to ask for more, but she knew she couldn’t, so she asked for what she could, tonight.
“Stay tonight,” Poppy whispered.
The question that hung in the air between them—stay tonight—was so impossibly loaded and so heartbreakingly simple at the same time.
She was only asking for one night, giving him a specific and careful boundary, but even as his lips met hers again, even as her fingers intertwined in his hair and her body pressed close, he could feel the dangerous longing blooming in his chest like a bruise.
He wanted to stay all of the nights. He wanted to trade in this momentary permission for a lifetime of them, to wake up beside her and cook breakfast and build a whole eternity.
But he didn’t say that. He wasn’t allowed to want more than what she gave him, and so he bit down on the ache and poured every unspoken word into the way he touched her.
AJ’s hands firmed on Poppy’s hips, and he gave a brief, wordless nod.
The two of them were a tangle of arms and legs on the couch, the air thick with the scent of lemon dish soap and Poppy’s lavender conditioner and the base, animal musk of sweat.
She was straddling him, her knees bracketing his thighs, her hands restless and roaming his body, never satisfied with one patch of skin before moving to the next.
Every time her hands ran through his hair or clawed at his bare back, a fresh surge of heat chased up his spine and made him bite back a groan.
He was inside her, all the way in, buried to the hilt and surrounded by impossibly snug, fluttering warmth.
Her inner walls gripped him in steady, rippling pulses, and his hands clung to the plush, perfect curve of her hips as if he needed physical proof that this was real.
She rolled her body, grinding down on him, and a dizzy, electric pleasure ran from the base of his skull down to the arches of his feet.
He let his eyes flutter shut so he could focus on the sensation, the way her body coaxed him toward the edge while her voice in his ear, breathy and needy, anchored him to the present.
Poppy’s lips were everywhere, on his jaw, on his neck, on the curve where his shoulder met his throat.
She kissed him like she was starved for more than just flesh, and every time her teeth grazed the stubble along his jawline, he had to fight to keep from losing control.
He waited for it to be too much, thinking he might need to ask her to stop, but it wasn’t. Nothing with her was too much.
She started to move faster, using his shoulders for leverage as she bounced in his lap.
Her breathing got loud and ragged, until it matched the little gasps of pleasure that snapped out of her with every thrust. He watched her, memorizing every little tremor in her arms and every quiver of her thighs.
He wanted to remember this, to take these details with him into the next morning, the next week, and the inevitable next time when she’d set new boundaries around her heart and he’d have to pretend they hadn’t ever come this close to being more.
He wanted to tell her all of that. Instead, he slid his hands up and cupped her breasts, taking each nipple between his lips and flicking his tongue in time with the rhythm of her hips.
When he did, he felt her walls clench around him, her inner muscles shuddering and drawing him in even tighter.
She moaned, a sound so needy and true that it almost undid him.
AJ massaged her breasts. He took his time to kiss, lick, and suck on one nipple while his fingers teased the other, pinching and twisting it.
Then he moved one hand between their bodies to stroke around her clit with slow, deliberate circles.
She bucked against his hand, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he could tell by the way her muscles quivered that she was getting close.
He loved watching her lose control, loved knowing that he could give her this much pleasure even if he couldn’t give her the permanence she craved but would not allow herself to accept.
He forced himself to slow down, ignoring the desperate urgency building in his own body.
He wanted to make it last for her, to give her everything she asked for and then some, to show her that she could trust him to take care of her even if she never let him in all the way.
He pressed his lips to her chest, her collarbone, and her shoulder, kissing every patch of skin he could reach.
Her hands fisted in his hair, tugging him closer.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, not even sure if she could hear him over the sound of their breathing and the slap of skin on skin. “So perfect.”
She twisted her hips and bit down on his earlobe, a wordless demand for more, and he responded by pushing up into her with sharp, hard thrusts. The sofa rattled beneath them, and he felt the slick heat of her arousal drip down his taint.
He reached up and framed her face in his hands. She looked at him, really looked, and for a few seconds it was like everything else in the world—the pregnancy, the future, the things they were both too scared to say—fell away. They were just two souls connected as one.
AJ kissed her again, softer this time, and ran his thumbs across her cheekbones. He could feel her starting to spiral, her body twitching in those tiny, helpless movements that always meant she was close. He wanted to be there with her when she fell apart. He wanted to hold her together after.
He let go of her face and slid his hands down again, gripping her ass and guiding her up and down his shaft, hard and fast. He started to lose control, feeling his own climax build and swell so fast it almost scared him, but he forced himself to wait, to give her what she needed first.
She started to shake, a full-body tremor that ran up her back and down her thighs, and he found the sweet spot with his thumb, pressing just right until she broke apart on top of him.
She cried out, loud and untamed, and her whole body clamped down on his shaft, squeezing him so hard that he saw stars behind his lids.
And that was when he went up and over the edge.
It hit him with the unexpected violence of a summer storm, a white-hot surge that started low in his gut and then erupted, blinding and absolute, erasing every coherent thought except the feeling of her.
His body arched, breath locked in his chest, and for a second it was like his whole world funneled into the narrow, pulsing space where they were joined.
His hands gripped her harder than he meant to, and he buried his face in her neck, breathing in the tangled scent of sex and skin and that faint, familiar trace of lavender.
His orgasm wracked him, wave after relentless wave, and he spilled into her with the helplessness of someone who'd tried too long to keep control and finally, blessedly, lost it.
Her body milked him for every last drop, the aftershocks rippling through his thighs and up his spine, and for a wild, perfect moment he was sure he could die happy if this was the last thing he ever got to feel.
When he drifted back to consciousness, they went still together, bodies pressed so close it felt like they shared a ribcage.
AJ floated in the aftermath, the roar in his ears slowly fading.
He loosened his arms just enough to cradle Poppy against his chest, feeling the tremor of her heartbeat syncing up with his own ragged rhythm.
She was still shivering, not from cold but from the ripples of pleasure, and he smoothed a hand up and down her back, grounding them both.
The world outside the living room was distant and irrelevant, there was no past, no future, only the soft hush of her breath and the weight of her resting on him.
She started to push off of him, but he tightened his hold on her. Her eyes lifted to his. “Don’t you need to go take a shower?”
He looked down at her and shook his head. “I just want to stay like this. Just for a little bit.”
Poppy looked at him with an expression he couldn’t describe, then lowered her head back down against his chest. He held her to him, running one hand up and down her back.
Being with Poppy was different. Not just because of his feelings for her, but also because she was carrying his baby. There was a level of intimacy, of shared DNA, that was something he would never be able to describe. She was his, and he was hers. They were connected, forever.
He’d had a twin, a sister he was close to, and a mom who loved him, but this relationship felt so much deeper than any of those.
He might not be good at his words or describing his feelings, but he did know that he would do anything for her, for her and his baby.
He was hers, all of him, forever, whether she wanted him or not.