Chapter 20 #2
“Not... like this,” he rasped, the effort of speaking tightening the cords in his neck. His green gaze burned into mine, stripping away the panic, seeing right down to the terrified mess beneath. “Not... rushing.”
“I don’t want to take my time. I want...”
“My turn.” He lowered his forehead to rest against mine, grip firming as I tried to squirm. “Let me... show you.”
The shift in power hit me.
Xavier was always careful. Always hesitant, treating me like I was made of glass because he was terrified his own lethal programming would slip the leash. He asked for permission. He waited for signals.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he was taking the lead.
He released my wrists slowly, letting them drop to my sides, but the command in his stare kept me pinned as effectively as his grip had.
“Clothes,” he whispered. “Off.”
My palms shook as I reached for the hem of my sweater. I pulled it over my head. My bra followed. Then the jeans. I kicked them away, standing before him in nothing but flimsy cotton panties.
The cold air raised gooseflesh on my skin, but Xavier’s stare felt like a physical touch, tracking over my body with a heat that seared. He wasn’t just watching. He was memorizing.
He dropped to his knees.
My breath hitched. “Xavier...”
He ignored me. His large, warm palms settled on my hips, fingers digging in slightly, claiming the skin there. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the scar on my knee, the one from the ice yesterday.
Then he moved up.
Slowly. Agonizingly slowly.
His mouth trailed over my thigh, hot and wet. He wasn’t rushing toward the destination. He was worshipping the journey. He kissed a bruise on my hip. He turned his face into the soft skin of my stomach, inhaling deeply, stubble scratching a delicious friction against me.
“Xavier,” I gasped, tangling my fingers in his dark blond hair. “Please. I need you to... I need distraction, damn it.”
He paused, meeting my gaze from his knees. A ghost of a smirk touched his lips.
“No.”
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of my panties and dragged them down.
I stepped out of them, shivering, completely exposed in the dim light of the room. I reached for him, trying to pull him up, trying to get him to the bed where we could finish this.
He resisted. Instead, he tightened his grip on my hips and urged my legs apart.
“Wait.”
Then his tongue swirled against my clit.
My knees buckled. If he hadn’t been holding me, I would have hit the floor.
It was too slow. It was plenty intense, but the pace was torture. I wanted to sprint; he was forcing me to walk. He licked a long, broad stripe from my entrance up to my hood, savoring the taste of me like a starving man finding a feast, but refusing to gorge himself.
He teased. He nipped. He sucked gently, then pulled away just as the pressure started to build toward something release-worthy.
“Xavier!” I cried out, head falling back. “Stop teasing. Please.”
I felt the vibration of his hum against my inner thigh. He didn’t speed up. He slowed down further.
He used his nose to nudge my folds apart, breathing hot air against the most sensitive nerves in my body.
Then his tongue returned, focused, relentless, and maddeningly precise.
He found the rhythm that made my breath turn into sobbing gasps, the specific pressure that made my hips jerk forward to meet him.
He was cataloging me. Learning the exact map of my pleasure.
I gripped his shoulders, nails digging in. I watched this lethal, broken man on his knees for me. The scars on his back, the ones Dresner gave him, the ones from the alley, stood out in the shadows. He looked like a weapon. He touched like a prayer.
“Please,” I whimpered, the desperation shifting from fear to pure, unadulterated need. “Xavier, I can’t... I need to come.”
He pulled back. Just an inch. Just enough to leave me cold and whining.
He stood up, body unfolding with that terrifying, fluid grace that betrayed his training. He scooped me up into his arms before I could protest.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, burying my face in the crook of his neck. He smelled like soap and male sweat and the metallic tang of ozone that always seemed to cling to him.
He carried me to the bed and laid me down on the mattress. The springs creaked under our weight as he settled between my legs.
He didn’t enter me immediately. Of course he didn’t.
He braced himself on his forearms, framing my head, and studied me. Heaving with the effort of restraint. Pupils blown wide, swallowing the green, leaving only thin rings of color.
“Clare.”
“Xavier. Now. Please.” I reached down, wrapping my hand around his erection. He was rock hard, leaking pre-come, jumping in my grip.
He hissed through his teeth, head dropping for a second before he forced it back up. He grabbed my hand, pulling it away from his cock, and pinned it to the pillow beside my head. Then he took the other hand and pinned it too.
He held me there, open and vulnerable, staring down at me with possessive intent.
“Say... it.”
I stared up at him, breathless, pulse hammering like a trapped bird. “Say what?”
“That... you’re here.” He swallowed, throat clicking. “With me. Nowhere... else.”
The Maeve question. The doubt. He needed to know I wasn’t just using him to forget the past or fear the future. He needed to know I was choosing him.
“I’m here,” I swore, lifting my hips, rubbing my wetness against the head of his cock. “I’m right here. Nowhere else. I want you.”
“Say... it.”
“I need you. Please, Xavier. Just you.”
His expression fractured. The control slipped, just for a second, revealing the raw, bleeding devotion underneath.
“Mine. You’re... mine.”
He thrust into me.
No preparation. No slow slide. He buried himself to the hilt in one fluid, devastating motion.
I screamed. It wasn’t pain, I was so wet I could have taken more of him, but the sheer fullness, the sudden stretching, the shock of having him fill the empty spaces inside me tore the sound from my throat.
“Yes,” I gasped, locking my ankles behind his back. “Yes.”
He groaned, a low, animal sound deep in his torso. He held still for a heartbeat, letting us both adjust to the invasion, forehead resting against mine, our breath mingling in short, sharp puffs.
Then he began to move.
He abandoned the agonizing slowness. He set a rhythm that was heavy, deep, and grinding. He pulled from my wrists and slid underneath my hips, lifting me to accept the full length of his thrusts.
Every time he slammed into me, he hit that spot deep inside that made my vision blur.
“Xavier,” I choked out, clutching his shoulders. The friction was incredible. The heat was suffocating.
He was relentless. He watched my face the entire time, gaze intense, demanding I meet his stare. He wanted me to see him. To know exactly who was making me feel this way.
Not a memory. Not a ghost. Him.
“Look... at me.”
I forced my gaze open. I drowned in his stare.
He withdrew almost completely, then snapped his hips forward, burying himself so deep I felt it in my throat.
I unraveled.
The fear of tomorrow vanished. The guilt over Emma, the confusion about Maeve, the terror of the chip ticking down in his spine, it all incinerated. There was only this friction. Only the sweat slicking our bodies together. Only the sound of his ragged breathing and the wet slap of skin on skin.
“Please,” I begged, thrashing beneath him. “Xavier, let me... I’m close, I’m so close.”
“Let... go.” He ground his hips against mine, thumb finding my clit and pressing hard. “For me. Let go.”
That snapped the last thread.
I shattered.
The orgasm hit me like a physical blow, arching my back off the mattress. My inner muscles clamped down around his cock, milking him, spasming in waves of pleasure so intense they bordered on pain. I cried out his name, over and over, clawing at his back, leaving marks I knew would bruise.
Xavier roared.
The control he’d been holding onto with white-knuckled grip evaporated. He drove into me. Hard, fast, frantic. Chasing his own release. Head fell back, the cords of his neck standing out starkly against the shadows.
He thrust one. Twice. Three times, brutal and deep.
Then he stiffened, his whole body turning to granite against me.
“Clare.” The word tore its way out of him, clear and loud.
And then, as he poured himself into me, shaking with the force of it, he spoke again.
“Need... you.”
I held him tight, tears streaming down my face, something breaking and healing all at once.
“Love... you.”
The words hit me harder than the orgasm had.
He collapsed against me, his weight crushing me into the mattress, but he didn’t stop. He pressed his face into the erratic pulse at my neck, heaving, body trembling with aftershocks.
“Promise,” he gasped into my skin. “Promise.”
To come back. To survive. To be mine.
I wrapped my arms around his head, burying my fingers in his sweat-damp hair. I held him as tight as I could, silently daring the universe to try and rip him away from me.
“I love you,” I whispered, the confession tasting like salt and iron. “I love you, Xavier.”
We lay there as the sweat dried on our skin, turning cold in the drafty room. Xavier shifted only enough to pull the duvet up over us, creating a warm, dark cocoon against the world.
He rolled to his side, pulling me back against his torso. Draped his arm over my waist, heavy and solid. An anchor. His legs tangled with mine.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty this time. It was filled with the steady, reassuring thump of his pulse against my back.
I prioritized that sound. I focused on it. I let it be the only thing in the universe.
“Tomorrow...” I whispered, the dread trying to creep back in now that the endorphins were fading.
Xavier’s arm tightened across my stomach. He pressed a kiss to the bare skin of my shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” he rasped, the word vibrating through my spine. “But... tonight... yours.”
Mine.
Just for tonight, he was mine. The mission didn’t exist. Oblivion didn’t exist. The two-week deadline was a problem for future Clare. Present Clare had this warmth. This weight. This man.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
His breathing evened out slowly, shifting into the deep, rhythmic pattern of sleep. His palm stayed splayed possessively across my stomach.
I stared into the darkness, listening to the old school groan as the wind hit the roof. Dawn was coming. I could feel it, a subtle shift in the quality of the darkness, a graying at the edges of the window frame.
But studying his face in the growing light, the tension finally smoothed from his brow, mouth relaxed, looking younger.
I pressed my back closer to his torso, breathing in the scent of him. I memorized the weight of his arm. The texture of his skin. The heat of him.
If this was all I got, one night of peace before the storm wiped us off the map, I would take it. I would hold it. I would sharpen it into a weapon to use against the grief waiting in the wings.
Because tomorrow, he entered hell.
And for the first time since I found him bleeding in that alley, I couldn’t follow.