Chapter 29
BLAKE
Ikiss her like I'm dying.
Like she's the only air left in the room and I've been holding my breath for months. Years. My whole fucking life.
Her mouth opens under mine and I lick into her, tasting coffee and something sweet—jam from her toast. Underneath it, her. That taste I've been dreaming about since that day at the camp. I dreamed of her. Of taking more.
This time she's giving it. This time she wants me.
The thought makes me groan into her mouth.
"Blake." She's panting. Fingers scrambling at my waistband. "Off. Take these off."
I rear back just long enough to shove my sweats down. Kick them somewhere. Don't care where.
When I settle back over her, skin to skin, we both make sounds that aren't quite human.
Fuck. She's so soft. So warm. Every inch of her pressed against every inch of me and it's not enough. Will never be enough.
I drag my mouth down her throat. Her collarbone. Find the mark I left yesterday and bite down on it again, refreshing it, making it darker. She cries out and her hips buck up against me.
"Mine." The word rips out of me before I can stop it. Didn't plan to say that. Don't care. "This mark. Mine."
"Yes—" Her voice is wrecked. "Yours. Love, yours."
I move lower. Find the marks Reid left on her breast. Something dark and possessive curls in my chest—not jealousy. Something that likes seeing his claim on her skin right next to mine.
I add my own mark beside his. Suck hard enough to bruise. She arches off the bed with a sound that goes straight to my cock.
"Dreamed about this." I'm mumbling against her skin, barely coherent. Words falling out of me that I can't catch. "About you. Every night. Couldn't stop."
"Blake—"
"Touched myself thinking about you." I bite the soft underside of her breast. She whimpers. "Hated myself for it. But I couldn't—you were in my head. In my fucking blood."
Her hand finds my hair. Grips hard. Pulls my face up to hers.
"Show me." Her eyes are wild. Dark with want. "Show me what you thought about."
Christ.
I kiss her again. Deeper. Messier. All teeth and tongue and desperation. Then I'm moving down her body, dragging my mouth over her stomach, her hip, the crease of her thigh.
She smells like sex. Like Reid. Like herself.
It should bother me. It doesn't. Just makes me harder.
"Spread your legs."
She does. Immediately. No hesitation.
I settle between her thighs and just... look. She's swollen. Slick. Flushed. The evidence of last night right there, mixed with her own arousal.
My mouth waters.
"Blake?" She sounds uncertain now. "You don't have to—I mean, Reid and I— I didn’t shower and–"
"Shut up."
She’s worried about Reid’s cum. It should gross me out. At least I think it should, but I can’t be fucking bothered to worry about it right now. I lean in and lick her from entrance to clit in one long, slow stroke.
She screams
Her thighs clamp around my head. Her hands fist in my hair hard enough to hurt. I don't care. I'm exactly where I want to be. Exactly where I've imagined being for months, lying in my bed on the other side of that wall, hating myself for wanting this.
Worth it. Worth every miserable fucking night.
I eat her like I'm starving. Messy. Graceless. No technique, just need. She tastes like salt and skin and I can't get enough. Can't get close enough.
"Oh god. Oh fuck. Blake—I can't—it's too—"
I slide two fingers inside her. She's so wet there's no resistance. Just tight, clutching heat that makes my cock throb.
I curl my fingers. Find that spot. Press.
She comes apart.
It hits her fast and hard—her whole body seizing up, clenching around my fingers, a sound tearing out of her throat that's half sob, half scream. I work her through it, mouth still moving, dragging it out until she's shaking and shoving at my head.
"Too much—Blake, too much—"
I pull back. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Stare down at her.
She's wrecked. Hair tangled against my pillows. Chest heaving. Eyes glazed.
I did that. She let me do that.
The thought nearly breaks me.
"Need to be inside you." My voice doesn't sound like mine. Too rough. Too raw. "Now. Please. Laine."
She reaches for me. Pulls me up her body.
"Yes. God, yes. Please."
I settle between her thighs. The head of my cock nudges against her entrance. She's so wet I could slide in right now. One thrust.
I stop.
Condom. Fuck. Do I even have—
"I'm on the pill." She's reading my face. "And I'm clean. Reid and I already—" She bites her lip. "If you are too, I want to feel you. Just you."
Fuck.
"I'm clean." They tested the fuck out of me before posting in the sandbox and I haven't been with anyone since I got back. Haven't wanted anyone but her. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
I push inside her.
The groan that comes out of me is barely human. Dragged up from the bottom of my chest, ripped through my throat.
She's so tight. So hot. So wet. The slide is easy but she's clenching around me, gripping me, and I have to stop halfway because I can't remember how to breathe.
"Don't stop." Her nails dig into my back. "Blake, don't—I need—"
I drive forward. Bury myself to the hilt.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
I'm shaking. Actually shaking. Forearms braced on either side of her head, every muscle locked, trying to hold on to some shred of control.
Losing.
"You feel—" I can't finish. Don't have words. Have never had words for anything that matters. "Laine. Fuck."
"Move." She rolls her hips. The friction makes us both gasp. "Blake, please—"
I move.
It's not gentle. Not slow. Not the careful, reverent first time she deserves.
It's hard and fast and desperate. I'm fucking her like I'll die if I stop. Like she's the only thing keeping me here. Tethered to this bed, this room, this life.
And she's meeting me thrust for thrust.
Her legs wrap around my waist. Her nails rake down my back. She's making sounds—whimpers and moans and broken gasps of my name—and each one drives me higher. Each one is proof. She's here. She wants this. She wants me.
"Wanted this." I'm babbling. Can't stop. Words just falling out. "Wanted you. So long. So fucking—"
"Me too." She's crying. Actual tears streaming down her temples into her hair. "Me too, Blake. I wanted—I wanted—"
I kiss her. Taste the salt on her cheeks. She sobs into my mouth and I swallow it.
Nothing I ever imagined came close to this. Not once. Every fantasy I had was a shadow. A sketch. This is the real thing and it's so good it terrifies me.
Don't deserve this. Don't deserve her.
But she's pulling me closer. Wrapping herself around me. Her heels digging into my back, her hands in my hair, her mouth against my ear whispering please and more and Blake like my name is the only word she remembers.
So I give her more.
"Harder." She bites my earlobe. "Blake. Harder."
I shift my angle. Plant my knees. Drive into her with everything I have.
The headboard hits the wall. Again. Again.
"So good." Panting. Barely coherent. "Taking me so—fuck, baby. Fuck."
"Don't stop—please don't—I'm so close—"
I'm not going to last.
I can feel it building at the base of my spine. That unstoppable pressure. Months of wanting her, needing her, denying myself—all crashing together. I'm about to shatter.
Not yet. Not before her.
I reach between us. Find her clit. Rub in tight, fast circles.
"Come for me." Gritting it through clenched teeth. "Need to feel it, Laine. Need you to—"
"I'm—oh god—Blake—"
She comes with a scream.
Her whole body locks up. Inner walls clamping down, rippling, squeezing, pulling me deeper.
I'm done.
The orgasm rips through me like nothing I've ever felt. I bury myself as deep as I can go and come so hard my vision whites out. It goes on forever—pulse after pulse, her name in my mouth, her body holding me through all of it.
When it finally ends, I collapse.
Barely have the presence of mind to roll so I don't crush her. We end up tangled together, her face pressed into my chest, my arms wrapped around her so tight she probably can't breathe.
I don't let go.
Can't.
I'm fucking shaking.
For a long time, the only sound is our breathing. The hammer of my heartbeat. The distant tick of the clock on the wall.
I just had sex with Laine Mitchell.
The woman I've waited for my whole fucking life. The woman I spent months destroying. The woman who somehow, impossibly, just gave herself to me anyway.
Don't fuck this up. Whatever you do. Don't fuck this up.
I press my face into her hair. Breathe her in.
"Okay?" My voice is wrecked. Barely a rasp.
She laughs. Shaky, watery. "Okay? Blake, that was—I don't even—"
She tips her head back. Looks up at me with those big eyes, still wet with tears.
"I didn't know it could be like that."
Something cracks open in my chest. Right down the center. And for once, I don't try to patch it.
I kiss her forehead. Her cheeks. The tip of her nose. Her lips, soft and sweet.
"Neither did I."
We don't leave the bed.
I should let her rest. Should get up, get water, clean her up. Be the responsible one.
Instead I roll her onto her back and slide down her body.
"Blake, I can't—I'm still—"
"Shh." I press a kiss to her hip. "Let me."
I clean her up with my tongue.
Slow. Careful. Not about getting her off—though she does, once, shaking and oversensitive, hands fisting in my hair while she begs me to stop while pulling me closer. It's about something else. Something I don't have words for.
Taking care of her. Making up for every cruel word. Every time I made her feel small.
This is what I know how to do. Take care of things. Fix things. Restore what's been damaged.
When I crawl back up her body, she's limp. Boneless. Eyes barely open.
"You're going to kill me," she mumbles.
"Never." I settle beside her. Pull her into my chest. "Keeping you alive is literally my only job now."
She huffs a laugh. Nuzzles into my shoulder.
"Need water. And probably food. And definitely a shower."
"Later."
"Bossy."
"You like it."
She doesn't deny it.