Chapter 37 Neve
Neve
Atlas kissed me like he’d been holding his breath for years.
His mouth was rough, hungry, desperate in a way that made my knees give out. I grabbed at his shoulders — anywhere and everywhere — because I needed him to keep me upright, to keep the world from spinning apart under my feet.
He groaned into my mouth. The sound was low, broken, almost painful. I felt it in my bones.
His hands slid over my hips, my waist, up my spine like he was learning me by touch alone. Every brush of his fingers sent sparks crawling under my skin. I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I just melted into him, because nothing had ever felt this heavy and this necessary.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His chest rose hard. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the storm in his eyes.
“Neve…” His voice was wrecked. “If I don’t stop now, I won’t be able to.”
My answer was instinct, breathless and unguarded. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Something snapped in him.
His grip tightened on my thighs, and before I could gasp, he lifted me — smooth and effortless — and my legs wrapped around his waist like they belonged there. My arms locked around his shoulders, holding on as he carried me through the hall.
His mouth returned to mine, messy and urgent, like he couldn’t decide where to kiss me first. My jaw, my throat, the corner of my lips — every place he touched felt claimed.
The door to his room bumped open against his foot. He didn’t set me down. He pressed me against the wall instead, his forehead against mine, breathing me in like he was starving.
“Do you want me to slow down,” he rasped, his voice hoarse, shaking with restraint he was seconds from losing.
I shook my head.
A tremor ran through him, raw and uncontrolled.
“Neve…” His fingers dug into my waist. “…what are you doing to me?”
I pulled him closer, my lips brushing his ear. “I want you.”
A sound ripped from his chest — something feral and quiet, like a man coming undone.
His mouth crashed into mine again, deeper this time, more desperate, and I felt everything. He kissed me like the world was ending and I was the last thing he was allowed to touch before the dark took him.
He set me to the ground and walked me back until my knees hit the edge of the bed, and he finally lowered me onto it — slowly, reverently, like he was handling something fragile he had no business wanting as badly as he did.
His hands hovered over my ribs, trembling. His breathing changed. His eyes searched mine before he touched my face again. Gentler. Slower. Like the hunger and the tenderness were at war inside him and he was losing to both.
His thumb brushed my bottom lip. “Tell me to stop,” he begged softly, even as he leaned down to kiss me again.
I kissed him back, pulling him down with me.
And then the world narrowed to heat and breath and the sharp, sweet ache of letting go — his weight over me, his hands guiding, his voice low at my ear whispering my name like a newly learned prayer.
He lifted the shirt I wore over my head and tossed it across the room.
He tugged at my panties until they pooled somewhere down the bed.
He wrestled with his own clothes until he was naked and bare, lying on his side on the mattress, watching me.
His hand reached up to unclasp my bra, letting it fall free until we were two naked bodies on the bed.
I tucked a hand under my head and watched him.
His body was a canvas of art. Lines of ink traced every vein, every valley, and every ridge of his upper body.
A dragon sprawled above his left nipple, with ancient Italian numerals running down his right side.
Bracelets of ink wound around his forearms all the way to his wrists, heavy with bulging veins.
His hands were strong, steady, as they spread across every inch of my body.
“So damn beautiful,” he murmured, as he lowered his head to my chest.
He took one nipple in his mouth, then the other, sucking on them like he was starved.
When he withdrew, he held both globes in his hands, kneading gently, before he started to kiss down my stomach, past my navel.
He settled his head between my legs, lifting his eyes to stare at me. My breath caught in anticipation.
He lowered his head again, flicking his tongue out, the tip gently teasing my clitoris. He gave a few gentle flicks, then lowered, flattening his tongue against my pussy, licking me up and down until I was shuddering beneath him.
“I’m not going to last, baby,” he warned, lifting his face to look at me. His mouth was drenched with my juice, his eyes dilated.
Slowly, he lifted himself up until he was laying on top of me, his cock pressing slowly at my entrance.
I was soaked, soft and ready, when he slipped inside me and just stayed there.
He sighed, as though he’d finally found his way home, before he arched his back and started to move.
Slowly at first, then picking up speed to match my moans.
He thrust into me, over and over again, before he sat up between my thighs and lifted my legs over his shoulders, hitting even deeper.
I stretched to accommodate him as his cock thickened, and I felt every inch of him deep inside me as he hit my walls. Every thrust touched my core, overwhelming me, until everything inside us broke open and he poured his come inside me.
He held me through it. Every tremble. Every gasp. Every new, dizzying sensation.
And when the world blurred at the edges, when it felt too much, he slowed, murmuring against my skin, grounding me with the warmth of his touch and the rough steadiness of his breath.
He kissed my shoulder, my throat, the corner of my mouth.
“I’ve got you,” he breathed, “I’ve got you.” And I believed him. I let go. And my own storm finally broke.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my knuckles brushing the blanket. The urge to touch him was a low, constant throb under my skin. It wasn’t just desire. It was something deeper. Something pure and fleeting and impossible to explain.
Like my life, every ugly piece of it, had been waiting for this moment.
His lashes fluttered, and Atlas stirred. When his eyes opened, they found mine immediately, as if some invisible thread had pulled them there.
“Hey,” I breathed.
“Hey,” he whispered back, the sound of his voice hitting me straight in the ribs.
For a second, we just looked at each other. Without any fear, and no walls erected. Just that quiet, dangerous space between two people who’d already crossed too many lines to pretend this was nothing.
“Looks like you’re deep in thought. Regrets already?”
I swallowed. “If I were going to have any regrets, I wouldn’t have allowed this to happen,” I told him.
His gaze searched mine, like he was weighing the truth of my words. Then he reached out, his fingers brushing my wrist.
The contact was small, simple, and it felt like a promise.
I leaned in without thinking, my forehead resting against his. The world narrowed to his breath, his warmth, the fragile, terrifying thing growing between us.
“We’re here now,” I whispered.
“Yeah. We are.”
His mouth found mine in a slow, careful kiss, nothing like the hunger from before. This was quieter. Deeper. A claiming that didn’t need urgency.
My hands slid into his hair, and something in me gave way. I kissed him again, longer this time, pouring every unsaid thing into the space between our mouths. All the years. All the violence. All the strange, impossible roads that had led us back to each other.