Chapter 39
thirty-nine
SOPHIE
The second I close Mike’s apartment door behind us, he’s on me.
His mouth collides with mine, hungry and desperate, nothing like the gentle promise of his earlier kiss. This is raw need, days of silence and pain compressed into the fierce tangle of teeth and tongues. His hands twist in my hair, angling my head back to deepen the kiss, and I moan into his mouth.
My fingers fumble with his shirt buttons. After the third attempt, I give up on dignity entirely, gripping the fabric and yanking. Buttons scatter across the hardwood floor with satisfying little clicks, like plastic applause for my destruction of his wardrobe.
“Sophie—” His groan reverberates against my lips as I rake my nails down his newly exposed chest, feeling the muscles contract beneath my touch.
He spins me, pressing my back against the wall hard enough to rattle the framed hockey jersey hanging nearby. The impact steals my breath in a sharp gasp that he swallows with another kiss. His erection brands against my stomach through our clothes, hot and insistent, and I grind against him.
“Missed this,” he growls between kisses, his mouth blazing a path to my neck. “Missed us.”
Each word is punctuated by teeth and tongue on my pulse point, and my knees buckle.
We’re barely three feet inside his apartment, haven’t even made it past the entryway with its neat row of shoes and the hockey stick propped in the corner, but I couldn’t care less.
Not when every cell in my body riots for him.
My throat burns with need, parched for him after all these days apart. He’s water and wine and every drink I’ve ever craved.
My hands attack his belt while his hands wrestle with my jeans, our movements frantic and uncoordinated. We’re all desperate hands and harsh breathing, except this isn’t about discovery—it’s about reclamation. About filling the hollow spaces the past week carved into us.
“Off,” he demands, shoving my jeans down my hips.
I kick them away along with my underwear, barely registering the cool air on my bare skin before he’s pressed against me again, all heat and hard muscle and home. I reach for his cock, wrapping my fingers around the thick length of him, and he hisses through his teeth.
“Sophie, fuck?—”
“That’s the idea.” The words come out breathless, more gasp than sass, but I’m proud of myself for maintaining any humor at all when my brain is melting.
We collapse to the floor in a graceless heap of limbs and half-removed clothing. The hardwood is cold against my back, a sharp contrast to Mike’s burning mouth as it charts a path across my body—my breasts, my stomach, that sensitive spot where my hip meets my thigh that makes me squirm.
When I guide him toward my mouth, he groans. “You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” I drag my tongue from base to tip, tasting salt and musk and Mike. “I’ve been thinking about this. About you. About how you taste.”
His eyes roll back as I take him deep, working him with lips and tongue and just enough teeth to make him gasp.
The sounds he makes—desperate, guttural, completely uninhibited—send liquid heat pooling between my thighs.
I’m loud too, moaning around him, letting him feel every vibration of my appreciation.
“Stop,” he gasps suddenly, pulling away. “Not like this. Need to be inside you.”
Before I can mourn the loss, he flips me onto my stomach. The move is swift, almost rough, and anticipation races down my spine. He hauls my hips up, positioning me on hands and knees.
“This OK?” His fingers tease between my legs, finding me soaked.
“Fuck me,” I demand, pushing back against his hand. “Please, Mike. I need?—”
He plunges into me mid-sentence, burying himself to the hilt in one thrust. I cry out, my fingers scrabbling for purchase on the polished floor as he sets a punishing pace.
Yes. This is what we needed. The slap of skin against skin, the burn of him stretching me, the complete abandon. Every thrust drives deeper, harder, each one a declaration: Mine. Still mine. Always mine.
“Yes,” I gasp, meeting him thrust for thrust. “Harder.”
He complies, one hand sliding up my spine to fist in my hair, pulling my head back. The sharp pull amplifies everything else, and when his other hand reaches around to find my clit, I nearly scream.
“That’s it,” he growls in my ear. “Let me hear you.”
I do. I let myself be loud, let every moan and whimper and desperate plea fill his apartment. Let the neighbors know. Let the whole building understand that we’re here, we’re together, we’re not broken beyond repair.
We’re soaring without a plan, and I love it.
My orgasm ambushes me, sudden and overwhelming. I clench around him, my whole body shaking as waves of pleasure crash over me. He follows seconds later with a roar, spilling deep inside me.
We collapse in a sweaty heap on the floor, chests heaving, limbs tangled. My cheek presses against the cool hardwood, and I can feel his heart hammering against my back where he’s draped over me.
After a long moment, I roll onto my side to look at him. Really look at him. At this man who would have walked away from the ice, from the roar of the crowd, from everything that makes him who he is.
For me.
The magnitude of it steals my breath all over again.
“You were ready to give up everything,” I whisper, my voice still rough from crying out his name.
He shifts onto his side too, facing me, his dark eyes soft. A bead of sweat trails down his temple, and I reach out to catch it with my thumb, marveling at this simple intimacy.
I crawl over him, straddling his hips, and lean down until my lips brush his ear. “Let me give you something new.”
His hands come up to rest on my thighs, warm and solid. “Sophie?”
“I want you everywhere.” I shift my hips, letting him feel how wet I still am, how ready. “Anywhere you want to go, we’ll go together.”
Understanding dawns in his eyes, followed quickly by heat that makes my stomach flutter. “Are you sure?”
“There are no more closed doors between us,” I tell him, holding his gaze. “Not tonight. Not ever.”
A gentle smile spreads across his face—not arrogant or triumphant, but grateful, reverent.
He rolls me onto my stomach again, but this time his touch is worshipful. His hands map the geography of my body—my back, my hips, the curve of my ass. When he spreads me open, I tense slightly, but his lips press against my shoulder blade in reassurance.
“We’ll go slow,” he promises, and I hear him spit. His finger circles my ass, spreading moisture, before pressing gently inside.
The sensation arrests me—foreign and invasive, but not unpleasant. My body wants to resist, to protect this unexplored space, but I breathe through it, trusting him. When he adds a second finger, stretching me carefully, the burn makes me gasp.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says, his free hand rubbing soothing circles on my lower back.
“It’s OK,” I manage, surprised to find it’s true. “Just… different.”
He works me open with infinite patience, adding more spit, more fingers, until the discomfort transmutes into something else. Something that makes me push back against his hand, seeking more of this strange new pleasure.
“Please,” I whisper, looking back over my shoulder at him. “I’m ready.”
His eyes search mine once more before he positions himself. The first push is overwhelming—pressure and stretch and a fullness that defies description. I gasp, my fingers clutching at nothing, trying to anchor myself to something solid.
“Breathe,” he coaches, holding perfectly still. “Just breathe, baby.”
I do, forcing my body to relax, to welcome him. And when he finally slides home, buried completely inside me, we both groan—him from the tight heat, me from the impossible fullness.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You feel… Sophie, you’re so tight. So perfect.”
I reach between my legs, finding my clit, and the first touch sends electricity through me. The combination—him filling me in this forbidden way while I work myself with familiar strokes—is devastating.
He starts to move, slow and careful at first, then deeper as he feels me responding. Each thrust sends shockwaves through me, pleasure mixing with the lingering burn until I can’t separate them, don’t want to separate them.
“Come for me, Soph,” he grits out, his control clearly fraying. “I need to feel you come like this.”
My fingers speed up, chasing the orgasm building inside me. When it breaks, I muffle my scream against my arm, my whole body convulsing. The feeling of me clenching around him sends him over the edge too, and he comes with a shout.
Even when we’re done, when he’s softening inside me, we stay joined for long moments, both of us panting. When he finally pulls out, I whimper at the loss, at the strange emptiness that follows.
He gathers me against him immediately, pressing kisses to my hair, my temple, my cheek. “You OK? Was that—did I hurt you?”
“No,” I assure him, turning in his arms to face him. “It was perfect. We’re perfect.”
We lie there on his floor, naked and sweaty, city lights painting abstract art on the ceiling through his windows. The fear that’s lived in my chest for months—maybe years—has finally quieted to a manageable hum.
“I’ve been so scared,” I admit, tracing patterns on his chest. “Of my mom getting worse, of dropping the ball, of not being enough. But maybe… maybe I can help my family and still have this.”
“It’s literally what everyone keeps telling you, Soph.” His voice is gentle but firm. “You carry too much. You can look after your mom, help your family, and be with me. You don’t need to choose.”
He kisses me then, long and sweet, tasting of promises and tomorrows. When we break apart, his arms tighten around me.
“The draft is in June.” His voice rumbles against my ear. “But wherever I end up, there’s an airport, and we’ll figure it out together.”
I smile against his chest, feeling lighter than I have in years. For so long, I’ve tried to control everything, to plan for every possibility. But lying here with him, sticky and sated and completely bare in every sense, I realize that the unknown isn’t the enemy I’ve made it out to be.
“We’ll build a life, however it goes and wherever we land,” I say, my voice steady with newfound conviction. “And try lots of new things along the way.”