9. The Storm
Chapter nine
The Storm
The kiss isn’t a question. It’s a collision that takes everything.
Before I even make a conscious decision to move, I have her pinned back against the metal shelving. Metal bites into my hip. A plastic crate shifts somewhere behind her. I barely register either one.
All I feel is weeks of friction, glances, and electric charge, all reduced now to her kissing me back with the same heat she brings to every argument, every fight, every hard look across the clinic.
Only now there is no distance in it. No defense. No way to mistake what she wants when her fingers fist in my shirt and her body arches into mine.
I groan against her mouth, a sound that feels like it's being ripped from my chest.
My hands, usually so steady, are shaking, actually shaking.
I fumble with the fabric of her top and finally manage to drag it up over her head. It’s a clumsy, desperate movement driven by hunger that borders on frenzy. The fabric catches for a second. She tugs impatiently, and the shirt hits the floor.
Then my hands are on her.
Her breath catches, sharp and rough, and she presses closer. Her hips meet mine, and the contact is so direct I have to stop kissing her for a moment to be able to breathe.
Four years.
The thought hits once, clean and brutal.
It’s been four years without this. Four years of a bed that felt like a frozen tundra, four years of silence in my house so heavy it felt like it was crushing me. I thought I’d forgotten how to do this, how to want someone with a hunger that makes my vision blur.
She yanks at my shirt, gets one button open, then another. Her palm lands against my skin, and the sensation runs straight through me. I catch her wrist, not to stop her, but to hold on to the last shred of control I have left.
She looks up at me. Lips swollen. Hair loose around her face. Her breathing is uneven.
There is no shyness there. No confusion.
Only a need, fierce enough to match mine.
“Annie.”
“If you’re about to tell me this is a bad idea, don’t.”
I lower my mouth to hers again and kiss her harder as I grip her waist, my fingers digging into the fabric of her scrubs, pulling her flush against me. I need there to be no space left, to erase the air between us.
Her hands push my shirt open, dragging over my chest, my stomach, the waistband of my pants. She touches me with no hesitation, and the years behind me crack open.
Beth.
A cold spike of guilt pierces through the heat, a sudden, suffocating feeling that I am betraying a ghost. The life we had. The vows I kept. The bed I stopped reaching across. The part of me that learned to live without wanting anything for myself.
I freeze, the air suddenly feeling too thin to breathe.
The heat falters and Annie feels it. Her hands come up and frame my face. She looks at me, eyes dark and searching. “We don’t have to go any farther.”
She doesn’t ask the question out of pity, I feel how genuine it is.
That’s the part that rips me open.
My mouth finds hers again with a force that answers before I can retreat into guilt. Her fingers dig into my shoulders. Her body presses hard to mine, alive and demanding and right here.
The heat radiating off her is an assault on my senses, a wake-up call that I’m still alive, still a man, and still capable of wanting something this badly. Her heart hammers against my chest, a frantic rhythm that matches the rain beating on the roof above us.
I slide my hand up her back and unhook her bra, sliding it off and discarding it on the floor. I move my mouth to her neck, biting softly at the junction where her shoulder meets her throat.
She lets out a sharp gasp. “Doc.”
My name comes out broken. She reaches up, nails digging through my shirt as she pulls me down into her, her lips crashing against mine with a desperation that ignites me.
"Annie," I rasp.
My hands slide to her breasts, my palms rough against her soft skin, kneading them with a desperation that borders on greed. I capture a nipple in my mouth, sucking hard, my tongue swirling around the peaked bud.
She lets out a sharp, guttural moan that goes straight to my cock. I answer it by moving to the other side, my teeth grazing the sensitive tip before I swirl my tongue over it.
I am too hungry for finesse and she doesn’t seem to want it.
"Please," she whimpers, her voice breaking, "Please..."
Her hips grind against me again. I’m hard enough that every brush of her body is punishment. She reaches for my belt. Her hands make smooth, quick work of it. The button gives. The zipper follows.
The first touch of her hand freeing my cock nearly finishes me, then the cool air of the supply room hits me a second before her warm hand wraps around the shaft.
“Mmmm.” She hums and watches as she strokes. That almost ruins me too. She looks up to make sure I’m watching. She leans in and kisses me, then bites my lower lip.
My cock jerks in her hand.
I reach down, my fingers finding the waistband of her pants. I don't hesitate. I push them down, along with her underwear, in one fluid, desperate motion. The scent of her arousal hits me like a physical blow.
She kicks the fabric free and I shift my weight, hiking her leg up over my hip. The movement is clumsy, urgent. I don't care about being smooth. I don't care about the protocol of a first time.
I just need to feel her.
I slide my hand along the hot skin of her stomach and then slip lower, fingers grazing the heat of her thighs and diving farther in, my palm flattening against the damp heat hidden between her legs.
She’s so wet, juices already slipping down her thighs. The slickness against my skin makes my head spin. My fingers slide through her, and her body bows toward mine.
I put my mouth to her neck and suck lightly as I touch her clit, firm and slow enough to feel the tremor that moves through her that she can’t hide.
Her hand tightens around my cock. I press harder with my fingers, and she gasps into my shoulder.
“Please.”
I start circling the swollen nub with a rhythmic, punishing pressure.
She lets out a strangled cry, her fingers raking down over my back. She’s trembling.
I slide two fingers into her, and she moans and arches into me, a low, needy moan escaping her throat that sends a jolt of pure electricity straight to my cock.
Her hips start moving against my fingers. She’s not waiting for me to set the pace. Her hips jerk and her breath hitches as she takes what she wants from my hand, and the sight of it drives me wild.
She’s half naked in my arms, riding my fingers in the dark, and I am a breath away from the raw, primal need to bury myself inside her becomes an all-consuming roar in my ears
I can't wait.
I reach down and grab her ass and lift her off the floor. She wraps around me immediately. Legs around my waist. Arms around my neck. Her mouth on mine again, hard enough to bruise.
I turn, putting the shelf against my back. The metal hits my shoulder, and boxes rattle behind me. She shifts in my arms, and the head of my cock brushes the slick heat between her legs.
I pause for one heartbeat, looking at her. Her face is flushed, her eyes clouded with a lust that matches the storm. She’s intoxicating, and I have to have her.
“Tell me to stop.”
"No," she whispers, her voice broken. "Don’t you dare stop."
I line myself up and push into her.
The first inch is almost too much. She’s so tight and hot around me, and every muscle in my body locks while I fight the urge to drive all the way in. I give her time to stretch and adjust.
She starts to grind and her nails dig into my back harder.
“I want all of it,” she demands.
“Are you sure? We’re not in…” she leans into me, breasts pressed flush against my chest, and whispers in my ear, “Now.”
I give it to her, pushing her hips down forcefully as thrust upward, burying myself deep inside her in one hard, singular motion.
She arches back violently and cries out. The sound nearly ends me.
The feeling is overwhelming, a physical assault on my senses. Her heat, the tightness of her stretched around me, it’s too much and not enough all at once.
I let out a growl as I hold there, buried inside her, my forehead pressed against hers. Both of us breathing hard. I’m shaking as I try to process the sheer intensity of it.
Annie lets out a long, shuddering moan. Her body grips me, legs locking tighter. Her hands slide into my hair, and she pulls my face back to hers.
“Don’t stop.”
I move.
Not slow. Not gentle. There is nothing gentle left in me except the part making sure she wants every bit of this. And she does. She meets each thrust, hips rolling down, mouth open against mine, body taking me harder every time I give her more.
The shelves knock the wall behind me. Something falls. Neither of us cares.
I pull back to watch her. Her breasts bounce wildly with every thrust, and her thighs tighten around my waist. Her body is slick and hot where we’re joined, and every stroke has her moaning louder, harder, and longer.
I drive into her again. “More,” she cries, then bites my shoulder through my shirt.
The next thrust hits even deeper. Her head drops back, eyes begin to flutter, mouth opens to cry out, but the sound is caught somewhere in her chest.
She starts to shake. I get one hand between us and find her clit.
She jerks, hard.
“Yes,” she cries out and arches back.
I keep the pressure there, circling as I thrust into her. She tries to pull in a breath and fails. Her body clenches around me, hard enough that I feel the first wave before it takes her.
"Fuck," I groan, my voice sounding like gravel.
She gasps for air, muscles clamping down around me, squeezing me so tight as her orgasm breaks hard on the next thrust. She lets out a piercing cry as her body locks around me, then pulses in tight, wet waves that drag me past the point of no return.