Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Dexter
I had a plan.
A decent, responsible plan. One where I kept my hands to myself. Where I locked every reckless impulse behind a steel door and swallowed the key.
That plan didn’t include this moment.
Aly. Me. Alone.
The penthouse is still and quiet, every wall whispering what I’m too scared to say out loud.
She looks at me like I might already be hers. Like she might fall if I so much as breathe too close.
And fuck, I’m starving.
“Aly.”
Her name is a rasp in my throat. I can’t remember the last time I said anything that meant this much.
She’s beneath me on the couch—back pressed against the cushions, thighs bracketing my hips, her hands tangled in my shirt like she’s holding herself together with me.
Our mouths meet again, and it’s not gentle. It’s all tongue and teeth and so much need. She kisses me like she might unravel if I stop.
But I need to hear it.
Need her to say it.
I pull back just enough to look at her, lips swollen, breath shaking.
“Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,” I whisper, voice hoarse, almost pleading. My forehead rests against hers, noses brushing, breaths mingling. “Please.”
Her eyes—fuck, her eyes—are endless and wet and wanting. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”
I crash back into her mouth like I’ve been set on fire.
Her dress isn't just fabric—it’s an obstacle, a tease clinging to her body after a night spent keeping other people’s love stories on track.
But I want hers. I want ours.
My fingers find the zipper at her side and drag it down slowly, the sound loud in the silence between us. The fabric loosens, slipping over her shoulders like it was waiting for permission to fall.
She shivers when I peel it down, exposing the soft curve of her back, the smooth line of her spine. I tug the straps off and press my lips to her collarbone as the bodice dips.
She lifts her hips just enough for me to slide the dress down her thighs, leaving her in nothing but a lacy scrap of black underneath—and it barely counts as underwear. Her beautiful breasts are perky and needy.
“Fuck, Aly . . .” I whisper, awe bleeding into my voice.
I cup her breast in one hand, thumbing over the peak until it draws a soft, broken sigh from her lips. Then I dip my head, taking her nipple into my mouth, swirling my tongue slowly before sucking her deeper.
She arches beneath me, whimpering, her fingers threading into my hair and holding me there. Like she needs me there.
And I’m not stopping.
She arches, hands in my hair, hips lifting to grind against me through the fabric still between us. I’m shaking. I don’t know if it’s from restraint, or relief, or need. My hand slips under the waistband of her underwear, trying to take it off.
“I need to taste you,” I murmur, already moving down her body, intent on losing myself between her thighs.
But she catches my face in both hands, pulling me back up until we’re nose to nose.
“No.” Her voice is wrecked, breathless. “Later.”
She kisses me hard—deep, desperate—like she’s been waiting all damn night to get me alone.
“I need you inside me,” she breathes against my mouth.
I nod, nearly undone by the way she says it. By the raw ache in her voice. But then she stills, her palm flattening against my chest.
“Do you have a condom?”
“Yeah,” I rasp, reaching blindly into the drawer behind me where I put some condoms earlier—hopeful that maybe tomorrow I would bring her, but . . . plans change. I find the foil packet and hold it up, breathing hard.
But my jeans are still in the way—fuck. I fumble with the button, my fingers shaking as I shove them down my hips, lifting just enough to get free.
My cock springs forward, thick and aching, already leaking with how badly I want her.
She takes the condom from my hand. “Let me.”
Her fingers wrap around me—warm, confident, unhurried.
She tears the foil open with her teeth, eyes lifting to meet mine as she rolls the condom down over my length, slow and possessive.
It’s torture. It’s perfect.
“You’re going to kill me,” I groan.
She grins. “Not yet.”
Then she rises to her knees and hooks her fingers into the sides of her panties, sliding them down her legs and tossing them aside without breaking eye contact. One hand stays on my chest for balance, the other wraps around me, guiding me to her entrance.
She exhales shakily as the head of my cock brushes against her. Then—slowly, achingly slow—she begins to lower herself, inch by inch.
Her breath catches. Her thighs tremble. My hands grip her hips, not to rush her, but to ground myself—because the feel of her, the heat, the way she takes me in with such deliberate control, is almost more than I can handle.
She sinks lower, every movement unhurried and devastating, until she’s fully seated, snug around me, her body pressed to mine, her lips parted like she’s forgotten how to breathe.
We don’t move.
Not yet.
It’s just her, stretched around me. Me, holding on like she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this earth.
Her mouth falls open in a gasp.
My hands grip her hips, fingers digging in as I fight the instinct to thrust up into her.
“Fuck, Aly . . .”
She rolls her hips once—deliberate, slow—like she’s savoring the stretch, the fullness, the fact that she has me right where she wants me.
“I’ve thought about this,” she whispers, bracing herself on my shoulders. “Dreamed about it since I came back from San Cristóbal.”
I look up at her, completely wrecked. She’s straddling me, flushed and wild and so fucking real it hurts.
“Then keep going, baby,” I whisper. “Don’t stop now.”
And she does.
She moves with purpose, with hunger, with this rhythm that destroys me one slow grind at a time. Each bounce of her hips drives me deeper into her, tighter around me. She pants my name like it’s the only word she remembers.
I swear I’ve never been this far gone.
And I don’t want to come back.
God, what the hell is happening to me?
This was supposed to be . . . well, I have no fucking idea where this woman came from with that energy and light that I never knew I needed in my life.
Since the first time she came into my life, she completed me, and I don’t want to live without her. Was it love at first sight? I have no idea, but whatever I feel is all hers.
It’s her.
It’s Aly.
My Aly.
And the way she moves on me—slow and raw, like she’s savoring every second—it’s not just about sex. It’s about everything we haven’t said. Everything we’ve buried under timing and distance and fear.
She rocks against me, her hands braced on my chest, her hair sticking to her neck, her lips parted and trembling. She’s chasing something—and dragging me with her.
And I let her.
I give her everything—my hands on her hips, my mouth on her breast, my body straining up to meet hers with every thrust.
But it’s my thoughts that betray me.
I want more.
I want mornings with her wrapped around me.
I want to hear her moan like this in my bed. In every room of this penthouse or any place we live—together.
I want her hand in mine in public.
I want her laugh in my kitchen—our kitchen.
I want her toothbrush next to mine.
She gasps and grinds down harder, and I’m right there with her. My fingers dig into her waist, anchoring her to me like I’m afraid she’ll vanish.
“Dex—” she moans, and her voice fractures—like she’s coming undone right there in my hands, on my lap, around me.
That sound.
That broken, beautiful sound.
It punches through my ribs and settles somewhere below logic, where everything about her starts to rewrite what I thought I knew about wanting. I cup her hips and roll mine up, searching for that spot inside her that made her voice break like that.
And when I find it—when her whole body tightens in response—I stay right there, circling my hips in tight, deliberate thrusts, not letting her escape the edge she's about to tip over.
“Right there?” I rasp, my voice ragged. “Is that where you want me?”
She nods, breath hitching, nails dragging down my chest like she’s trying to hold on.
“Then come for me,” I whisper, watching her fall apart like it’s the most sacred thing I’ve ever seen. “Come for me, sweetheart. Right here. With me.”
She trembles, her back arches. Her body pulses tight around me, again and again, like she’s trying to memorize the shape of me from the inside.
And I lose it—groaning into her shoulder as I spill into the condom, burying myself deep and holding her like I can press the truth of this moment into her skin.
Like if I hold her close enough, the world will quiet for good. We collapse together.
Breathless.
Sweat-slicked.
Tangled in each other.
And for a long time, I don’t move.
I just keep her there—soft, warm, real—folded against me like she’s the only part of this life that ever made sense.
Not for the sex. Not even for the fire.
But for the stillness that follows.
The weight of her against me.
The terrifying, beautiful peace I feel with her in my arms.
I’m in trouble.
Because this?
This isn’t something I’ll forget in the morning or bury under the wrong timing.
This is something my body already knows.
This is a beginning I didn’t plan.
And for the first time, I want to stay where I am.
Inside her.
Inside this moment.
Because I’ve never wanted anything more than the future I see when I look in her eyes.