Chapter 13 #3
Hard enough to make the bed shift beneath us. Gentle enough to make every stroke deliberate. Her fingers tighten in the sheets near her head, her wrist still trapped beneath my hand, her body moving with mine as if all the years between us never stood a chance.
For a while, there is nothing but us.
Just my hips moving between her thighs and her pussy clenching around me every time I sink in. Every stroke pulls a sound from her. Every sound drags me closer to the edge. She is tight and wet and so responsive I can feel her body answering mine before her mouth can form the words.
I lean down and kiss her neck, pressing my mouth to the soft skin there as I keep fucking her.
Mine, my body says.
Mine, my hands say.
Mine, my fucked up heart says, even though I have no right to the word.
Her back arches off the mattress, and I wrap one arm beneath her, pulling her closer. Her ass lifts, giving me a better angle and letting me sink deeper until a broken cry catches in her throat.
“There,” I rasp. “Fuck, Sky. Right there?”
She nods, her lips parted, her eyes hazy with pleasure.
I drive into her again, deeper this time, and her whole body jolts.
That's all the permission I need.
I keep her lifted, holding her to me as I move harder, our bodies colliding in a rhythm that feels too natural to be fair. Her skin is warm beneath my hands. Her thighs grip my waist. Sweat gathers along my chest and slips down my spine as the room fills with the filthy sounds of us.
Skin, breath, moans, and the wet, perfect slide of my cock driving into her pussy again and again.
Pleasure coils low in my gut, pulling tighter with every thrust.
Skylar’s eyes squeeze shut for a second, but I move my hand to her jaw and pull her back to me.
“No,” I say, breathless and rough. “Eyes on me.”
Her lashes flutter open.
There she is. Beautiful. Wrecked. So fucking close.
I sense it before she utters a sound. Her pussy starts to flutter around me, a little clenching that turns my brain to ash. Her thighs tremble and her mouth opens, but no sound comes out at first, just a broken breath that looks painful in the prettiest way.
“Zane,” she whispers.
The sound hits me straight in the chest. I catalogue everything because some scared, desperate part of me thinks I might need to survive on this memory later.
The way her lips part and how her throat tightens around a sound she cannot hold back. The way her fingers claw at the sheet and the way her body gives one hard shudder before she breaks beneath me.
Her orgasm rolls through her in waves. Her back arches. She cries out, then bites it back, trembling beneath me as pleasure takes her apart piece by piece.
“Fuck,” I groan, my hips stuttering as she keeps squeezing me. “Sky.”
I try to hold on. I really fucking do. But then she pulls me closer and bites my shoulder.
Pain flashes through me, sharp and hot. It snaps the last thread of my control clean in half. The pleasure punches higher, harder, tearing through me with a force that makes my lips part and my brows pull tight. My body folds over hers as my release slams into me, brutal and blinding.
I come inside her with a gutted groan, spilling deep while her teeth stay in my shoulder and her pussy pulses around me. Every burst drags another sound out of me. Rough. Broken. Hers. My hips keep moving, fucking my cum deeper as the aftershocks roll through both of us.
The pain from her bite melts into pleasure until I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. It is all heat. All pressure. All Skylar beneath me, around me, inside the parts of me I tried to lock away.
I keep moving until I can’t anymore. Until my arms shake. Until the pleasure softens into something tender enough to scare the shit out of me.
My mouth finds her neck, kissing along the column of her throat as I try to remember how to breathe.
I don’t want to let her go because reality is waiting. I can sense it at the edge of the bed, sharpening its knife. She could pull away, put her walls back up, and leave me lying here with nothing but the ghost of her body wrapped around mine.
She turns her head and I lift mine. Our eyes meet. For a second, neither of us says anything.
Her fingers come up and trace down the side of my face. Soft and slow.
I close my eyes because I can’t take it, yet I still pretend I’m fine. Her touch is too gentle for a man who has spent years convincing himself he could survive without it.
When I open my eyes again, her lips meet mine and my heart races as I kiss her back.
I love you.
The words rise fast, pressing against the back of my teeth. I want to say them. Fuck, I want to say them so badly it hurts. But I swallow them down.
After everything I did, after the way I hurt her, I don’t get to hand her my heart and make it another burden she has to carry. So I keep the words where they belong for now, locked behind my ribs, burning a hole through me.
“Sky,” I whisper against her lips, but it’s not even close to what I want to say. It’s all I trust myself to give her without begging her to stay.
I pull back from the kiss as a noise cuts through the quiet.
Metal shifts downstairs. Then the heavy groan as the workshop door rolls open.
Reality doesn’t knock; it kicks the fucking door in.
Skylar stills beneath me, her breath catching against my mouth. For one stupid second, I stay there, forehead pressed to hers, body still warm from hers, heart still doing dangerous shit behind my ribs.
Skylar pulls back, her brows knitting together. “Is that Rainer?”
Her voice is soft, but it cracks. The little bubble we built around ourselves bursts. Just like that.
Gone.
Now there is only the workshop downstairs, the morning pressing against the windows, and the ugly reminder that the world did not stop because I had Skylar back in my arms.
I exhale and drop my head for a moment.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’ll be him.”
Skylar’s gaze flicks over my face, before she glances toward the door, and I feel her shift beneath me, putting space back between us.
I roll off her before she has to ask, grabbing the sheet and dragging it over her because apparently my need to protect her dignity has decided to show up after I fucked every bit of sense out of us both.
She sits up slowly, pulling the sheet to her chest. Her hair is a mess. Her cheeks still carry that soft flush I want to hold in my hands and never let anyone else see.
And fuck me, I want to lock the door and climb right back into bed with her. Ignore Rainer and the whole world until Skylar looks at me the way she did two minutes ago.
I can already hear Rainer moving around below. Cupboards opening. Something clanging. The old bastard making enough noise to wake the dead.
I reach for my jeans on the floor, but I don’t put them on right away. I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, trying to pull myself together while every part of me still wants to turn around and touch her.
I turn my head to see her watching me, the sheet tucked under her arms, her eyes softer than they were when she walked into this room last night.
Downstairs, Rainer calls out. “Zane? You dead up there, or just useless?”