Chapter 46 Lance #2
Her fingers twist in my shirt, pulling me closer, and when her tongue slides against mine, the sound I make echoes off the stone walls and disappears into the roar of the waterfall.
She presses her whole body against me, and I can feel every line of her through the damp fabric, the heat of her cutting through the cold.
My hands slide down her sides, over her hips, and I grip the backs of her thighs and lift. She wraps her legs around me without hesitation, her ankles locking at the small of my back, and I press her against the smooth rock wall.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” I say against her mouth. “Since the first time I brought you here.”
“Liar. You hated me back then.”
“Thin line between love and hate, Half-Pint.”
She kisses me harder, her hips rolling against me, and the friction sends a bolt of heat straight through my core.
I’m already hard. I’ve been half-hard since she stepped onto those rocks in that sports bra, but I wasn’t going to do anything about it because I’m trying to be a better man and better men don’t jump their girlfriend during training.
Except she jumped me first.
Her fingers find the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head.
The cold air hits my skin, raising goose bumps, but her hands are warm, palms flattening against my chest, tracing the lines of muscle and scar tissue.
She kisses the bruise on my ribs, the one she left this morning, and then the older ones underneath.
The scars from fights she didn’t see. The damage from a life she’s choosing to love anyway.
“Every time I see these,” she whispers, “I want to burn the world down.”
“The world’s already burning, Half-Pint. You’re just the one I’d let the wind drag me to hell with.”
She laughs. It bounces off the stone and mingles with the waterfall, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in this alcove or anywhere.
I unzip her jacket and push it off her shoulders. Her shirt follows. The sports bra underneath is black, and the water has made it cling to her in a way that makes my brain short-circuit. I trace the strap with one finger, dragging it down her shoulder, watching the goose bumps rise on her skin.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“I’m counting.”
Her eyes soften. “It’s really not fair when you steal my quirks and use them on me like that.”
I kiss her collarbone. The curve of her breast above the fabric. The valley between them, where her heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against my lips.
She pulls the sports bra over her head, and the sight of her bare in this blue light with the mist on her skin and her hair falling around her shoulders and the waterfall roaring behind us like the world is applauding is something I’ll remember forever.
I press my forehead to her chest and breathe her in.
“You’re everything,” I say. “You know that, right? Every seven seconds I’ve ever counted, you’re in all of them.”
“Lance. If you make me cry before you make me come, I’ll never forgive you.”
I bark out a laugh. Actual, genuine, full-bodied laughter that I barely recognize as mine.
Swooping down, I take her nipple into my mouth and she gasps, her back arching off the rock.
I tease her with my tongue, sucking, biting softly, rolling the peak between my lips while my hand palms her other breast. Her fingers twist in my hair, pulling, and the sting of it lights me up the way it always does.
I switch sides. Take my time. Learn her all over again like I didn’t memorize every inch of her body weeks ago, because every time feels new with her, every time she gives me something I didn’t know was there.
Her hips grind against me, seeking friction, and I can feel the heat of her through our clothes. I slide one hand between us, down the flat of her stomach, beneath the waistband of her pants.
She’s soaked.
My fingers slide through her, slick and hot, and the sound she makes bounces off the alcove walls. I press my forehead to hers, watching her face as I find her clit and circle it with the pad of my thumb.
“There?” I ask, because I always ask, because consent isn’t a one-time thing and she deserves to be asked every single time.
“There,” she breathes. “Don’t stop.”
I work her slow, the way she likes it when we’re not forbidden and hiding from the world. When there’s no clock ticking and no one waiting and no guilt rotting us from the inside out. Just my hand and her body and our cold skin, and the waterfall swallowing every sound she makes.
Her thighs tighten around my waist.
“More,” she says. “I need more.”
I pull her pants down, and she helps, kicking them off one leg while I hold her up.
Her underwear goes with them, and then she’s bare from the waist, pressed against the rock with my hand between her legs and the mist painting her skin.
I slide two fingers inside her, and she clenches around me so tight my vision blurs.
“Fuck,” she whispers.
I find the spot that makes her legs shake and stroke it while my thumb keeps pressure on her clit. Her whole body tightens, her nails digging into my shoulders, and the sounds she’s making are small, and raw, and everything I’ve ever dreamed of hearing.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” I say against her throat. “Do you know that? When you stop thinking and just let me have you.”
“I always let you have me.”
“I know.” I press a kiss to her pulse.
She pulls my face up and kisses me, and it’s messy and wet and her teeth catch my lower lip and I groan into her mouth. My fingers pick up the pace, stroking deeper, harder, my thumb pressing circles that match the rhythm of her hips grinding against my hand.
“I’m close,” she gasps. “Lance, I’m—”
“I’ve got you. Let go.”
She breaks. Her whole body locks up, her back bowing off the rock, and she comes around my fingers with a cry that the waterfall steals before it reaches the trees.
I feel every pulse, every clench, every tremor that runs through her like an aftershock, and I hold her through all of it, my mouth on her neck, my hand not stopping until she’s wrung out and shaking.
She sags against me, breathing hard, her forehead dropping to my shoulder.
“Good?” I ask.
She laughs against my skin. “You know it’s good. Don’t fish.”
“I’m not fishing. I’m confirming.”
“Confirmed.” She lifts her head. Her eyes are glazed and happy. “Your turn, Champ.”