Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Annie
How did this happen?
That’s the first coherent thought I have, and even that feels delayed, like it has to fight its way through everything else before it can surface.
Because this… this isn’t something that just… happens.
Not to me.
Not like this.
Not twice.
Not with two different men in the same house like I’ve apparently decided to speedrun bad decisions.
And yet, here we are.
Cody’s mouth is still on mine, and it’s very different from Duke’s, which is an unhelpful comparison to be making in real time, except my brain insists on cataloging it anyway.
Duke is heat.
Cody is precision.
Even like this, especially like this, there’s something measured about him, that feels like he’s aware of every inch of contact, every shift, every reaction, and is adjusting accordingly.
Which would be reassuring if it wasn’t completely undoing me.
My hand tightens in his shirt, because I need something to anchor to, that reminds me this is real and not some kind of stress-induced hallucination brought on by spreadsheets and emotional repression.
He makes a low sound against my mouth, and that does something immediate and catastrophic to my ability to think.
I lose my mind, and I’m pretty sure he does too.
Hands clutching fabric. Teeth grinding. I’m slammed against the wall before I register it, legs curling around his waist, my body moving before my mind can catch up. He groans into my neck, raw and urgent, as if this held-back fire finally erupted.
“You don’t know,” he growls into my skin, lifting me effortlessly and carrying me toward the bed, “what you do to me.”
I can barely gasp before I’m tossed onto the mattress, a little bounce skating me up toward the headboard.
Cody’s on me instantly, his shirt gone somewhere between doorway and duvet. He looms above me, arms braced on either side, and his chest is a map of shallow breaths and gorgeous muscles I had no idea were there.
I haven’t breathed since my back hit the sheets.
I reach up, gripped by a wild urge to touch his rock-hard chest, and he shivers as I draw my nails lightly over the peaks and valleys. His face is practically shaking with the effort of keeping himself from falling apart.
I do it again, longer this time, claws and palms and then lips, my mouth finding his shoulder, the edge of his collarbone, tasting salt, sweat, and whatever it is that makes Cody, Cody.
His skin is hot, and softer than I expect. My tongue flicks up to the hollow of his throat, and the rumble it pulls from him is so primal I have to chase it, see if I can get that sound again.
“Annie, I can’t keep doing this. I need to see you. All of you.”
His voice cracks the silence like a whip. Air whooshes from my lungs. I lift my eyes to his, throat parched, pulse hammering against my spine.
He stands at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, shoulders squared, eyes dark pools of hunger.
I should hesitate. Instead, heat coils through me.
Slowly, I slide to my knees on the cool mattress. Fingertips tremble as I yank my tee over my head. It snags on my hair before slipping free, crumpling at my feet.
I hook thumbs in the waistband of my shorts and panties, roll them down past my thighs in one smooth motion. The fabric whispers onto the carpet.
His gaze traces every inch of bare skin, sparking a wildfire behind my ribs.
“Lie back,” he murmurs. “Let me look at you.”
My breath catches, then I arch, palms pressing into crisp sheets, stretching long against the pillows. The linen cools the underside of my legs.
He meets my eyes, and my thighs clench on instinct.
“Say stop,” he whispers, “and I will. But if you don’t… I’m going to ruin you tonight.”
A shiver of anticipation rattles my spine. I nod, words lost somewhere between my ribs.
His lips find the hollow at my throat, tracing down to the valley between my breasts. Each kiss is a spark, lighting embers under my skin.
He captures a nipple between his teeth; I arch, hips lifting into the delicious bite. Then he slides lower, tongue flicking sensually across my belly before dipping beneath my hip.
“Cody, please…”
He presses his mouth to me, breath scorching, tongue flicking over my clit. My back bows off the bed, a raw moan ripping free.
He sinks in two fingers, curling them with precision as his mouth devours every cry. His hands clamp my thighs, holding me open, keeping me his.
“Come for me,” he growls, thick with need.
I shatter around his touch, I can’t help myself. White hot pulses rocking through my limbs, his name tumbling from my lips in a cry that echoes off the walls.
He keeps going until I’m gasping, tremoring against the silk restraints, every nerve alight with aftershocks.
But he isn’t done with me yet. I can tell by the dark hunger gnawing away at his eyes.
“Oh, Annie, you have no idea how good you look when you lose your mind.”
He flips me over, hips clutched in his hands, and the mattress bows as he positions himself behind me.
An unspooling anticipation turns my body to glass, every nerve so clear I throb with it. His fingers skim my spine, chasing goosebumps down my thighs.
He lifts my hips, and then his cock nudges at the slick, frantic seam of me, the slow, agonizing pressure making me arch and whimper.
He fills me in one, driving thrust, the force pressing my ribs to the wood slats of the headboard, and I’m pinned, utterly, beautifully trapped.
He doesn’t move at first. Just holds me, cock buried to the hilt, his whole body vibrating with the effort of restraint.
His hands dig bruises into my hips. His breath shudders against my shoulder blade.
I can feel his heartbeat jackhammering through him, hot, irregular, desperate, like he’s hanging on by a thread and the thread is made of my skin.
He starts moving, pulling out in excruciating inches, then slamming back in. The headboard rattles against the wall.
I can’t control the noises coming out of me—cries, curses, and sobs, laughter so high and wild it barely sounds human.
I beg, shameless and torn open, for more. Maybe for everything.
I don’t even remember how the sheets got untucked, but they snarl around my knees, trapping me, threatening to tear if I kick much harder.
My shoulders burn with the effort of holding me steady. I want to touch him. I want to claw at his hair, drag him down, scratch trails into his back.
He knows this.
He must.
Each time heat flares behind my eyelids and a fresh wave shudders through me, I know I’m going to come apart one segment at a time until there’s nothing left.
It’s electric, the current of want building and breaking but never dangerous, never not contained by the boundaries he’s staked out and the glaring, desperate checkpoints of my own consent.
“Fuck…”
I crash so hard my vision blue shifts, muscles quivering so bad my teeth tingle.
It’s impossible to know how long I’m blind with it, only that when sensation returns, Cody’s arms are wound around me so tight I can’t tell where I end and he starts.
“Annie, I can’t stop…”
His last words are so ragged with need, so wildly lost, I want to laugh and cry and claw him closer.
His hips snap, driving into me, and I can feel him surrendering, that wild, animal loss of self that makes all the wanting worthwhile. He buries his face in my hair as he comes with a guttural moan that turns me molten.
I feel the hot pulse inside me, the exquisite collapse of all that self-possession and control, and for a few seconds, maybe a lifetime, we’re just desperate flesh, two selfish animals, clinging to each other for balance in the dark.
After, the sweat evaporates off our skin and his breath slows, slow enough it almost hurts. My own chest is heaving.
For a while there’s only shuddering and the rattle of the air conditioner, and the taste of his sweat and mine, and the impossible ache in my thighs.
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I must, because the next thing I know my cheek is stuck to the cool pillowcase and Cody is curled against my back, one muscular arm binding me to the planet.
To him.
Exactly where I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be.