Chapter 12
Coast POV
The sound of my own pulse was a sledgehammer striking bone behind my temples.
The heavy rolling cart was wedged against the stainless-steel plunge tank, paper data sheets fluttering across the wet rubber matting like confetti after a blowout. But my world had narrowed down to the sixteen inches of space between my chest and the edge of the high examination table.
Tallulah was arched back over the vinyl, her palms pressed flat against the mat on either side of her hips.
Her chest rose and fell in frantic, shallow hitches, straining against the stiff cotton of her starched lab coat.
Her dark braid was coming undone at the nape of her neck, loose strands clinging to the flushed, feverish skin of her throat.
"Coast," she whispered, her voice cracking on the syllable.
Her carotid artery was thrashing against the side of her neck, a frantic, trapped flutter that pulled my gaze down like a magnet.
"Don't," she breathed, her fingers digging into the vinyl until the material stretched white around her knuckles. "If someone comes down that tunnel—if Thorne finds us like this—my fellowship is finished. Your clearance is finished."
"The deadbolt is engaged," I rasped, the gravel in my voice thick enough to choke on. "Nobody is coming through that steel door, Barry."
"You don't know that—"
"I know I am sick to death of listening to you find reasons to run away from me."
I leaned down another half-inch, my broad shoulders blotting out the harsh fluorescent tubes overhead, drowning her in shadow.
The heat pouring off her skin was oppressive, carrying that maddening, clean scent of rain-soaked wool, dark roast coffee, and sweet almond.
It flooded my lungs, burning out the last shred of rational discipline I had spent four years building.
"Look at you," I murmured, my voice dropping an octave, becoming a low, rough rumble that vibrated against her lips. "Trying to hide behind compliance bylaws when your whole body is shaking just from me standing over you."
A sharp hitch caught in her throat. Her honey-dark eyes flashed, that stubborn, defiant fire blazing up through the panic. "I am not shaking for you, Stuart."
The lie was so beautiful, so furious, that a dark, ruined laugh rumbled in my chest.
"Good girl," I whispered, the words brushing warm over her lower lip. "Lie to me again. Tell me you don't want my hands on you."
* * *
Her breath hitched sharply, her lips parting on an exhale that dusted hot against my stubble.
That was the end of it.
My left hand reached out, thick fingers hooking into the stiff lapel of her lab coat.
With a single, smooth pull, I peeled the coat off her shoulders, dragging the starched fabric down her arms and tossing it behind me onto the floor.
She was left in her thin gray wool sweater, the soft knit clinging to the curve of her waist, the outline of her ribs sharp beneath the fabric.
I didn't give her time to think.
I clamped both hands around her hips, my large fingers digging firmly through the denim of her jeans into the soft flesh of her waist, and lifted her.
She weighed next to nothing. I hauled her up effortlessly, setting her onto the high edge of the examination table so her eyes were level with mine.
Her boots slipped between my thighs, her knees naturally parting to bracket my hips, the friction of her denim scraping against my gray fleece training pants.
Tallulah gasped, her hands flying to my shoulders to steady her balance. Her palms were burning hot, digging hard into the dense slabs of my trapezius muscles.
"Coast—"
I silenced her.
My right hand shot into the dark hair at the base of her skull, thick fingers fisting into the loosening braid, tilting her chin up with an unyielding, deliberate pressure.
I crushed my mouth down onto hers.
The contact was a violent, concussive detonation.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't patient. It was four weeks of repressed obsession, four weeks of suffocating basement sessions and midnight confrontations exploding all at once.
My lips parted hers with raw, demanding hunger, my tongue sweeping deep, claiming her mouth like ice I had patrolled for years. She tasted of sweet coffee, cold mountain air, and absolute surrender.
A ragged, broken sound caught in the back of her throat—a small gasp of shock that melted into a ragged moan against my tongue.
She didn't push me away. Her fingers clenched into the heavy fleece over my shoulders, hauling me closer, her back arching off the vinyl table as she met the kiss with a desperate, starving ferocity of her own.
Her mouth moved against mine, hot, bruised, matching my rhythm stride for stride, her tongue tangling with mine with a boldness that shattered my remaining sanity.
A low, guttural groan tore from my chest.
I crowded her back against the table, pressing my full 228 pounds forward until my hips locked against hers, pinning her between my mass and the immovable vinyl. The friction was unbearable, a scorching pressure that made the blood rush to my extremities in a deafening, blinding surge.
My left hand slid up from her waist, my calloused palm tracing the curve of her ribcage, feeling her lungs expand and contract in wild, uneven bursts beneath the gray wool. My thumb grazed the soft hollow beneath her jaw, feeling the hammer of her pulse beneath her skin.
"Open for me," I growled against her lips, breathless and wrecked.
She obeyed instantly, her head tilting further back into my grip, her small hands sliding up from my shoulders to lock behind my neck, pulling my weight down into her heat.
I drank her in, my mouth bruising hers, kissing her until the air left the room entirely, until the only sound in the concrete basement was the wet, desperate slide of our mouths and the ragged hitch of our breathing.
* * *
When I finally broke the seal of our lips, it felt like tearing flesh.
I didn't step back. I rested my forehead against hers, my chest heaving in massive, oxygen-starved expansions that pressed hard against her breasts. The air between our faces was scalding, thick with our mingled breaths.
Tallulah’s eyes were open, but they were dazed, heavy-lidded, the dark pupils blown so wide they swallowed almost the entire amber rim. Her lips were swollen, glistening, stained a vivid, bruised crimson that made my jaw ache with the urge to take them all over again.
Her hands remained locked behind my neck, her fingers tangled in the hair at my collar, her nails biting into my skin with a possessive grip that told me she was drowning in the exact same fire.
"Look at you," I rasped, my voice ruined, stripped to raw gravel.
Her chest hitched, a small, ragged breath slipping past her bruised lips. "Coast..."
"Good girl," I murmured, my thumb dragging slowly across her bottom lip, feeling the heat and the slight tremor in her flesh. "You kissed me back, Barry. You held on."
A faint, breathy sound escaped her, half-sob, half-laugh, her forehead rolling gently against mine. "You broke the protocol."
"To hell with the protocol," I whispered.
My hands shifted to her jaw, framing her face in my large, calloused palms, my thumbs resting on her high cheekbones. Up close, her skin was burning, flushed with a deep, radiant heat that had completely erased the pale exhaustion from this morning.
"You think we can go back to clipboards after this?" I asked, my voice dropping into a low, lethal register that resonated in the quiet room. "You think you can sit on that stool and pretend you don't know how you fit in my hands?"
Tallulah swallowed, her throat working against my fingers. She held my stare, her dark eyes clearing, the raw defiance returning, but this time it was laced with an undeniable, unshakeable devotion that hit me straight in the ribs.
"No," she breathed, her voice steadying. "We can't."
Overhead, the heavy refrigeration compressors on the ice level kicked into high gear, sending a low, mechanical shudder through the ceiling pipes. A distant buzzer sounded from the arena concourse two floors above, signaling the start of the morning maintenance shift.
The real world was waking up.
I didn't care. I leaned in, pressing one last, hard, bruised kiss to the corner of her mouth, my teeth grazing the soft swell of her lip before I forced myself to pull back an inch.
"Session seventeen is done, Tallulah," I rasped, my thumb smoothing one final circle over her cheek before I dropped my hands to her knees. "Twenty-six hours left. And every single second of them belongs to me."