Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
brAM
She does not need to ask me twice.
I’m so turned on I can barely think, but my baser instincts know what to do. I sweep Lucy off the sofa and head up the spiral staircase with her in my arms, leaving our cooling mugs of tea forgotten, surrounded by piles of cast-off clothes.
I don’t ever remember feeling like this before. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of sex, and some of it has been pretty great, but everything about this is different. Otherworldly, just like her.
When I lay her down on the bed, I swear to God I can hear angels singing.
I freeze for a moment, torn between giving in to the desperate pleas of my body and savouring this perfect moment. Who knows if we’ll ever get another one like it.
It’s not lost on me that this is our last night in the annexe, and I can’t say for certain that when she gets on that train tomorrow it won’t be the last time I ever see her.
Right now there’s only us, but what about when there isn’t?
When she’s back to her life of picture-perfect mortal men?
Who’s to say she’ll even want someone like me?
But she wants me now.
I can see it in the part of her lips – the way her thighs press together as she looks up at me. I can feel it in the way that she kisses me, like she’s giving me a part of herself. And maybe it is only for tonight, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything she offers me.
My fingers fumble with the buttons of her skirt, the soft denim falling off her like petals, and when I reach to hook my thumbs in the waistband of her tights she lifts her hips to help me. I do away with both, and she clambers higher on the bed, making room for me.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
I’m entirely unsurprised that her underwear is pastel-coloured – pale green lace with accents of pink satin and the tiniest flower, which nestles between the cups of her bra.
It suits her perfectly, soft colour cutting across the creamy expanse of her skin.
I falter a moment before I climb onto the bed next to her, taking in the whole scene like it’s a work of art: the soft slope of her hips, the halo of blonde hair I’ve tugged loose, her teeth dimpling the pink skin of her lips.
When I finally crawl over her, those lips are the first things I kiss, before I drag my mouth lower, down her neck and around the curve of her jaw.
I delight in the hum of her breathing as my lips graze her sternum, the small whimpers that escape her as my teeth nip at her skin, the way that her belly tenses as I kiss my way down it.
But the sound she makes when my mouth finds the heat of her through that delicate lace is like no music I’ve ever heard in my life.
It’s like a connection – a burst of electricity straight through my body – which only builds in layers with the scent of her, the knot of her fingers in my hair, the way she moves to help me slip her underwear off before I bury my face in her.
It’s intoxicating, all-consuming in such a way that by the time she cries out with her climax, I’m a lost cause.
This woman is like nothing I’ve ever known. I need to be inside her.
She pulls me back up to her and kisses me deeply, a groan low in her throat which never quite makes it out. I feel warm hands at my waistband, clumsy with pleasure, trying to unbutton with such desperation that it makes me laugh into her mouth when she makes exactly no progress.
‘Skinny jeans,’ I mutter after a moment, lust grating at my voice. ‘I’ll take them off, but you can’t watch or you’ll be immediately turned off.’
She doesn’t listen.
Her eyes don’t leave me the entire time I’m wrestling the goddamn things down my legs and over my ankles.
She watches the whole ridiculous hop I do when the hem of my left leg catches on my heel, and when I finally stand back up, clad in only my boxers – black, of course – the burn of heat in her eyes seems only to have intensified.
‘Well,’ she says, the scratch in her voice sending shivers through me. ‘That was a lie.’
And then she reaches around to her back and unclips her bra in one smooth move, throwing it aside without a single ounce of shame.
My skin’s on fire. It’s almost like I’ve never seen a naked woman before in my life.
In my defence, I’ve definitely never seen one so perfect as the goddess in front of me.
She’s all creamy skin and soft curves, blue eyes which have darkened with her arousal, and that perfect pink mouth, which is much too polite to ask for what she wants.
Not that she needs to ask, of course – it’s written all over her body. But God do I want to hear her say it.
‘Bram,’ she grits out, but nothing follows it – just the warmth of her breath on my skin and the cascade of goosebumps it sends down my sides.
I didn’t even know that was a thing that could still happen.
It’s like there are certain feelings that take me closer to being human.
Certain feelings my body has not forgotten.
We’re a foot apart, if that, but I make no move to reach for her. I don’t want to rush this.
‘Ask me,’ I say, my voice rough. ‘Tell me what you need.’
A whimper. Then, ‘You.’
It’s as much as she can manage, that’s clear, so I don’t push it. Instead I drop my mouth to her neck, grazing my teeth over the jump of her pulse and further up, until I can mutter ‘Show me’ into her ear.
She curls into my touch in response, a shuddering breath coming from her before warm fingers land on my chest and drag slowly down, lower and lower, dipping below the elastic of my boxers until they finally, deliciously, close around my erection.
Fuck.
My head tilts back of its own accord, and when her hand starts to move around me, I’m a goner.
‘And these,’ she rasps, snapping the elastic of the waistband against me with the slightest curve of a smile. ‘Off. Now.’
I push away from her and step out of them in a heartbeat.
We come back together in a rush – all skin and teeth and rolling hips, tumbling together onto the rumpled sheets. She’s restless against me, the delicious friction of her body on mine working me up into a frenzy too. I want to wait, to make this moment last as long as possible, but I need her. Now.
God, I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.
‘Condom?’ she asks between kisses, and I nod. I actually don’t know if it’s a necessity given my, um, condition, but I haven’t got the mental capacity to work through that right now. Instead I reach over to the bedside table. If I’m right, there should be a stash in there.
I shift my weight until I’m over the edge of the bed and pull the drawer open with such ferocity that it slides right out and crashes to the floor.
Regardless, I’m delighted to find a small packet of condoms in Peggy’s standard Airbnb emergency kit, and I send a silent thank you to her while I wrestle the box open, holding one foil packet aloft in triumph.
Lucy watches me from beneath heavy eyelids as I open the packet with my teeth and roll it on.
She swings a leg over me before I can move off my back, and I don’t argue. The view is spectacular from this angle. I can see every detail of her body, the expression of anticipation on her face as she hovers over me, waiting.
Her fingers trace the skin of my chest for a moment, following the trail of the octopus tentacle that wraps around my ribcage. I haven’t told her the significance of it, but from the reverent way that she touches it, it’s like she knows.
And then she lowers herself onto me one exquisite inch at a time, and everything else ceases to exist. There’s only her, and me, and this connection that I’ve felt a hundred times but somehow never felt at all before this moment.
When she starts to move, the small circles of her hips feel instinctive, not practised, like she was always supposed to do this with me. Like some kind of fated lovers’ bullshit – two missing puzzle pieces finally clicking into place. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not bullshit after all.
It’s slow and teasing, until it’s not, and when I slip a hand down between her legs, her movements turn frantic, grinding down onto me, moaning and pleading as she chases her release.
When she starts to speak, I’m done for. It’s only fragments, words and syllables building like music into the hottest fucking crescendo I’ve ever known.
Bram—
Fu—
There—
Bram—
Oh—
I’m gonna—
brAM!
I’m trying to keep my cool, but it’s an impossibility with this goddess of a woman writhing on top of me. Every sound that tumbles out of her, every slap of her skin against mine, pushes me closer and closer to a cliff face, and I know I’m not coming back from that fall.
I want her.
Now.
Always.
It’s a small thought at first, but it grows with every movement until it’s a thundering pulse that matches the buck of my hips as I drive into her. And then I’m falling, gripping her waist for dear life with her name on my lips like it alone has the power to save me.
When I open my eyes again, I feel like I’ve been reborn. I want to say something important, something profound, something along the lines of you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, or I would follow you to the ends of the earth.
What I actually mumble is, ‘I … That was … Fuck.’
Smooth.
Something like bashfulness comes over her face as she clambers off me, and in my post-orgasmic fever high it’s all I can do to reach for her – to pull her on top of my heaving chest and show her with my lips all the things my brain’s too far gone to say.
‘Please,’ I mutter, between kisses, ‘don’t be embarrassed. That was…’ I still can’t entirely form words. That alone should fill in the gaps for her.
Her brows pinch, a flush of colour flooding her cheeks. ‘But I was—’
‘Perfect,’ I finish for her. ‘Magnificent. Transcendental.’
The pout of her lips quirks into a smile. ‘Transcendental?’
I laugh, and my head falls back against the pillows with the effort of it all. ‘That’s how good it was. I didn’t even know I knew that word.’
She chuckles, stroking a thumb down the edge of my jaw. ‘A new experience for both of us, huh?’
‘You have no idea,’ I say, grinning back at her. ‘We should give it another go – see what other abilities we can unlock.’
That makes her laugh again, louder this time, and the sound of it settles somewhere deep inside my chest. I’ve known Lucy was special since the second I laid eyes on her, but I’ve never felt anything like this before. Not with anyone.
And it’s then that I know I need to tell her. To say the words that are on the tip of my tongue.
It feels crazy.
It’s far too soon.
But at this moment there’s not a single thing in this world or the next that can stop those three little words from slipping out.