18. Izzy #3
“Both.” I’m past pride now, past caring how desperate I sound. “Please, Wilson. I need more. I need you to stop being gentle and just fuck me like you’ve been wanting to for months.”
His eyes go dark and hungry, and then he grabs my hips hard enough that I’ll have bruises tomorrow and I don’t care at all. He picks up the pace, driving into me so hard that the headboard starts slamming against the wall.
“Better now?” He groans it against my mouth.
“So much better.” I cry out and he swallows the sound with a kiss that tastes like desperation and finally and us.
“You feel incredible.” He’s breathing hard now, hips never slowing down. “So fucking perfect, Izzy. I can’t believe I went so long without this. Without you. I was out of my goddamn mind.”
“Don’t forget again.” I sink my teeth into his shoulder hard enough to make him hiss. “Ever. I mean it, Wilson. Don’t you ever fucking forget what this is.”
“Never.” He drives into me deeper, at the angle that makes stars explode behind my eyes. “I swear to God, Izzy. You’re it for me. You’re everything. You’re my whole world and I’m never forgetting that again.”
“Good.” I’m barely coherent now, clinging to him like he’s the only solid thing left. “That’s good. Now don’t stop. Please don’t stop, I’m so close.”
“I’ve got you.” He finds it again and again. “Let go, baby. I want to feel you. Come for me.”
I break. The orgasm tears through me and I scream his name into his shoulder, tightening around him so hard I feel him shudder. He comes right after, shaking apart in my arms with my name rough and broken in his throat.
We collapse together, sweaty and wrecked and breathing so hard it hurts, still tangled up in each other like neither of us can stand to let go.
For a while we just lie there, catching our breath, his weight half on me and half on the mattress. I can feel his heart pounding against my chest and mine is doing the same thing back.
“Hey.” He lifts his head after a minute and looks at me, really looks, brushing the hair off my face with gentle fingers. “Are you okay? Really?”
“I’m better than okay.” I turn my head and kiss his palm. “That was…”
“Yeah.” He laughs softly. “It really was.”
But he doesn’t stop checking. He shifts his weight off me carefully and pulls me into his side, one arm wrapped around me, his other hand tracing slow patterns on my shoulder.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He asks it quietly, like he’s been worrying about it. “I got a little… intense there at the end.”
“Wilson.” I prop myself up on one elbow so I can see his face. “You didn’t hurt me. That was exactly what I needed.”
“Okay.” He nods but his eyes are still searching mine. “I just want to make sure. I spent so long not paying attention to what you needed and I don’t want to do that anymore. Not even here. Especially not here.”
I go soft and warm at that.
“Ask me again.” I settle back into his side and press my face against his neck. “In the morning. And the morning after that. I won’t get tired of you checking in.”
“Deal. Every morning.” He kisses the top of my head and pulls me closer. “Do you need anything? Water? Food? A blanket? I think I saw a blanket somewhere.”
“I need you to stop moving.” I throw my leg over his to keep him in place. “Just stay here with me for a minute.”
“Okay.” He relaxes into the mattress and his hand keeps moving on my shoulder, slow and soothing. “I can do that. I’m pretty good at not moving these days. I’ve been practicing.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing on the island?” I smile against his skin. “Practicing being still?”
“Among other things.” His voice is getting soft and sleepy. “Mostly I was practicing being someone you’d want to come back to.”
My throat closes up at that and I have to swallow hard before I can answer.
“You didn’t have to practice.” I press a kiss to his collarbone. “You just had to show up. That was always the whole list.”
“I know that now.” He tightens his arm around me. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”
“You figured it out.” I trace a pattern on his chest with my finger. “That’s what matters.”
I cry a little. He kisses the tears off my face without saying anything and just holds me until it passes.
Later we’re tangled up in hotel sheets, the city still glowing outside, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing lazy lines up my spine. His heart is still going too fast. So is mine. Neither of us mentions it.
“That was on the list too,” I mumble into his skin.
His laugh rumbles under my cheek, low and spent. “Cross it off.”
“No way.” I kiss his chest, right over his heartbeat. “That one we’re doing again.”
He goes still. Then both arms wrap around me so tight the whole city disappears.
We lie there in the quiet for a while, just breathing together, and I realize this is what I missed most. It isn’t the sex, although that was pretty incredible. It’s this. The after. The staying. Being held like I’m precious instead of a thing he’s already moving past.
“Hey, Izzy?”
“Hmm? What?”
“I love you.” He says it soft and sure, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I just wanted to say it again while you’re lying here in my arms. I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know you do.” I whisper it against his neck, because the other words are still stuck somewhere behind my ribs and I’m not ready to let them out. “Now go to sleep. I’ll still be here in the morning.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
His breathing slows and evens out and I know he’s drifting off, but his arm stays tight around me even in sleep. Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
Sometime before dawn I wake up first.
Gray light. His face slack with sleep, softer, younger. One arm still heavy across my waist, pinning me to the center of the bed even now.
Last time I watched this man sleep in the dark, I made myself get up. Walk away. I told myself that was the strong thing to do.
This time I don’t move.
I tuck myself back into him, and his arm tightens without waking, and I decide to be proud of that instead.