17. Beatrice #2
His breath catches.
He squeezes back. One. Two. Three.
I love you.
We stay there, swaying in the candlelight, until the staff starts turning off the lights and politely clearing their throats.
***
Kenneth
The night air is cold against my face as we walk along the harbor.
I should have brought a better coat for her. Should have thought about the wind coming off the water. But she hasn’t complained, and I don’t want to break whatever spell has fallen over this evening by making a fuss.
“That was nice,” she says.
“Just nice?”
“Really nice.” She glances at me sidelong. “You were actually present. The whole time. No checking your phone. No distracted looks. No excusing yourself to take calls.”
“I turned my phone off.”
“You never turn your phone off.”
“I do now.” I stop walking. Turn to face her.
“Bea, I know one date doesn’t fix everything.
I know we have months of work ahead of us, maybe longer.
But being here with you tonight, talking about everything we used to be…
” I shake my head, searching for words that feel inadequate.
“I forgot what this felt like. Just being with you. Being Kenneth instead of Kenneth Sinclair, CEO, son, heir to a legacy I never wanted.”
“Kenneth-”
“I don’t expect anything. I don’t expect you to forgive me or take me back or pretend none of it happened. I just wanted you to know.” I take a breath. “This is the happiest I’ve been since before Hong Kong. Since before I ruined everything.”
She looks at me in the lamplight. The wind catches her hair, blowing it across her face, and I want to reach out and brush it back but I’m afraid to touch her. Afraid to break whatever fragile thing is building between us.
“I hate that I still want you.” Her voice is quiet. Almost lost in the sound of the waves.
“What?”
“After everything you did. After all the pain and the humiliation and the months of trying to put myself back together.” She wraps her arms around herself. “I should hate you. I should want nothing to do with you. But standing here, right now, all I can think about is kissing you.”
My heart stops.
“Bea-”
“I hate it.” Her voice cracks. “I hate that you still have this power over me. I hate that I can’t just walk away and never look back.”
“Then don’t walk away.”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.” I step closer. Close enough to feel the warmth of her despite the cold air.
Close enough to see the way her nipples have tightened against her dress from the chill - or from me.
“None of this is how it was supposed to be. But we’re here anyway.
And I love you anyway. And if you want to kiss me, even though you hate yourself for wanting it, then-”
She kisses me.
Her hands fist in the front of my coat, yanking me down, and she kisses me like it’s the end of the world.
Like we’re drowning and this is the only air.
Like she’s trying to consume me and punish me and love me all at once.
Her mouth is hot, open, tasting of salt from her tears.
She bites my lower lip hard enough to sting, then soothes it with her tongue, and a broken sound rips out of my throat.
I kiss her back.
My hands slide into her hair, tilting her head so I can deepen it, tongue stroking against hers in a rhythm that makes her moan into my mouth.
I press her back against the railing, letting her feel exactly how hard I already am, the thick ridge of my cock grinding against her.
She gasps, hips jerking forward instinctively, and I can feel the heat of her even through our clothes.
When we finally break apart, we’re both shaking, lips swollen, breathing like we’ve run a marathon.
“I still want you,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “And I hate it.”
“I know.” I press my forehead to hers, one hand still tangled in her hair, the other splayed possessively over the curve of her ass. “I know.”
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“This doesn’t mean we’re okay.”
“I know.”
“But I’m so tired of fighting it.” She pulls back. Looks at me with those blue eyes that have haunted every dream I’ve had for months. Her pupils are blown wide, lips wet and red. “Take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. I don’t care.” She kisses me again, harder this time, her teeth catching my lower lip and tugging, one hand dropping to palm me through my trousers. She squeezes, rough, and I nearly come right there. “Just not here. Not in public.”
I take her to my apartment. The sparse one above my office, where I’ve been living since I signed the house over to her. Boxes still unpacked in the corner. Bare walls. A bed that’s too big for one person and too small for everything I’m feeling.
What happens next isn’t gentle.
The second the door clicks shut she shoves me against it.
Her hands are everywhere - ripping at the buttons of my shirt, yanking my belt open, shoving my trousers and boxers down just far enough to free my cock.
It springs out heavy and flushed, already leaking at the tip.
She wraps her fist around me and strokes once, twice, rough and perfect, thumb smearing the wetness over the head until my knees almost buckle.
“Fuck - Bea-”
“Shut up.” She kisses me again, biting, sucking my tongue, while I hike her dress up around her waist. Her panties are soaked through.
I can feel the heat of her, the slick evidence of how much she wants this even while she hates it.
I hook my fingers in the lace and tear. The sound is loud in the quiet apartment. She moans like it turns her on.
I lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist, heels digging into my ass, and I pin her to the wall with my hips.
One hand braces beside her head; the other guides my cock to her entrance.
She’s dripping. I drag the head through her folds, coating myself, teasing her clit until she’s whimpering and trying to sink down onto me.
“Look at me,” I rasp.
She does. Eyes glassy, furious, starving.
I thrust up into her in one hard stroke.
She cries out and her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood.
She’s so tight, so wet, so hot I see stars.
I give her only a second to adjust before I start fucking her in earnest. Deep, punishing thrusts that make the wall shake and her tits bounce.
Every time I bottom out she gasps my name like a curse.
“Hate me,” I growl against her throat, sucking a mark there. “Hate how good this feels. Hate how wet you are for me.”
“I do - fuck - I do-” She’s panting, rolling her hips to meet every thrust, chasing it even as the words spill out. “I hate that I missed this cock. I hate that you still fuck me better than anyone-”
I slam into her harder, angling so the base of my cock grinds her clit on every stroke. She’s shaking apart already, walls fluttering wildly around me.
“Come on my cock then,” I order, voice wrecked. “Come while you hate me.”
She does. Loud. Clenching so tight I nearly black out, her head thrown back against the wall, mouth open on a silent scream while she soaks me.
I fuck her through it, relentless, until she’s sobbing with overstimulation and then I’m following her, burying myself to the hilt and coming so hard my vision whites out, pulsing deep inside her in thick ropes while I groan her name like a prayer.
We don’t make it to the bedroom right away.
I stay buried in her against the wall until we can both breathe again.
Then I carry her - still joined - to the bed.
Round two is slower only in the sense that I can look at her.
I strip her completely, kiss every inch of her body, worship her full breasts, then slide back into her from behind while I reach around to rub slow circles on her swollen clit.
She comes twice more before I let myself go again, biting the back of her shoulder to muffle the sound.
Afterward we lie tangled in sheets that smell like sex and her and me.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she says, staring at the ceiling, still flushed and twitching with aftershocks. My cum is leaking out of her; I can feel it. She doesn’t move to clean up.
“Whatever you say.”
“I’m serious. It’s just hormones.” She turns her head to look at me, eyes still dark with lust she refuses to name. “And a little horny.”
I turn fully onto my side, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear, thumb stroking her kiss-bruised lower lip.
“Bea.”
“What?”
“You can tell yourself whatever you need to.” I lean in and bite that lip gently, soothing it with my tongue. “But I know what this meant. I felt how hard you came. How many times. You’re still shaking.”
“It didn’t mean-”
“I’m not letting you go again.” I say it quietly, without force. Just fact. My hand settles possessively on her hip. “Whatever this was or wasn’t. Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through tonight. I’m not letting you go.”
She doesn’t respond.
But she doesn’t leave either.
And when I wake up in the middle of the night, her hand is in mine, and she’s squeezing.
One. Two. Three.
I squeeze back, then slide down her body and wake her with my mouth between her thighs until she’s coming on my tongue with my name broken on her lips again. She still doesn’t take the words back. I don’t ask her to.