Chapter 17 #2
I’m back to being busy with his shirt, my fingers slipping against buttons that don’t want to cooperate, my patience already gone.
“Christine…”
“I got it…” I breathe back, not even sure I know what I’m doing.
At last, the last button gives.
My hands slide in, meeting warm skin, and the contact hits like a live current, snapping through my palms, racing up my arms, spilling into my bloodstream until it gathers in my core, pulsing right where I feel him most.
His hands find my waist then, pulling me into him so abruptly I lose my footing for a second.
We both do.
There’s a half-step, a stumble, and then the bed catches us.
I let out a short, breathless sound that might be a laugh.
He huffs something against my neck, somewhere between a curse and amusement, like even he didn’t see that coming.
“Careful,” he murmurs, but there’s no caution in it, his hands are already back on me, already moving.
My skirt rides up in the process, fabric bunching awkwardly at my hips, his hand catching it, pushing it higher without breaking the rhythm of everything else.
“Wait…” I out, but I don’t mean it.
Because I’m the one pulling at his shirt again, dragging it off properly this time, the fabric catches for a second before giving way completely.
We pause for half a breath. Just enough to look at each other. Just enough to feel how ridiculous this probably looks from the outside, both of us half-dressed, tangled, breath trembling, and caught somewhere between control and none at all.
Then it’s gone, replaced by desire. Urgency.
My hands find his shoulders again, pulling him back down to me, my mouth meeting his before he can say anything else, before either of us can think long enough to stop this.
His weight drops over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other sliding along my thigh, slipping between my legs.
“My sweet girl.” His fingers pause just there, circling through the thin fabric of my already damp underwear.
He exhales when he feels it, and my body reacts instantly, my hips lifting, chasing more than just the tease of his touch.
I don’t wait. I don’t think.
My fingers hook into the fabric, dragging it down, pushing it past my thighs, my knees, kicking it away in a rush that feels almost desperate.
“Easy,” he huffs, a breath of amusement breaking through as I nearly catch him in the process.
His hand slides under me, and before I can register the movement properly, he rolls us, the world tilting in one clean motion until I’m the one above him, my hair falling forward, brushing his chest, his face, and his mouth.
I pause, catching my breath.
Looking at him like this, beneath me, with cloudy eyes and his chest rising and falling a little harder now, sends waves of pleasure straight to my core, and it clenches on him.
He helps himself, lifting me with one hand while he uses the other to free his cock.
My body contracts at the sight, my mouth watering and drying up at the same time.
I’m heady with pleasure, right at the brink of combustion as I guide him inside me, sliding gently, then all at once.
We both exhale, a deep sigh of intense relief.
I ride, slowly at first.
Testing the rhythm, the way our bodies fit, relearning something that never really left.
His head falls back slightly, a breath breaking out of him like a restraint slipping, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave marks I’ll feel later.
My pace picks up, driven by the pull building low and tight, and he meets me halfway.
I move, and he moves with me, two forces colliding, matching, pushing, until the rhythm turns into something faster, rougher, impossible to stop.
My hands lose their careful placement, sliding, gripping, trying to hold onto something solid as the hunger takes over.
He murmurs my name once like it’s pulled out of him, and I feel it everywhere.
His hand slips to where we meet, finding me, deft fingers working with intent. I throw my head back, my vision blurring as ecstasy shoots through me with every pound and grind.
And it crescendos when he pinches hard on my clit, everything I feel climbing too fast, too high, leaving no room to think or slow it down.
I let it take me.
And the orgasm slams into me, overwhelming, pulling a sound out of me I don’t even recognize as my sex contracts around him, then gives, spasm after spasm.
It drags him with me.
I feel it in the way his grip shifts, the way his breath breaks, the way his body tenses beneath mine before letting go just as hard.
For a second, there’s nothing.
And then, my breathing comes back, blaring in the quiet room, reality creeping back in with it.
It takes a second, maybe more for my body to remember how to move.
I peel myself off him slowly, fabric pulling, sticking, and resettling. My skirt slides back down my thighs in uneven folds, my shirt twisted, barely where it’s supposed to be.
I plop beside him, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling.
We’re both staring at the ceiling, breathing too loudly. The kind of breathing that fills the room whether you want it to or not.
I can feel the heat still clinging to my skin, the echo of him still there, not gone, just… fading slower than it should.
A minute passes.
Then another.
He shifts beside me, clearing his throat.
“I’ll take care of you.” His voice is like sandpaper across skin.
“What?” I turn my head to look at him. And he’s still staring at the ceiling.
“I’ll make sure you have everything you need,” he continues, like he’s already decided this. “Her too.”
“Robert, what are you saying?”
“I am saying, I will stay away.” He turns, his gaze meeting mine, and there’s no softness in it. “I will stay away from both of you.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I ask, my throat working around the words.
“I think it’s safer this way,” he replies.
For a second, I just look at him, trying to understand how we got here. How we went from everything that just happened to this.
I know his world is dangerous. I know what he’s saying is safer, better for Blue. But hearing him say it like that, without even trying to find another way, without fighting for something different for her… it breaks something in me I can’t even begin to name.
I swallow down the bile rising in my throat, but it doesn’t go away. It just sits there, lodged in my chest.
“Okay.” I nod.
I don’t even know why.
Maybe because it’s easier than admitting that something inside me is cracking open in real time.
“Do you, Robert.” I don’t argue even though I want to. I don’t scream, even though I desperately need to.
He’s her father. Biologically, yes.
But not in the ways that count.
And in all fairness, to hell with him.