Chapter 23 #3
He kissed his way back to me, up my hip bone, to the hollow between my breasts where he rested his forehead and breathed.
My jaw. The corner of my mouth. Then my lips, full and deep, and I pulled him down against me because I needed his weight, needed to feel every part of him pressed into every part of me.
"Inside me," I whispered against his mouth. "I need you inside me."
He positioned himself between my thighs. Pushed forward slowly. The stretch, the fullness, the feeling of him filling me completely made my back arch and my nails dig into his shoulders and a sound tore out of both of us that the ocean swallowed.
He moved slowly at first. Long deep strokes that I felt in every nerve ending.
The tent fabric glowed faintly with starlight and I could see his face above me, jaw clenched, eyes locked on mine, and the intensity of being watched while he was inside me was overwhelming in the best way.
He saw everything. Every gasp. Every flutter of my eyelids.
The tears that formed when he hit the place inside me that made the world go white.
"More," I breathed.
His hand gripped my hip. Shifted the angle. Deeper. I gasped, and his forehead dropped against mine, his breathing ragged, his control fraying at every edge. I wrapped my legs around him, pulled him closer, because there was no such thing as close enough. Not tonight. Not after everything.
His hand slid between us. Found me. Moved in time with his body, and the pressure built in waves that climbed higher with each one.
"Stay with me." His voice dropped, soft but threaded with something commanding underneath, something that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "Right here. Stay with me."
I couldn't have looked away if I'd wanted to. His gray eyes were almost black. His face was open and wrecked and beautiful and I let him see everything, the pleasure building in waves, the tears, the way my lips parted when I couldn’t hold it anymore.
"Come for me, Anna."
I shattered. The orgasm ripped through me in waves, my whole body clenching around him, and I kept my eyes on him because he’d asked me to.
I watched his face while he watched mine and the intimacy of it was staggering.
He followed me seconds later, his rhythm breaking, his forehead dropping against mine, my name on his lips like a confession he’d been holding for years.
We stayed tangled together. His face buried in my neck. My fingers drawing slow lines down his spine. The waves outside, the stars above, his heartbeat against mine, steady and unhurried, counting nothing, asking for nothing, just there.
After a while he rolled onto his back, pulling me with him so my head rested on his chest. I didn’t realize I was crying. The tears slid down my face, onto his chest, and I could feel them pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.
He felt them. His hand moved from my hair to my face, tilting it up gently. His thumb brushed my cheek, and when I looked at him his gray eyes were clear, present, with nothing behind them but him.
"Hey," he said softly. "I like you happy. Not crying."
"These are happy tears."
"Even so." His thumb caught another one. "Especially not over me."
I pressed my face back against his chest. "I like you happy too," I whispered into his skin.
He was quiet for a moment. His hand returned to my hair. His breathing changed, slower, like he was building toward something.
"I am happy," he said. "You came into my life and you made it wonderful. I don't know how to say that without sounding like a greeting card, but it's the truth."
His chest rose under my cheek.
"Before you, I had systems. Routines. A life that functioned. After you, I have a life that means something."
His voice went rough.
"I love you, Anna. I've loved you since the elevator.
Since you put your hand on my face and your voice was the only thing that reached me in the dark.
" His fingers tightened gently in my hair.
"I've loved you since then. I'll love you after this.
I don't know how to be eloquent about it because I'm not an eloquent man. I just love you. That's all I have."
I lifted my head and looked at him. His eyes were wet, his face was bare. No walls. No ice. No granite.
"I love you too." My voice broke on the word. "I love you so much it scares me. I love you in a way I didn’t think I was capable of anymore. I love you and I’m terrified. But I don’t care because you’re worth being terrified for."
He pulled me up to him and kissed me. Salt, tears, both of us on each other's lips.
The kiss was slow, unhurried, holding everything we'd just said without needing to repeat a word.
When he pulled back, his eyes were still wet, but his mouth had found the real smile.
The full one. I'd been waiting for it for months, and it was worth every single one.
A laugh broke out of me, tangled up with the tears still on my face. He laughed too, quiet and rough, our foreheads pressed together.
"Stop crying," he said, but his voice was thick and his own eyes were streaming.
"You stop crying first," I said, pouting.
"I’m not crying. It’s the salt air."
"You’re a terrible liar."
"I’m an excellent liar. Just not with you." He pressed his forehead against mine. "Never with you."
We lay there under the stars and surrounded by the waves. My head on his chest, his heartbeat under my ear, steady, slow and not counting anything.
After a while, his circles changed. His fingers tracing the curve of my waist, the dip of my hip, the bare skin of my thigh with deliberate strokes.
"Again?" I whispered.
His mouth found the spot below my ear. "If you’re amenable."
"That’s not a sexy word, Jace."
"Would you prefer eager? Desperate? Insatiable?"
"Insatiable works," I giggled.
His hand slid between my thighs and my breath caught. He smiled against my neck, slow and wicked, and the stars blurred above us as his fingers found me.
"Insatiable it is," he murmured.
The ocean kept its rhythm. The tent glowed with starlight. And somewhere outside, the night birds called across the water and went unanswered because neither of us was listening to anything but each other.