Chapter 18
It must be a cruel joke to find his soulmate at the edge of a global disaster. Theo is pretty damn sure that whatever is going on here is on its way to circling the globe.
It would be simple to get lost in the horror of that, but it feels disconnected from them somehow, like it can’t possibly be real yet, while they’re trapped up here in the snow, days from civilization.
He grabs onto that denial with both hands and allows himself to indulge in who’s in front of him instead.
Every moment he has with Nora is a gift. He won’t waste them.
He isn’t skilled at intimacy, never has been.
His tendency to avoid attachments has kept his partners limited, but she makes it all feel so natural.
The way she leans into the touch of his hand at her neck, exposing the opposite side so he can nestle his face there and sear his lips to her pulse, may as well be a reflex for how quickly it happens.
She is responsive in a way he’s not used to, and that encourages him to venture into new territory where he takes the lead.
The desk is empty from their earlier efforts, and wide enough to be a temporary, if hard, bed.
He pushes Nora back with the pressure of his kiss until she’s flat on the wood, and his shirt that she stole hangs open on either side of her body.
Maybe it’s the trust he sees reflected in her blue eyes that boosts his confidence.
The way she gazes up at him with dark hair fanning out around her, chest heaving in anticipation, offers the encouragement he needs because he has no greater desire than to fulfill all of hers.
Her underwear is long gone already, leaving her exposed, but he doesn’t move to taste her yet.
Instead, he maps her out with a gentle hand, following every dip and curve, chasing his fingertips with his lips to drop lazy kisses along her skin.
He takes a pink nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue across the goosebumps forming on the most delicate parts of her.
When her hands run through his hair, curling around his head and shoulders as if to hold him close, he can’t resist releasing her breast to lay his face against her, hearing the frantic beating of her heart rise up against his ear.
He did that. He’s the one who has her pulse racing and her skin pebbling with anticipation.
A flush of pride blushes his cheeks and twitches his cock, and then he can’t wait any longer, can’t hold onto any thread of self-control he might have possessed before she held him like they couldn’t get close enough.
Over-eagerness gets the best of him and lets it.
He dips his body low enough to lick a firm tongue between her legs, and she nearly comes off the desk in surprise, a gasp leaving her throat as she grips the edge with one hand.
He is exactly where he wants to be. It’s a struggle to slow down and ease her into it when she’s the best fucking thing to ever touch his tongue.
He wants to taste her like he’ll never get another chance, and hell, with everything falling apart around them, they have no way of knowing exactly how many of those they’ll get.
She’s slightly swollen from what they already did.
The remnants of his release coat her entrance, and a growl vibrates in his throat at finding it there.
He’s never been possessive a day in his life, yet a small whisper of that feeling teases his subconscious and lifts his lips in a smirk before he gently runs the tip of his tongue where she is soaking and needy, pushing it up into her where his cock has already been.
A few strokes is all it takes to have her rotating her hips, trying to ride his face, and he wonders briefly how she took all of him before when she’s so snug now.
When her hand flails for purchase, he reaches up to take it in his own, lacing their fingers together, rubbing his thumb softly along her knuckles as his mouth offers that same caress in more sensitive areas.
When his nose nuzzles against her clit, her hips jerk, and he takes the hint, moving up to wrap his lips around it.
He has to anchor her hip to the desk with a firm grip as she begins to spasm, risking a broken nose by following her movements, but he eagerly does anyway because few things have felt better than those sparks against his tongue as she falls apart.
Her hold on his hand nearly cuts off circulation.
He wishes he had a third one so he could push a finger or two inside and feel her orgasm from within.
He’s already leaking by the time she relaxes, and he shoves his boxers down to avoid ruining them, wiping his face with a satisfied grin when he stands to look at her, his scruff soaked.
Nora is wrecked below him, spread out like a butterfly, face flushed and every inch of her tinted rose. She takes the hand he’s still holding and presses his palm to the furthest part of her lower belly where aftershocks tickle his touch. “That’s what you do to me.”
That one sentence reaches into his chest like an overdue hug.
Her voice isn’t playful this time, not teasing, or even sultry.
It’s a clear statement that she’s offering him something no one else has ever truly been allowed to touch.
His throat burns with the effort of swallowing his words, because if he speaks now, he might say things he isn’t ready to voice.
She is perched carefully at the edge of the desk, her knees bent and open while his shaft strains in her direction.
He wants her so badly that it aches, and when she carefully guides the tip of him to her entrance, pressing there with a nod of her head as permission, he needs no further coaxing to push in.
He goes slow, knowing that she’s sore, even as she shifts her hips to encourage him.
Her muscles are relaxed, though, and he glides in deep on the first gradual thrust, watching the entire length disappear between her thighs.
Their rhythm is easy and natural from the first time he pulls out to the tip and nudges back in, choosing to stay buried after that, merely shifting inside her, rocking their hips together.
He wants to feel her along every inch and is reluctant to leave.
Then she hooks her heels into the round of his ass cheeks, and he jerks, instinct pushing his body over hers and speeding up his hips.
The only reason he hasn’t come yet is because this is round two and a half, or her hand circling him would have done him in already. Just as his release builds toward the point of no return, he prolongs it by going still, resting motionless inside her, watching her face with hooded eyes.
It’s such an unexpected urge to want to drown in her stare.
Her parted lips, the faint sheen of sweat across her forehead, the way her eyes hold his like she’s terrified of losing this connection as much as he is.
It all makes him feel like he’s worth something, like his past doesn’t make him too broken to love.
That look is what undoes him, more than the tight heat around his cock or the friction of her body.
She wants to move, he can tell, but she doesn’t.
Her eyes shimmer with affection, small hands cupping his face so sweetly that his heart burns with the need to tell her exactly how he feels.
He has never felt closer to anyone than he does with her, never let anyone see every bit of his tired, ruined soul, and trusted they wouldn’t stomp it even further into the ground.
Never needed someone so badly that it shook the foundation of everything he thought he knew about himself.
That’s when he realizes he’s in love with Nora. Hopelessly, tragically in love with her.
Maybe it’s written all over his face, this sudden revelation, because her gaze widens and her lips part as if she might say those very same three words.
It’s all too much, too overwhelming, too close.
Without another thrust, his orgasm sneaks down his spine and into his hips, caressing his shaft where it twitches and spasms. He breaks their stare to tuck his face into her shoulder, pushing his hips into hers almost painfully as if he could get deeper when there’s nowhere else to go.
“I’ve got you,” she says, her voice shaking. “You don’t have to protect yourself from me either.”
That’s exactly what he did in those final few seconds. He looked away to protect his heart rather than lay it open even further, and he wonders if such an ingrained habit will ever truly vanish.
“You don’t scare me,” he replies softly. “I scare myself. I don’t wanna fuck this up now that I’ve finally found you.”
“You can’t if I fuck it up first.”
“Impossible.”
“I guess we’ll have to keep trusting each other then.” She wiggles her hips to draw attention to the fact that they’re having this conversation while joined together. “Wanna go again…or?”
Her amused expression has him dropping his head with a chuckle. “Actually, neither of us needs to worry about messing this up because you’ll wear me out before we get a chance.”
“You like it.”
He gives her a sharp thrust, shoving his half-hardened cock into her one last time. “I fucking love it.”
Then he pulls free, watching her clamp her legs closed with a shiver and sit up to grab his shirt.
“I haven’t heard the heat kick on in a while.” His brows crease as he helps her button the shirt faster.
“Do you think it ran out of fuel?”
“I hope not. Come on, let’s grab all the blankets from the other cells just in case. Might have a long night ahead of us.”
They drag another mattress into the main cell to make a larger bed and form a nest there with every blanket not nailed down.
Outside, the wind whistles past the windows, blowing swirls of snow against the glass and warning of worse conditions to come.
He only hopes it’ll clear at sunrise and allow them to make the journey to the research center before an even thicker whiteout moves in.