Chapter Eight #2
"You think I don't know why you're running?
I know. I feel you here, ballerina." He drags my hand up to his head, pressing my fingers to his temple, and then pulls it down, flattening my palm to his chest, right over his heart.
"And right here. I know, the same way I know you wait up after my games to say congratulations if we win or to tell me the refs are morons if I end up in the box.
I know, the same way I know you never back down because it feels like losing, and you pretend nothing bothers you because it's the only way to protect the softest parts of yourself. I know because I love you."
I choke on a sob, my fingers clenching in his shirt, like I can anchor myself to him if I just hold on tightly enough.
"You can't break me, baby," he murmurs, cupping my jaw. "Every piece of me is yours. It was built for you. I knew it four months ago. I've just been waiting for you to stop running and let me love you."
"I don't want to run anymore, Harlan."
"I know, ballerina. I know." He tugs me into his arms and then boosts me up onto the edge of the small dining table, stepping between my legs. His lips brush mine in a soft kiss that feels life-sustaining. Hell, maybe it is. "You wouldn't be here right now, crying your eyes out otherwise."
"I'm scared."
"Of loving me?"
"Of losing you." My bottom lip quivers. "Of you deciding I'm not good enough or that I'm too much. Of being half a damn continent away from you. Of not having you right here, just like this."
"You think I won't be with you every chance I get, Sophie?
" He's shaking his head before he even finishes speaking.
"Fuck that. Doesn't matter if I'm signed in LA and your life is in Chicago.
My life is with you. We'll make it work until I'm able to force a trade.
You're mine, ballerina. I'll move mountains for you. "
The conviction in his voice and the determination in his gaze sink deep, unraveling every knot of fear left.
The need to touch him, to feel him all over me again, is immediate, eclipsing everything.
I fist my hands in his shirt, yanking him into me as if I can fuse us together. My mouth crashes against his, desperate to taste him again.
He groans, his hands gripping my thighs like he's just as desperate as I am.
My legs wrap around his hips, dragging him closer. When he lifts me off the table like I weigh nothing, I gasp into his mouth, clinging to his neck as he carries me across the room.
I expect the bed, but he drops to his knees at the foot of it, cradling me in his arms like I'm something precious.
"You understand what you do to me?" he rumbles, biting gently at the curve of my thigh. "How much I love you?" He tugs at my leggings, his hands rough and reverent at once, and then he's pushing the thin fabric of my panties aside before his tongue slides over me.
I cry out, my fingers tangling in his dark hair to ground myself. The first pass of his tongue is slow, almost lazy, but the second has me arching up, my entire body a live wire. I'm embarrassingly wet, but he just growls and buries his face between my legs, eating me with ruthless focus.
"I can't…I can't," I gasp, the pressure building so fast, I feel dizzy. I've come for him before, but never like this, the pleasure so intense it's almost pain. I think it might rip me in half.
But he doesn't stop, not when I cry out his name, not when my legs tremble around his shoulders, not even when I'm coming so hard I'm nothing but gasps and shudders. He just keeps licking, sucking, driving me up and over the edge again.
He's relentless—a beautiful, ruinous force, tearing wreckage from my body and building worship in its place.
I come apart twice more before he lets up. By then, my throat is raw from screaming his name.
He holds my hips in his giant hands, licking me through the aftershocks until I'm limp, my whole body a melted thing draped across his arm.
He lifts his face, his eyes dark. "I could eat you for days."
I can't even muster a retort.
I'm still trembling as he stands, gathering me up. He deposits me on the bed, then strips out of his shirt and jeans.
He's beautiful…brutal and perfect and mine.
I reach for him, so damn greedy. I think I'll always be greedy for him, not in the way I'm greedy for oxygen after exertion or rest after a performance, but in a way that eclipses everything else, making the rest of the world small and insignificant.
He comes down over me, his mouth finding mine in a hot, claiming kiss as he peels off my shirt, undoing my bra one-handed.
I squirm under him, needy and desperate. I want to crawl inside his skin, fuse with him, be two people and one person at once. I think he'd let me curl up inside his ribcage and stay there.
He slides a palm under my head, cradling me gently. "Look at me," he whispers, his voice rough. "I want to see you."
I can barely breathe, but I force my gaze up, meeting his eyes. The way he's looking at me—like he's in awe, like I'm a miracle he can't believe—is almost too much. I want to look away and never stop looking simultaneously.
But that's always how it is with him. He looks at me like he is right now, so damn completely, and I want to hide and never hide from him at the same time.
He notches himself at my entrance, his cock sliding through my folds, and then pushes in with agonizing, perfect slowness.
I feel every inch, every pulse of blood, every tremor. I sob his name, tangled in a net of pleasure unlike anything. But it's different this time.
He's slow, methodical, rocking into me with a tenderness I never expected. It's not that he's gentle. He's still Harlan, still huge and hungry. But it's like he's pouring all his brute force into making me feel instead of just making me come.
It's overwhelming. It's…God, it's love.
He braces one forearm beside my head, the opposite hand spreading over my ribcage to hold me still. "You're so fucking beautiful," he rasps. "You know that? You feel like heaven, ballerina."
I can't speak, so I just hold onto his shoulders, my fingers digging in because I'm afraid if I let go, I'll fall right through the bed, right through the earth, right through the center of everything. I'll melt into nothing and everything at once.
He moves inside me, kissing my face, my mouth, my neck. There's no rush, no frantic need to get off. Every stroke is a promise, every kiss a devotion. It's the most vulnerable I've ever felt, but I don't ever want it to end, either.
"I love you," I gasp, because it's the only thing that's true anymore, the only thing I know for certain. "I love you so much, Harlan."
His answer is a silent quake, his whole body pressed to mine, so close I could die like this and be happy.
"You know," he says, his voice gravelly as he rocks inside of me.
"I've been saving that word since we met.
I knew I'd give it to you someday, but Christ, ballerina.
I didn't know how perfect it'd feel to hear you say it back and know you mean it. "
"Please," I beg, clawing at his back, desperate to have all of him.
His hips grind into mine. I anchor myself to him, my arms locked around his back, my nails digging in as if I can keep him this close forever.
He fucks me harder, his need no longer hidden but breaking open and spilling out.
When my body clenches around him, I cry out, a broken, wild sob of his name that would shame me if shame could exist with him inside me.
He presses his lips to my ear, his hand locked at my jaw. "I'll only ever love you," he whispers. The words are a blade and a balm, slicing through every last defense, every bruise left by a lifetime of being less than.
I break around him, coming like it's a kind of death, shaking so hard I think I might split apart. I tilt my face up, desperate to see him, to let him see me.
He's right there, beautiful and ruined, his hair damp with sweat, his eyes barely open.
"Don't stop," I beg. "Please, don't ever let me go."
His mouth comes down on mine as he fucks me harder, deeper, his control shredded. The rhythm turns ragged, desperate.
"You're everything," he groans, and then he's gone, his hips jerking as he spills deep inside me, the sound he makes torn from somewhere raw and helpless.
When he can move again, he wraps around me, holding me so tightly I could almost be afraid, but I'm not. I'm safe. I'm always safe with him—safe to be myself, safe to be afraid, safe to let myself be loved.
"You're not allowed to run anymore," he murmurs against my hair. "Even if you try, I'll chase you to the ends of the goddamn earth, ballerina."
"Deal," I whisper back.