18. Tessa
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tessa
What am I doing?
Why does this keep happening?
I freeze, just absorbing the heat of it, but then everything clicks.
Every part of me leans into it, into him, no matter the consequences.
I kiss him again, my hands finding their way to his chest, feeling the calming rhythm of his heartbeat beneath his jacket. The world tilts, spins, and I forget about everything… everything except this.
He pulls away just long enough to look at me, his breath ragged, eyes dark with a fierceness.
“Tessa...” he murmurs, trying to control himself but can’t.
His lips are barely an inch from mine, his words sending a shiver straight through me.
I stumble back, and the edge of the desk catches the backs of my thighs.
Paper explodes everywhere.
A stack of documents skitters to the floor like startled birds. A folder slides off the corner and lands with a soft slap. Something metallic, a pen, maybe, clatters once and rolls out of sight.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I twist my fingers into the cotton of his shirt, the warmth of his chest radiating through the fabric. His breath catches as his hands find the straps of my top, his fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake as he slips it down.
He gasps as he looks at me, his eyes darkening to the color of wet slate. The heat of his gaze traces every curve beneath my champagne colored lace bra, making my skin prickle. His breath catches. His pupils dilate until only a thin ring of gray remains.
He doesn't blink as his gaze follows the edge of lace across my skin. The cold at Juniper House raises goosebumps along my arms, or maybe it's the way he's looking at me.
I bite my lower lip, reach behind my back to unhook the clasps.
The tension in the bra strap releases and drops.
Then he eliminates the space between us in a heartbeat, his body pressing against mine. His mouth finds my nipple, drawing it in, and a moan escapes my lips.
He drops to his knees, with his eyes still firmly fixed on me. His fingers hook the waistband at my hips, and he draws my leggings down with a slowness that almost undoes me. Every centimeter scraped from my skin finds a pulse, a nerve, an electric line straight to my center.
I’m blushing so hot, my whole body might combust, but I don’t try to cover myself. I want him to look, to see. I want someone to finally see me, all of me, and not flinch away.
He cups the backs of my knees and, with a gentle but insistent tug, pulls me a little closer to the edge of the desk.
I sit, half on and half off, breathless, legs dangling, heart ready to snap apart.
He trails his palms up my thighs, follows with a shiver of lips, then a bite, featherlight, as if testing if I can actually feel anything at all.
I do.
My hands find his shoulders, trying to calm myself, but the desk is slippery with looseleaf and the room tilts in slow, dizzy spirals. His stubble grazes the insides of my thighs. He runs his nose along the lace of my panties, inhales like he’s been starved for air, and I’m the only source left.
The cold is something I’ve stopped noticing, except where it heightens every raw, exposed nerve.
When his mouth finds me, through the lace, at first, it nearly buckles my knees, makes my hips jerk, and my hands go clumsy on his shoulders. He slides his hands under me, palms cupping my ass, lifting me toward him, and now we’re not even pretending we can wait for anything anymore.
He slides my underwear down, a single smooth motion, and the groan he makes is almost a purr.
I grab at his hair, his fisted shirt, his strong, broad shoulders, anything to keep myself from floating right off the goddamn desk.
There’s a fire, then a cold sweat breaking out, as if my body forgot how to regulate temperature, forgot language, forgot the last two weeks, and every regret that was supposed to stay between us.
"Oh, fuck.”
Maybe I’m loud, maybe I’m whispering. Doesn’t matter.
He closes his eyes, like he’s in pain, or maybe just somewhere else entirely in this moment with me.
I want to say his name, want to warn him away, want to confess every molecule of want that’s ever burned a hole through me. I do none of those things because I’m frozen, completely out of my body, and then I’m gathering myself back up in the rising storm.
My hands are buried in his hair, and he doesn’t let up, doesn’t stop until I’m gasping, forehead slicked with sweat.
When I finally can’t take it anymore, or maybe when he decides I can’t, he stands and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His smile is a punch to the gut.
“You okay?” he asks, almost shy, like he didn’t just detonate every neuron in my skull.
“No,” I pant, and laugh, and yank him by the shirt front until his mouth covers mine again.
It should be awkward, but it’s not. It’s desperate, pawing through the wreck of your own house for survivors instead of possessions.
I want to drag him down to the floor and stay there until sunrise, but I settle for digging my knees around his waist and holding him so tight I hear the air leave his lungs.
He’s already hard, and I’m not subtle. My hands go for his jeans, yank at the belt until it clatters free, and he lets me.
There’s a want in his face so sharp it could wound. “Tessa…”
I cut him off with my mouth, both hands busy tearing open the buttons on his shirt, chasing the old half-healed scars and smooth patches of his skin.
I’m already gone, and he knows it. He shoves my notebooks out of the way and lays me flat among the debris, my hair fanned out, paper sticking to my back. The windows have frosted over. Maybe from the weather, maybe the humidity inside me, impossible to tell.
He leans in, one arm bracing beside my head as the other pushes my knee up and aside. He lines up, waits a second, long enough for me to see the tremble in his forearm, the animal tautness in his jaw, and then slides into me.
We fit like we were cut for it.
The stretch is a sweet ache, and he goes slow, so slow, because I want to feel all of it, want him to have to watch my face and the way I come apart for him.
He holds my gaze as he moves, and the eye contact unravels me even faster than the pulse between my thighs. I dig my heels into his hips and buck up to meet every thrust.
The desk creaks under us, but I can’t stop moving. I never want to stop, not when the way he’s looking at me makes my chest punch against my ribs, makes my voice bubble over.
I want to drink the sound of his gasps. I want to remember, in my bones and blood, every impossible second of this.
I wrap my arms around his neck, yanking him down to me, teeth grazing his jaw, nails raking down the line of his back. He hisses out a curse and goes deeper, just a little, just enough to make my head kick back and eyes squeeze shut against the white noise of sensation.
There’s nothing left in the world except the flex of his thighs, the wet heat sliding between us, the sharp, perfect friction.
He says my name like a question, and I answer by moving my hips faster, meeting him stroke for stroke. I’m electric, frayed and trembling, my whole body tuned to the impossible tempo of his body and the way the world is liquefying into heat and want.
I lose track of who is holding who, who is giving in, who is going to break open first. Then I feel the flood racing through me, a spark leaping the synapse, and I can’t hold it back.
I clamp around him, shaking, my voice hoarse and raw as it echoes against the walls. I’m unraveling and dissolving and being built back into something entirely new, and it’s all because of him, all because of the way he’s looking at me like I’m the first and last true thing he’s ever found.
He follows, seconds after, and the way his hands tighten on me is the only warning I get.
The desk shifts, a book skids to the floor, and he comes with a shudder and a ragged gasp that’s half my name and half an animal noise, pure and hollowed out, and then he collapses on top of me, every muscle melting into a boneless sigh.
For a minute, neither of us moves. The only sound in the room is the chuff of our breathing and the soft, stubborn complaints of the old house settling around us.
I run my hand over his hair, feeling the sweat and the soft, baby-fine part at the cowlick. His weight is solid, a pressure I never knew I wanted until tonight.
When he finally stirs, he kisses the hollow of my collarbone, then my chin, then sits up with a dazed, boyish grin. His cheeks are flushed, his hair a wreck. He looks at me like I’m a math problem he’s actually good at solving.
We both start giggling, soft at first, then unable to stop. It’s a stupid sound, ugly and uncontrolled, and it feels so fucking good to let it out.
After the day we’ve had, I think this release is exactly what we needed.
Even if it is insane.