25. Elena #2
“God,” he pants, voice rough as gravel. “You drive me crazy, Elena.” He swallows, lost for words.
I laugh. Hoarse, triumphant. “Same. You have no idea.”
He finally looks at me, pupils dark and pleading. My heart stutters, shame and desire knotting tight in my chest. Outside the window, neon from passing cars slashes the walls in pink and blue, but inside it’s just our heat and ragged breaths.
I drag him toward the kitchen, to the granite countertop gleaming under a single downlight.
My dress is hitched beneath my ribs, his fly undone but his jeans stubbornly clinging to him.
I yank those down, too, tug them loose with fumbling kicks of my heels.
He grins because he knows I’ll notice every detail, every quiver in his skin.
I lean back against the counter’s cool edge, daring him.
He bites through the thin fabric of my dress to my breast, teeth feather-soft despite his hunger.
My chest ignites, nerves firing. He yanks the skirt away; I hop free, my thighs slick.
He watches, chest rising and falling, breath catching every time my calves part.
Without warning, I drop to my knees. The marble bites through my tights and sends a shock of cold up my spine.
He stands over me, leaning down, broad shoulders in a rumpled white shirt.
His cock is hard, straining the waistband of his boxers.
I hook my fingers in the elastic and pull it down, exposing him to the chill air.
He hisses softly as my mouth closes around him, lips and tongue working together in slow, reverent circles.
His hands twist in my hair, guiding me deeper, anchoring me there.
I meet his dark eyes, keeping him pinned with my gaze, silently daring him to break first. The sound he makes is torn between surrender and command.
A low, shuddering groan that vibrates against my tongue.
When he slides his thumb across my cheek and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear, I lift my head for just a moment to taste him with my lips.
Then I drift back down, taking him whole, feeling every ridge of his length glide past my throat.
He curses softly, voice wrapped in the friction of my mouth.
I curl one hand around his thigh for leverage, the other splayed on his hip.
His knees tremble. The marble floor presses into my calves, grounding me as I draw him closer, deeper.
His breath feels electric against my scalp.
I press up through my tongue until he’s gasping, his hot breath shuddering through parted lips.
He jerks forward, hips pistoning, nearly knocking me off balance.
I hum around him, swelling with the taste of him.
His free hand falls to my shoulder, pressing me against the counter.
The cool stone bites through my thin tights as his hand trails down my side, fingers brushing the curve of my butt cheek before returning to the valley between my legs.
“Fuck me,” I gasp when he pulls me back to standing, cheeks flushing.
He doesn’t hesitate. He scoops me up, pressing my back against the granite as though it were a bed. My legs wrap around his waist, knees pressing into the dips of his hips, and he pushes inside me in one fluid thrust.
The first push sends a gasp tearing from my throat.
Sharp, involuntary. My hands grip his shoulders, nails digging in.
He stays still for a second, chest heaving, letting me adjust to him.
Then he pulls back and drives into me again, faster this time.
Each thrust slams me against the countertop’s edge, hitting my hips, bracketed by the weight of his body.
My breasts press flat against his chest, sweat slicking our skin into a single, trembling mass.
The sounds of skin on stone, skin on skin, fills the room. He grunts, falling into a guttural rhythm that sets my core alive. My arms, pinned above my head where he’s clamped my wrists, burn with effort. I chase the pain into something holy, my knuckles white against the cool marble.
He leans close, warm breath ghosting across my collarbone. “Elena,” he rasps, tone sharp enough to cut glass. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
I shake my head so hard my hair whips around us. “Don’t you dare.”
He smiles, crooked and hungry, and plunges into me with renewed force. My toes curl, heels digging into the cabinet kickplate beneath me. Every thrust is a punctuation mark, driving me further beyond reason. Everything is raw sensation, every pulse a roaring wave.
Then my body caves in on itself. The orgasm rips through me, hot and jagged, tearing breaths from my lungs as sweat drips down my spine.
He doesn’t pull out; he stays buried deep, fucking me through the shuddering aftershocks.
I’m shaking, every muscle quivering, as he leans his weight against me, grounding me even as he destroys me.
He follows me over the edge, deep groans rumbling as he spills into me. Hips stuttering in wild coherence until he’s spent, leaving me quivering on the countertop, chest heaving, stomach rippling with echoes of his thrusts.
He holds me against the stone, panting, forehead resting on my shoulder.
I feel the flutter of new life inside me, its heartbeat drumming in time with mine.
His fingers trail down to my belly, splaying across the curve where our two worlds intersect.
My body softens, heat fading to a tremulous ache that hums in every limb.
When I turn into him, face flushed and eyes half lidded, he gives me a look of wolfish pride mixed with something tender.
I can’t stand—my legs are too weak—so he scoops me up and carries me back toward the living room.
A shard of glass from the broken wine glass crunches beneath his boot, but neither of us notices.
We collapse onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and sweat-slicked skin.
My hand drifts to my belly again, fingertips resting above our child.
I close my eyes and savor the bruises blooming up my thighs, the ache in my ribs, the sharp taste of him on my tongue.
This moment—raw, dangerous, irrevocably ours—will live in my blood long after the echoes of our bodies have faded.
For a second, neither of us moves. The world doesn’t rush back in all at once, but seeps in slowly. Cool air against overheated skin. The distant hum of traffic outside. The faint, uneven rhythm of our breathing trying to steady itself.
I’m still half draped over him on the couch, my body heavy and loose in a way that feels unfamiliar after weeks of careful movement, careful restraint.
My dress is twisted somewhere around my waist, his shirt missing, both of us a mess of sweat and disarray that would be funny if it didn’t feel so… final.
Cormac is the first to pull away. He sits up, dragging a hand down his face, breath still uneven, shoulders tight in a way that has nothing to do with what just happened and everything to do with what it means.
I stay where I am for a second longer than I should, watching him instead of moving, because I already know what’s coming. I just don’t want to hear it yet.
He stands. Finds his shirt. Doesn’t put it on immediately, just holds it for a second, like even that requires thought.
“This shouldn’t have happened.”
There it is.
Clean. Controlled. Exactly what I expected.
I push myself up slowly, ignoring the way my body protests, the way my legs still feel unreliable, like they might give out if I move too quickly. “But it did,” I say, because pretending otherwise would be ridiculous.
He doesn’t look at me right away. That’s new. Cormac always looks. Always assesses, measures, calculates.
Now he’s avoiding. And that hurts.
“It can’t happen again,” he says finally.
I let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh, except there’s no humor in it. “Right.”
Because of course that’s what this is. A mistake. An error in judgment. Something to be corrected.
I push myself fully upright, adjusting my dress without really thinking about it, smoothing fabric that won’t smooth, fixing something that isn’t actually fixable.
“Good plan,” I add, because if I don’t keep talking, I might say something else. “Very controlled. Very you.”
That gets his attention. His gaze snaps to mine, sharp, searching, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m mocking him or agreeing. Maybe both.
“You know why,” he says.
I do. Liam. The program. The baby. Everything. All of it stacked neatly between us like a list of reasons this should never have happened in the first place.
“I know,” I say.
But knowing doesn’t change anything. Not the way my body still feels like it’s humming. Not the way the apartment suddenly feels too small again, but for a completely different reason. Not the way I’m already aware of the space he’s about to leave behind.
He nods once, like that settles it. Like we’ve returned to something structured. Contained. Manageable.
He pulls his shirt back on, movements efficient now, stripped of anything that even remotely resembles what just happened. Button by button, like he’s rebuilding a version of himself that doesn’t include me.
I watch him do it. “You’re leaving,” I say, even though it’s obvious.
“Yes.”
He moves toward the door, already done, already stepping back into whatever version of his life existed before he walked in here tonight and broke every rule he’s ever enforced.
I follow him a few steps without meaning to. He reaches the door, hand already on the handle. Pauses. For a second, I think, stupidly, that he might turn back. Say something else. Undo it.
“Get some rest,” he says instead, voice back to that infuriating calm like nothing about this has touched him at all. Like I imagined the whole thing.
The door opens, then closes behind him with a soft, final click.
And just like that, he’s gone.