Chapter 20
Caroline Atkins?
I can barely fucking breathe.
Alex is feral—like months of denial and power suits and boardroom bullshit snapped off his skin the second he got me back in his arms. My scrubs are halfway down my thighs, his mouth on my neck like he’s starving, like he needs to mark me all over again to prove I’m his. That I’ve always been his.
“Two fucking months,” he growls, hands hot and frantic, sliding under my top, over my ribs. “I was losing my goddamn mind.”
“You’re not the only one,” I gasp, arching into him as his teeth catch my collarbone. “I cried into your pillow, asshole.”
He pauses, pulls back just a little—just enough to look at me with those fucking eyes. “You think I didn’t? You think I didn’t lie awake every night wishing I was still Crash, just so I could curl around you and pretend the world didn’t exist?”
My shirt’s gone. Like, fucking gone. He yanks it off so fast it might’ve ripped, not that I care—he’s kissing down my chest like it’s a fucking prayer. I feel worshipped. Claimed.
I let out a breathless laugh, threading my fingers in his hair. “You went from gas station gremlin to billionaire sex god real fast, Vanderbilt.”
His grin is sinful. “Yeah? Still like me better as your freeloader?”
I grab his jaw, drag him up to my mouth. “I like you better inside me,” I whisper.
He groans like I just snapped his spine in half.
“Fuck, Carol…”
Yeah. This is our fucking homecoming.
We’re a fucking mess—desperate, starved, like every day apart built this tight, quivering coil that’s about to snap.
I try to yank his button-down open like a sane person and he just rips the fucker apart, buttons flying, threads tearing like they offended him personally.
And God—there it is. That chest. That sculpted, veiny, unfair slab of muscle I used to lick like it was dessert.
I dive in—try to—lips aiming for the ridges of his abs I fucking missed so much, but he’s too far gone. Too goddamn feral.
“Uh-uh,” he growls, shoving me flat against the mattress, wrists pinned above my head with one strong hand like he’s taming me. “You’re not in charge tonight, nurse.”
“Fuck you,” I pant, glaring up, breath caught in my throat.
“Exactly,” he smirks, and then his mouth is on me—hot and wet and possessive, pulling nearly my whole tit into his mouth like he’s starving. He’s not kissing. He’s claiming. Tongue flicking my nipple with maddening intent, then sucking so hard my back arches off the silk sheets.
“Jesus—fuck, Alex—”
He growls against my chest, all mouth and teeth and desperation, like he wants to devour the weeks we lost.
His hand fists the waistband of my scrubs and yanks—no finesse, no hesitation.
Just this rough, greedy motion that drags them down to my knees, then kicks them the fuck off like they’re the only thing standing between him and salvation.
I squirm beneath him, breath hitching, nipples wet from his mouth, body already buzzing. My wrists are pinned under one of his hands like he’s staking a claim, but now he’s shifting, dragging my arms above my head to free the other.
And fuck if he doesn’t go right for it.
His palm cups me like he owns it—possessive, sure, deliberate. His fingers slip into the soaked fabric of my panties and press in, two thick knuckles against the outline of my slit like he’s checking to make sure it’s still his.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he growls, his lips brushing mine, voice dark and filthy with pride.
His thumb circles once, slow, then rough, like he’s testing how feral he can drive me with just his fingers. I buck, hips chasing the friction, already moaning through my teeth.
“You missed me, huh, baby?” he murmurs, tongue flicking my lower lip like a goddamn tease, “Been lying in that bed touching yourself thinking about this dick—thinking about my mouth on this perfect, needy little cunt—”
I whimper, because yes, and also fuck, and he grins like he knows.
“You think I wasn’t going insane?” he mutters, grinding into me. “Two months in a fucking penthouse jerking off to the memory of how you taste? You ruined me, Carol.”
And then his fingers slide under the panties and find skin—wet, hot, mine. And I swear I almost cry.
He fucking devours me—mouth glued to my nipple like he’s starving, tongue swirling rough and hungry while his free hand works me open like he’s got something to prove. And maybe he does. Maybe he needs to fuck the months out of us, erase the ache, the doubt, the goddamn distance.
“F-fuck—Alex—” I moan, voice cracked and wrecked, legs trembling around his waist, every slick pump of his finger making my brain short-circuit.
His lips drag to my neck, nipping and sucking like a man unhinged, like he’s branding me. “You feel that?” he growls in my ear, curling his fingers just fucking right, making me gasp. “That’s how empty you were without me.”
I’m sobbing now—pleasure, relief, need. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for weeks and only now I get to breathe. I’m clinging to him, thighs clamped around his waist, desperate for more, chasing his rhythm, wanting everything, all at once.
“Fuck, you’re soaked, baby,” he mutters, biting the shell of my ear. “You missed this cock, didn’t you? Missed being pinned and filled and ruined—”
I nod like a dumb little thing because yes, yes, fuck yes. His mouth finds my other nipple, sucking hard, teeth grazing until I arch up like a livewire.
“Say it,” he demands, voice low and filthy. “Tell me how bad you need it. Tell me whose pussy this is.”
“Y-yours,” I sob. “It’s yours, Alex—Crash— I don’t care what the fuck your name is, just please—”
He grins, devil-slick and fucking starving. “Good girl,” he murmurs, voice like smoke curling around the edges of my sanity.
Then he pulls his fingers from me, wet and glistening, and lines up his cock—thick, heavy, perfect—dragging the head through my slick like he’s teasing us both, like he knows I’m on the edge of falling apart.
“Gonna give you what you need, baby,” he mutters, spreading me open, shoving my thighs up and apart like I’m his personal fucking feast.
His hand comes up, fingers firm on my jaw, holding me there as he leans in—lips brushing mine, breath hot and wrecked—and then he slams in.
One thrust. One brutal, perfect fucking thrust.
My mouth flies open with a ragged cry—“Aaanhghh—fuck—!”—as he buries every thick inch of him inside me, filling me so goddamn deep I swear I feel him in my throat. My back arches, body trembling, stuffed so full I can barely think.
He holds still, bottomed out like he belongs there, like he’s carved his place inside me. His forehead rests against mine, eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide. We’re breath-to-breath, pulse-to-pulse.
“This,” he rasps, voice wrecked. “This is fucking home.”
I whimper, the sound all cracked and helpless, legs locking around him like muscle memory, like instinct. My body moves with his, hips finding that savage, hungry rhythm—slap, slap, fuck—like we’ve done this a thousand times, in another life, and it still wasn’t enough.
My hands can’t choose where to land. I’m grabbing at his back, nails digging into those perfect fucking muscles, then up to his hair, dragging him closer, greedy and breathless, like I could eat the air between us if I tried hard enough.
“Fuck, Alex—don’t stop—” I gasp, voice already wrecked. And he doesn’t. He just drives in harder, deeper, his body owning mine like we were forged together in fire and sin.
He grunts low, the sound vibrating against my throat as he dips to bite and suck and worship every inch of skin he missed. And I feel it—his desperation, his fucking need pressed into every thrust, like this isn’t just sex, it’s a claim.
God, I missed him. I missed him so fucking much it aches behind my ribs, leaks out the corners of my eyes like it’s too big to stay inside.
“Christ,” he growls when he sees the tears. “You crying for me, baby?”
I nod, jaw slack, pleasure white-hot behind my eyes. “Missed you so fucking much…”
His hand curls behind my neck, mouth against my cheek, kissing away the salt. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “This is it, Carol*. Us. Together*”
And I believe him, even as I fucking unravel under him—like my body’s been waiting, months wound tight, breath by breath, and now it’s finally breaking open just for him.
He holds me like he’s terrified I’ll vanish again, one strong hand cradling the back of my head, fingers tangled in my hair, the other gripping my ass like he owns it—like he’s staking his fucking claim. And I give it, God help me, I give him everything.
“Harder,” I breathe, a desperate, hungry sound. “Alex, fuck—please—”
And holy hell, he delivers. Every thrust slams into me with purpose, with goddamn vengeance, like he’s trying to make up for every second he was gone. My hips rise to meet him, desperate and aching, like if I could pull him any deeper I’d have him in my throat.
The angle’s obscene. His cock hits that one spot—fuck, that spot—over and over until I’m clawing at him, arching like a livewire, crying out his name, not just moaning it—screaming it.
“Right there, baby—Jesus—right fucking there,” I sob, eyes rolling as my orgasm coils tighter and tighter, like I’m being held on the edge of a goddamn cliff.
He’s watching me, those grey eyes dark and ruined with want, lips parted, sweat dripping down his chest like a fucking sin. “That’s it, baby,” he pants, voice a rasp, “Let go—give it to me—fucking mine.”
And I do. I fucking shatter around him, screaming through it, fingers digging into his shoulders, cunt clenching so hard I see stars and sob his name like a prayer I never knew I needed to say.
And he holds me through it, fucking me through it, mouth hot on mine—like I’m his whole fucking world.
“So fucking pretty” he murmurs, in awe. “I miss seeing you like this… Coming apart on me, only me.”