“My clit. Please. Please.”
He shifted, knocking her knees wider with his own for balance, then inching the hand still holding her hip forward, seeking her cunt.
She cried out the moment he glanced that blazing, aching spot. There was a spit-damp patch of sheet spreading under her cheek. Her neck was wrenched and her hands were numb, screaming for blood, but all at once she felt none of it. The universe shrank to the point where his fingertips met her clit, blinding bright, nearly too much to bear.
She moaned like a crazy woman when he stroked her there, suddenly breathing so fast she could be hyperventilating. “God. Please.”
“Say my name.”
“Flynn. Fuck, please, Flynn.”
He gave her exactly what she needed—tight, rough circles falling into sync with his punishing cock, his plundering thumb.
She was long gone, half-aware of the mantra of her voice, a pitiful chant of “Please, please, please.” Mere seconds and she was moaning, trembling, begging with every cell in her body.
“Good girl. Come on that cock.”
It was that familiar praise that did her in, plummeting her headlong into oblivion.
Through the quaking of her release she felt him succumb to his own. His cock drove as deep as it went, fingers digging into her hips and promising bruises. Any pain she endured was worth the price to feel the familiar rhythm of his hips as he emptied inside her, to hear the pained groans as pleasure turned him helpless.
Their bodies fell still, rocked in tiny frissons by their pumping hearts and gulping lungs. When he pulled out, Laurel felt the dirty-sweet heat of their mingled sex wetting her savaged panties.
He stretched out on his back, eyes shut, one arm cocked above his head. Laurel got up to use the bathroom and abandon the last of her clothes. When she joined him on the bed, she was spent enough to not overthink things and to take what she wanted—contact. Skin to skin, so quiet after the force of the storm.
She laid her arm across his chest, feeling his heart beating under her palm, under his warm, slick skin. So close, and yet he still felt miles away.
“I miss you,” she whispered.
“What’s that mean?”
“You feel so far away… I understand why. I’m not asking you to be any different. But I miss you all the same.”
“I need time.”
“You can have all you want. Do you need space?”
“I dunno yet.”
“You can have that too. Just say.”
“I don’t know what I need. I’m not used to being this fucking…” He struggled for the right word.
“Vulnerable?” Laurel hazarded, just as he settled on, “Torn up.”
She held him tighter.
“I’m gonna tell you something right now,” he said, “and I want you to remember it every time I’m angry with you, for as long as we’re together.”
“All right.”
“I wouldn’t be this ripped up if I didn’t love you. I don’t waste my time feeling pissed or hurt or let down unless the person who managed to make me feel it actually matters to me.”
“Okay.” She wished it were more of a consolation.
“I’m not looking to change anything we’ve got. I just need to figure out what the fuck’s up with me. Or to sit and stew in it for however long it takes me to get over it.”
She nodded.
“You’re stuck with me,” he said, “same as always. Even if I decide I need some space. You prepared to believe that?”
Again she nodded, hoping it was true. No matter what he told her, if they took some time apart she’d never quit worrying if he might decide to end things. Not for a minute. She trusted him with her life, but this felt like another matter entirely.
Still, she’d suck it up and play it cool, if that was what he needed.
Even if inside she’d be dying anew every hour of the day.
11
Flynn lay awake for ages after Laurel dropped off, mind buzzing despite the release, flitting from resentment to guilt and back, endlessly, the latter steadily eclipsing the former.
He wasn’t proud of what had happened tonight.