Her legs open wide, cradling my hips between them, and her heat is right there. “Killian, promise me you won’t regret this. I’ve never been anyone’s first, and I’m so afraid you’ll end up hating me for it.”
With my elbows bracing my weight, I run my thumbs along her jawline. “You’re wrong, Ax. You say you’ve never been anyone’s first.” I lean down and drag my lips against hers. “But you’re mine.” She moans as I rock my hips, rubbing against her. “You’ve always been mine.”
I push tentatively forward, sinking into the heat of her body and grinding my teeth against the gripping pressure as it engulfs me. Inch-by-inch I slide forward until we’re fully connected. Tingles spread from my spine to coil between my legs, and the sensation is pure ecstasy.
She bites her bottom lip and arches her back. “You feel so good like we were made to fit together.”
“We were, baby.” I kiss her gently and move with deliberate strokes. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Her legs lock behind my thighs, pulling me deeper. “I love you.”
“Fuck.” I drop my lips to her neck. “I love you too, so much.”
“This is really happening? Us, I mean?” Her voice is so soft, almost scared, as it tickles my ear.
“It’s happening. You and me? This is as real as it gets.”
Her breathy moans and writhing make it impossible to continue at this lazy pace. I push up on my hands and look down her flat belly to watch the beauty of our bodies connected.
This isn’t fucking or even making love. This is something altogether different—bigger and more intense than anything I could’ve ever imagined. My control wavers and baser instincts roar to claim, to mark, and to possess.
I rear back and slam myself forward.
Her nails grip into my shoulders, and I moan as the pleasure-pain rips through my body. “That’s it. Hold on.”
I continue my heated and hurried pace, watching as every response plays seductively across her face. Her eyelids are low, lips parted, and she fists my hair as if she’ll rip it from its roots. “Don’t stop.”
“Never.” I rock into her again and again, setting an unstoppable rhythm. Tension builds, climbing higher. I grit my teeth and hold it back.
Her legs wrap around my waist. “Kill…” she cries out her release. I dip down and take her mouth as her body pulses around me, tossing me into an orgasm that makes me see stars. She whimpers and swallows my answering growl as we coax each other back from the aftermath of total combustion.
Her body turns to jelly beneath me, and I allow myself to drop my weight on top of her for a few seconds. When I move to roll off of her, she shocks me by wrapping me up in her legs and arms. Even her head comes off the pillow to nuzzle my neck.
“I knew it would be beautiful with you,” I whisper against her hair. “Had no idea it would be that beautiful though.”
She drops back to the bed with a sated smile that I feel in my chest. “If I had any idea things would be this good between us, I would’ve told you how I felt about you sooner.”
I blink and roll to her side. “Wait. You’ve had feelings for me? Since when?”
“Since I asked you to the Valentine’s Day Dance.” She covers her face with a hand. “Why is this embarrassing?”
I pull her hand away. “I thought you asked me because we were friends.”
“That too, but I guess I was hoping for more.”
A flicker of annoyance dowses my post-orgasm haze. “Why didn’t you tell me?” To think how much time we wasted, how many assholes I had to stand by and watch work their way through her.
“After that night, Stewart showing up and”—she sucks in a shuttering breath and then lets it out—“all that, I wasn’t in the best place emotionally. By the time I finally got around to considering dating, I realized you treated me differently. You were, I don’t know, more friendly, almost parental.”
I wrinkle my nose at the imagery. From friend to parent. No wonder nothing has ever happened between us.
“I assumed you saw me the way I see myself: broken, messed up, desperate. You’re so together, Killian. You deserve someone more…like you.”
I study the wall across the room for a second then look down at her. “Stewart is an unforgivable asshole. What you went through… I wanted to protect you from ever having to go through that again. I guess in looking out for you I may have lost focus when it came to dating you. But I never saw you, and still don’t see you, as the person you’re describing.”
She plays with the hair at my nape. “Don’t get me wrong. I know you cared about me, but after that night, it’s like something died between us.”
“What do you think that was?”