“Good, because I can’t do this slowly.”
His voice sounded drugged, so unlike him that she stared at him, whatever she had been thinking a forgotten mist in her head. He rolled her tee up, color bleeding into his cheekbones with each inch of her flesh he uncovered. Her skin, in turn, tingled with sensation, prickled with need. His hands faltered for a split second when he inched the cotton over her breasts, his gaze riveted to them. And then he pulled the tee over her head. Before she could blink, he tugged her panties down over her boneless legs.
“Protection?”
With his stubble grazing the side of her breast, it took her a second to grasp his meaning. She wanted to squeeze her legs together, but he lay in between them, his erection a hard, pulsing weight rubbing against her groin. “Pill,” she answered, glad that she didn’t have to say more than one word.
“Perfect, because I need to be—” he pulled at her ankle and placed her leg over his shoulder, his erection rubbed against her core and she groaned restlessly, her skin too tight, too hot to bear “—inside you now.”
Balancing his weight on his elbows, he entered her in one deep thrust. Their combined moans, guttural and needy, shook the air as he filled her completely. A sense of utter completion filled her as he laid his face in the crook of her neck, his breaths coming hard and fast, his chest crushing her breasts. His stubble was rough against her skin, his muscles hard against hers. His shoulders were like a steel wall under her fingers. Yet it felt painfully good, beyond anything she’d imagined.
She opened her eyes and froze at the stark beauty of the man. Every muscle in his body, from his spectacular face to the lean strength of his shoulders, looked as if it was carved from granite, a study in masculine perfection. He rose above her, his weight on his elbows, his back arched, every muscle, every sinew stretched with tension. “I can’t not move,” he muttered, a depth of regret in his gaze.
With that hoarse statement, he pulled out all the way, slowly, letting her feel every inch of him, and thrust back into her with a force that would have sent her to the top of the bed if he hadn’t held her anchored to him, exactly where he needed her to be.
She cried out, at the friction, at the hot quiver of her muscles, at the ache slowly building up over her lower belly, at the need spiraling inside her as he repeated the action. His pelvis rocked against hers with each thrust, pushing her a little higher on the bed. His movements were rough, fast, her cheap bed creaking every time he moved.
And it was exactly what she wanted from him. Because he had thrown off the last vestiges of control, because he was giving into what he wanted and it was the Alexander she loved, the Alexander she wanted.
She raised her bottom and met him halfway on his next thrust, sensation upon sensation piling upon her, every nerve ending blasted into a higher plane where only pleasure existed. He cursed, long and hard, drops of sweat beading his forehead, a delicious tension in every inch of him.
She moaned, the sound clawing its way up her throat, as he rubbed the pad of his palm over her cleft, almost-painful pleasure splintering into a thousand fragments within her, the muscles of her core contracting and expanding, her body jumping out of her frayed skin. She dug her nails into his back as he thrust deeper and harder one last time, his body a taut wire. And then he was shuddering, his grunt, guttural and hoarse, as he spilled into her and collapsed over her.
He was crushing her, her breathing already fractured and uneven. But she couldn’t protest, couldn’t even say a word. It felt so good to be lying beneath him, it hurt so much that he would walk away from this that she felt a dark void of pain open up in her gut. She shut her eyes, scared that he would see too much.
Slowly, he shifted away from her. Olivia fisted her hands into the sheets. It was either that or grab him with both hands so that he couldn’t move away from her.
But he didn’t.
He moved to the side on her tiny bed and tugged her closer when she’d have shuffled away. He pulled the throw over them, encasing them in warmth. But nothing could take away the chill that had already seeped into her blood. “Liv,” he said, pushing away her sweat-slicked hair from her forehead, a tremor coloring his voice like she’d never heard before, “please, look at me.”
Olivia opened her eyes. A hint of uncertainty gleamed in the depths of his eyes. “Are you okay? I didn’t—”
Her smile cost her more effort than anything else. She didn’t want his gentleness, that was the one thing that would break the wave of mounting grief she was holding inside. “I’m perfectly fine.”