As he draws it out, making me come again, I cry out, my pussy clenching around him, drenching his hand.
“Give me everything you’ve got.”
He’s relentless, leaving me shattered, trembling, oversensitive, with tears streaking down my cheeks.
Eventually, when I can’t even draw a full breath, he slows. But he doesn’t stop right away. Instead, he eases me down from the incredible high with gentle strokes, a little at a time.
Minutes later, I sag against him, no longer able to find the strength to hold myself up.
As he cradles me, overwhelming emotion crashes into my pleasure.
The physical relief was sweet and so sharp that it aches. The vulnerability he’d required of me has left me exposed in ways I’ve never imagined.
I’ve never opened myself like that, never let anyone hear the despair in my voice. The trust it took shakes me to my core.
His lips brush my temple. “You are my very good girl.”
I bury my face in his neck, hiding my flush of pleasure, the tears. “I didn’t know I could…say those things.”
“You can with me.” He cups my cheek, turning me to face forward so he can thumb aside a tear. “Always. In fact, that’s my preference. The openness. The honesty. The trust.”
Sexually, I give him all that.
And an unfamiliar part of my heart aches that I have to hold back at all.
He strokes my hair, holding me close until my breathing returns to normal.
Stryker’s arms are a fortress around me, his heartbeat a steady anchor beneath my cheek.
While we were playing, the fire burned down to embers. A shiver ripples through me—part from my postclimax haze, part from the chill that’s creeping into the room.
Of course Stryker instantly notices and pulls the blanket more tightly around us. Does he live in a hyperstate of awareness?
“You’re still trembling.”
Heaven help me. What his gravely, tender voice does to my insides…
“Let me warm you up properly.”
My legs are jelly when he helps me stand. I’m such a wobbly mess that I laugh at myself.
With a hand on my waist, he steadies me.
Then he helps me to dress again. His motions are tender, as if I’m something precious.
As he slides the pants up my legs, his fingers graze my thighs. Then he helps me into the shirt.
The chain from my locket snags on the fabric, making me freeze. The cool metal presses against my skin, heavier than it should be, like it’s carrying the weight of every secret I can’t tell him. Not yet. I push the thought away, in favor of reality. Not yet?
Not ever.
He frees the fabric, then brushes back my hair with a tenderness that makes my heart twist.
If only this moment could last forever…
With a nod, he crouches to bring the dying fire back to life.
God, he’s a vision. The flex of his back muscles as he shifts a log, the focus in his dark eyes, like he could command the flames themselves. Even doing something as simple as tending a fire, he’s all power and grace, a man who owns every inch of the space around him. My pulse stutters, and I don’t look away.
