I turn my face into the hollow at his neck and let my tears soak him. He rubs my back, a simple steady rhythm, and for the first time in what seems like days, I fall asleep. Not just a light, restless doze, but a deep, forgetful sleep. One where the world stops, and nothing is real.
But it is real.
In the morning, the world will still be broken.
But for right now, at least, I can hold the pieces together.
WARM LIPS TRAIL ACROSSmy collarbone, and slowly rouse me from sleep. My eyes flutter open when his warm mouth nips at my flesh, and his hand, not gentle, glides over my bottom. We’re both on our sides, our faces close enough for his beard toscratch my shoulder, his arm a hot steel band around my ribs. For a heartbeat, I forget where I am.
I don’t want to remember.
Ace nips at my skin, soft at first, then with his teeth.
I should stop him, I know that, but I can’t.
I’m not sure I even want to.
If he can make me forget everything, just for a second, I’ll take it.
He slides his palm up my back, then higher, and I arch because I need the contact, even though I shouldn’t. His mouth finds mine, and he kisses the breath out of me, lips on my mouth, my cheek, my jaw, my throat. His hand finds my breast and cups it, thumb flicking over my nipple, and all my panic drains away—nothing left but want.
I don’t want to be someone else. This is the only feeling that makes sense, the only certainty. I reach for him, shivering as my hands find skin, the slope of his back, the hard muscle at his shoulder, the heat between us. I push my thigh between his legs, and he grinds against me, his cock hard against me, aching with a need I know he feels just as much as I do.
His hand slides down, finds the hem of my shorts, pushes—he wants them off, I know, but we’re tangled in the blankets so he just tears them to the side instead, rough and fast. I gasp and his mouth closes over mine, swallowing it. “Quiet, baby. We don’t want anyone to hear.”
Baby.
My entire body jerks with a need I don’t even try to understand.
He shifts on top of me, knee between my thighs. I can feel the rocks and sand through the blanket, but I don’t care, I only care about him, the heat, the way we fit together like we have done this a hundred times already.
“Please,” I whisper, hating how desperate it sounds. I want him. I need him.
“You sure?”
I answer by grinding against him.
He shoves down his own shorts, balancing on his elbows, his body so much bigger than mine it should scare me, but it doesn’t. I close my eyes and let him in, let him fill the empty ache, the loss, the fear, everything. He slides inside me, slow, his cock thick and rigid. The stretch burns, but I grab him harder, pulling him even closer.
We don’t make a sound, not a word, just these little gasps and shudders, our bodies rocking together. He kisses me again and again, moves inside me until the world tunnels down to the band of his arm and the breath on my lips. I don’t know if I’m shaking from the cold or from him. Maybe both. Who knows.
All I know is it feels incredible, the kind of sensation I have never experienced before.
“Cum for me, sweetpea,” he whispers into my ear.
I do.
Oh god, I do.
My nails rake down his back as I shudder against him, my entire body convulsing.
His growl is a low, ragged sound as he pulls his body from mine, releasing onto the sand beside us.
His body jerks and his muscles are tense as his breathing becomes ragged. It’s a delicious sound, and when he rolls back to me, I press my face into his chest and breathe him in. The warm scent of him. He curls an arm around me, pulling me close again, and I fall asleep in the way I have become way too familiar with.
It is quickly becoming my safe place.
That should scare me, but it doesn’t.
