I arched my hips off the bed, meeting every single one of her slow downward descents halfway, driving deep enough to hit the exact spot that made her lose all coherent reason. Her grip on my wrists slackened as she began to ride me harder and faster, her head tilting back as the room filled with the sound of our ragged breathing and the heavy, wet friction of skin against skin.
I sat up completely, breaking her hold, and gripped her bare hips in my palms. I altered the angle, driving into her with a fierce, deep rhythm that sent her completely over the precipice. She came hard—harder than I had ever felt her body move—her entire frame shattering around me in tight, rhythmic waves.
She collapsed boneless against my chest, but the tight, clenching friction of her release was the final straw. I delivered three more hard, deep thrusts until my own release ripped through me, a groan so deep and raw it felt like it tore straight from my chest as I spilled inside her.
When the world finally stopped spinning, we collapsed side by side into the pillows, completely spent, sinking into a blissful, breathless sleep.
forty-three
ELLIOTT
I was havingthe best dream. The kind you never wanted to wake up from.
Vanessa was flush against me, and I was losing myself in the slow, sleepy rhythm of grinding my erection against her backside while my hands mindfully memorized the weight of her breasts. It was slow, thick with exhaustion, and intensely erotic—the perfect, hazy morning dream. She was soft under my touch, moaning and arching her hips back into mine on pure instinct. Sleep-deprived and desperate, I reached between her legs, guiding myself completely inside her. The fractured, broken sound of the groan that ripped from my own throat was what finally threatened to pull me out of my sex-filled lullaby.
I ground my weight into her over and over, filling her to the absolute brim, hitting the exact, deep spots I had spent a decade agonizing over, finding them now by pure, unadulterated instinct. It didn’t take long before she was coming loudly against the mattress, her voice hoarse and raspy with sleep.
I flipped her roughly onto her stomach, never once pulling out of her, and began thrusting into her from behind—hard, driving rhythms that knocked the breath straight from her lungs. It wasn't an intimacy we had ever discussed before, but watching the way her fingers clawed into the sheets told me exactly how she liked it. It was exactly how I liked it, too. Somehow, the perfection of it didn’t even surprise me. I tilted her hips just a fraction of an inch to ensure I was fully, deeply seated inside her, and then I completely unleashed—ramming into her as deep and fast as my body would allow. The slick, wet sound of our bodies connecting echoed through the quiet room, and I never wanted to wake up. I wanted to stay trapped in this sex-induced dream haze for the rest of my life.
It wasn’t until my eyes snapped open and I saw her knuckles turning white as she gripped the pillow in utter ecstasy that the fog cleared. I realized—somewhere along the way, the fantasyhad bled entirely into reality. I was actually inside her. I was behind her, fucking her like it was the only thing I had ever been put on this earth to do. I reached around her thigh, my fingers finding her clit and rubbing in fast, deliberate circles while I maintained the heavy rhythm of my thrusts. Like a detonator, the touch set her off into a violent, sobbing climax—and like dominoes, her tight walls clamping around me instantly set me off, too.
We both collapsed onto the mattress, rolling onto our backs away from each other. Our skin was entirely slick with sweat. The bed, the sheets, the entire bedroom smelled heavily of raw sex. We just lay there in the quiet, staring at each other until our breathing finally steadied.
“Hi,” I rasped, my voice dropping into that low, gravelly register unique to a thoroughly exhausted, satisfied man.
“Hey,” she replied, her voice part giggly, part breathless.
“That started while you were still asleep,” I admitted, inching my body back across the mattress until I was close to her again.
“I know,” she confessed, her eyes shining. “I was dreaming it… and then it was really happening.”
“Will it always be like this between us?” I asked, my voice dropping softer now as the weight of my love for her pressed against my chest. I reached out, gently brushing a sweat-soaked strand of hair away from her flushed face.
“Always be like what?”
“Like we could completely claw each other to pieces, and it still wouldn’t feel like it’s enough?”
“With us, Elliott, I don’t think there’s any other way it could possibly be,” she said with absolute honesty.
I moved closer, the pads of my fingers lightly tracing the soft outline of her jawline. Looking at her lying there in my bed, completely mine, the memory of the cheap gold locket she used to wear flashed through my mind.
“I’m sorry for making fun of that fake locket turning your neck green all those years ago,” I murmured.
She let out a soft laugh. “It got us right here, didn’t it?”
“I knew it was my mom’s original locket you were trying to copy,” I revealed, letting her see the truth I’d hidden for a decade. “I wanted to find it for you entirely on my own, without any help. But when I couldn’t locate it, I finally had to ask her about it before she passed. Together we designed an exact replica, and that’s the one I gave you for your birthday.”
Vanessa drew in a sharp breath. I knew whenever I spoke about my mother, it hit her right in the heart. I wanted to bottle this exact look on her face and save it forever.
“She figured it out instantly—that the locket was meant for you,” I continued softly. “She made me promise to never hurt you.”
“She did?!” Tears immediately pooled in her eyes. I could see the shock radiating through her, the beautiful realization that my mother had cared for her deeply.
“She did. I haven’t done the best job of keeping that promise lately, Ness, but at least I managed to keep the locket in one piece. I had to make a few specific changes to it, but it looks exactly the same as the day she gave it to me.”
She blinked back her tears, curious. “Alterations?”
“Yeah.”
