The taste of memories is thick on my tongue as I glance down my body. The sheet’s covering me to my waist, but my T-shirt has ridden up, and the source of Jude’s fascination becomes clear.
She’s tracing the B at the center of the tattoo that brands the skin above my heart.
Each stroke of her fingertip is like a hot poker searing my skin.
Her eyes flick up to mine and she watches me watching her. She holds my gaze in a silent question as she continues stroking my skin.
But she doesn’t understand the enormity of what she’s asking.
I pull my T-shirt down, then reach beneath the sheets, locating my pants, which are still halfway down my thighs, dragging them up. Jude catches my hand in hers and shakes her head.
“Don’t,” she breathes.
She leans forward, pressing a lingering kiss to my lips, then sits up and peels her dress over her head. I haven’t seen her breasts bare, only felt them in my hands, and against my tongue in the dark, and hell, they’re magnificent.
A second ticks by where we just look at one another. She’s here, asking a question without words. Offering me something I can never give her in return.
But fuck, if the last three years have taught me anything, it’s that I’m a selfish bastard. And that life can end in the blink of an eye, and everything you thought you had time for can be gone. Just like that.
If I’m about to walk out of here, then I’m doing it with some memories that will make the journey to my grave a bit more bearable. Purgatory is a lonely, soul-destroying place when all your mind can focus on is what put you there in the first place.
Jude is once again offering me a sliver of peace that I’ve only ever gotten from seeing pleasure bloom in her eyes. Put there by me. Something beautiful and pure that wants and needs me in order to exist.
I reach for her, cupping the weight of her breasts in my palms so I can serve each nipple up to my greedy mouth and suck and bite on it.
She tips her head back, arching into my touch. Her hair cascades over her shoulders and she sinks her hands into my hair, tugging it and moaning softly before she slips her fingertips down my rib cage, easing them back up and bringing my T-shirt with them.
A stronger man would be able to resist her. But the moment I lift my chin and she brings her mouth to mine, coaxing my lips open with a sweet little press of her tongue, I’m gone.
I help her pull my T-shirt over my head, then hold her face with a gentle grip on her neck as I bring my mouth back to meet hers. I kiss her with growing heat, unable to break away.
Taking everything I can, I devour her, spurred on by her wriggling against me and pressing her soft, beautiful body against mine, the heat from her skin seeping toward my dead heart like it can save it.
It can’t.
But I still take all she’ll give me. Kissing her deeper, before turning my attention to her neck and biting and sucking it with growing urgency.
I squeeze her breast, thumbing her nipple and groaning at the way she pushes it into my hand.
We explore each other without speaking. Just sucks, kisses, and bites.
A mewl leaves her lips as I flip her onto her stomach, then climb to my knees behind her and pull her onto all fours with my fingers pressing into her hips.
“Condom,” I murmur, pausing, even though I’ve already fucked her bare and come inside her.
“I’m on the pill. It’s fine, as long as you’re?—?”
“I’ve not got anything, if that’s what you’re asking?”
“Okay. Me either,” she breathes.
We fall silent as she reaches back and guides me inside her. I stare at my dick disappearing in her body, all four metal bars happily accepted and sucked in deep.
We fuck without words. Just the sounds of her breathy pants and my deep groans as I drive in deep like I could actually stuff myself inside her and live there.
I reach around and touch her clit, rubbing a fast orgasm from her before spilling inside her with a rough grunt that makes my lungs feel like they’re on fire.
She whimpers in my grip, and I circle my hips until every drop of cum leaves my cock and is wedged deep inside her.
