The orgasm that hits me is violent and hot, ripping moans from my chest that I can’t even recognize as mine. My nails rake over his shoulders. He keeps moving, keeps hissing praise in my ear—good girl, gorgeous, my girl—until I’m shaking underneath him. The second my body slackens, I roll us, flipping him onto his back. He blinks up at me, surprised, but the grin that curves his mouth tells me he loves it.
My hands fist in his hair. I slide down, swallowing his cock in one smooth movement. He swears, a rough, broken sound, hand flying to the back of my head. I hold his gaze as I take him deeper, letting my throat flex around him. My lips are swollen, my jaw trembling, but I want his eyes to stay right here when he loses it. I bob my head, hollowing my cheeks, letting spit slick everything, the obscene noises echoing in the room. His thighs tense, stomach rigid, and he tries to warn me, voice breaking on my name.
I pull off with a wet pop, catch my breath, then climb back up, straddling him again. He’s shaking, eyes blown, veins standing out along his neck.
“You enjoy torturing me?” he pants.
“Yes.”
He laughs once, then grabs my hips and slams me down on his cock again. “Then ride, baby. Ride until you can’t walk. I want you to feel me tomorrow standing over the sink.”
I do. I grind so slowly this time that he groans, fingers digging into my thighs, nails biting. I angle my hips to drag my clit against the base of him with every roll, making myself dizzy with how good it feels. He sits up, wraps his arms around me, and presses his mouth to my breast, sucking, biting until the pain spikes through the pleasure and twists it into something sharper.
“Look at me,” he says again, force behind it. I meet his eyes. They’re wild, sweat dripping, hair a mess. My name is a curse on his lips, and I can feel that rope tight in him, ready to snap. He lays me back, holds my ankles wide, drives hard, and everything inside me clenches in response.
“Come with me,” he orders, voice ripped raw. “Come on me while I’m inside.”
His thrusts turn almost desperate. I can hear it in the way his breath catches, the way his body tenses. The burn in my belly unfurls again. I clench around him, deliberately, and his face contorts, his eyes closing. It pushes me over. I convulse, shouting his name, and he loses whatever restraint he had left. He bites my shoulder, thrusts hard and deep, and the heat that floods me makes me gasp. He comes with a groan that sounds like it costs him blood, spilling everything straight into me.
He doesn’t move. He presses his forehead to mine, breath hot and shaky, and holds me there while both of us breathe it out. My body still trembles. His hands rub small circles over my sides, hips still buried in me. He kisses me softly, slow, like he can’t stop even if he wanted to.
“Stay inside,” I whisper against his mouth. “Don’t move.”
His grin turns sinful. “Yes, ma’am.”
He rocks once, just to feel me clamp down.
“You’re insufferable,” I choke out, and my voice comes out rough with too many things layered on top of each other.
Nathan’s mouth curves, then softens, and his hand slides up my side as if he’s reminding himself I’m real. He stills when I shift, and he holds my gaze like he’s waiting for me to decide whether this is tenderness or a trap.
“Say it again,” he murmurs, and the humor in it is thin, controlled.
I lift my hand and press my palm to his cheek, then I feel his stubble against my skin and my heart bursts in a way that has nothing to do with lust. My eyes sting, and the shock of it makes me blink hard, then harder.
Nathan’s expression changes immediately, the grin dropping away as if it never belonged on his face.
“What,” he asks, quiet and sharp at the same time.
I try to shake it off, I try to pull air into my lungs and make a joke and get away with it. My body refuses. The moment I open my mouth, the sound that comes out isn’t a laugh, it’s a broken little inhale that turns into tears.
Nathan’s hands tighten on me, not controlling, not pinning, simply holding, and he shifts us carefully so I’m against his chest. He keeps one arm around my back and one hand at my hair, then he presses his mouth to my temple like he’s anchoring me there.
“Talk to me,” he says, and it’s not a request.
I press my face into his shoulder, and the tears keep coming like my body has been waiting years for permission. My fingers clutch at his shirt, then tighten until the fabric pulls taut, and my voice finally shows up.
“I did everything alone,” I whisper, and the words are ugly in my mouth. “Every fever, every night wake-up, every morning when I had to pretend I wasn’t tired, every time she asked a question I couldn’t answer.”
Nathan goes completely still.
I hate that stillness. I hate how it makes me feel like I’m about to be judged again, like I’m going to watch him turn cold and clinical and say something I’ll never forget.
Instead, his hand slides up my spine and holds.
“I know,” he says, voice low. “I know you did.”
“You don’t,” I choke out, and the truth comes fast now, unstoppable. “You weren’t there when she screamed for me at two in the morning and I had a shift at seven, and I still went in and smiled at parents and told kids they were brave.”