Page 160 of The Next Lie

“I meant it then.”

“And…now⁠—?”

He pulls my hips harder to the edge of the desk and changes the angle. The next thrust punches the question out of me in a gasp.

“Now you’re here.”

His hand goes between us, thumb finding my clit with unfair accuracy.

“Now you’re mine to keep alive.”

“I’m not yours.”

He slows. Just enough to be cruel.

The piercing drags against my walls, and I arch off the desk with a broken sound.

“You keep saying that,” he says. “Your body keeps arguing.”

I hate him. I hate the truth in it. I hate that my legs lock around his hips like a vise because I cannot make myself let go.

He pulls my hair until my throat is bared to him.

“Tell me what you need, little ghost.”

The name detonates in my chest.

“I need to come.”

His mouth touches my neck, right over the pulse. “Ask.”

“Make me come.”

“Better.”

He drives into me harder, thumb working me in tight, relentless circles. The desk digs into my back. My shirt is shoved above my breasts, bra ruined under them, jeans trapped around one ankle. We are filthy, exposed, furious.

We are perfect.

I come like something snaps clean through me.

My body locks around him, and the sound I make tears my throat raw. He keeps going through it, dragging every pulse out until I am shaking and clawing at his back, begging without words now.

His rhythm breaks.

He grabs my hips, holds me exactly where he wants me, and buries himself deep with a guttural sound that I feel in my bones. His forehead drops to my shoulder as he comes, his breath ragged against my skin, his hands bruising my hips like letting go would cost him more than he has.

For a while, neither of us moves. The room is destroyed in small, damning ways.

Papers everywhere. Pen on the floor. My jeans twisted around my ankle. Nash’s desk thoroughly dishonored.

Deacon’s mouth brushes the top of my shoulder.

Soft.

Too soft after all that.

I close my eyes.