Loved.
He moved in her, fucking her the way he kissed her, deep and consuming, in a claiming of her body. He was owning her, marking her, his fingers digging hard into her shoulders, clutching her tightly, as if he couldn’t bear to let go. He took her hard and he took her slow at the same time. She felt him in her bones, on her skin, down to her very cells. He was inside her, he was outside her, he surrounded her. A symphony of sensations flooded every vein, and soon it became impossible to tell where one note ended and the next began. She could no longer distinguish between her body and her heart; they were one and the same, swallowed whole with longing for him. She and Clay had smashed into each other, atoms and particles colliding, combusting into this never-ending bliss.
“Do you think this will ever stop?” she whispered in between breaths.
“Wanting you like this?”
“Yes,” she said, inhaling sharply as she held his face, never taking her eyes off his.
“No,” he said, his voice ragged. “Because of how I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
“I am obsessed,” he said, raw and heated, his words touching down in her soul. “Utterly obsessed.”
“The same,” she whispered, barely able to form complete sentences, but not needing to. He took possession of her mouth, his lips devouring hers as he rocked deeper into her. He kept her restrained with his body, his arms, his cock, his lips, his tongue, his power, his control that he desperately needed to balance his obsession. She felt it all too, every ounce of him, of his desire and his need for her. Giving herself to him, she let him take her how he had to, because when he did, he brought them both over the edge.
She grasped his neck harder, holding on tight as pleasure ricocheted through her body, and the world spun so far into ecstasy that she never wanted to return.
Eventually she came back to earth, and he reached for her, nuzzling her neck, kissing her cheek, unable to keep his lips off of her. A kiss on her shoulder, another at the hollow of her throat. He stopped kissing her to trace her arm, holding her gaze as he did. “I want that every day. I want you every day,” he said, his voice rumbling over her skin, drugging her with its sexy warmth.
“Me too. So much,” she said, still high on him, them, the moments that had stitched together into bliss. Maybe that’s why she felt bold enough to say the next thing. “It was different this time, Clay,” she murmured.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe more connected. This is going to sound crazy, and you know I don’t talk this way. But it felt deeper. Like we were the same,” she said, a flush creeping over her cheeks as she opened her heart to him more and more every time. But she wanted him in now. She didn’t want an arm’s-length Clay anymore. “Does that make sense?”
“Yes. Do you know why it felt deeper?”
“Why?” she whispered, and the moment felt suspended, like they were on a bridge, holding hands, about to jump into the water below.
“Because there aren’t secrets anymore between us,” he said, brushing the backs of his fingers against her cheek, softly, oh so softly that she melted into his touch. “Because we’re in this together.”
“That’s all I want. To be together with you,” she said, the warm rush of falling blotting out everything else in the universe. Surely, nothing existed beyond these four walls. The city had disappeared and they were all that was left.
“No more lies. No more secrets. Only the truth,” he said, his voice strong and steady.
“Only the truth,” she repeated, and nothing had ever felt more true than this moment. “Like this. How I feel for you is like nothing I’ve ever had before.”
“Me neither. I can’t get close enough to you, Julia,” he said, linking his fingers through hers, and that gesture, so tender and loving, was like stripping off a final layer. “I can’t have enough of you. I want more of you. All the time.”
“You can have all of me,” she said, watching the reaction in his eyes. As if she’d given him all he ever needed with those words.
“You’re all I want,” he said, and it felt like a promise of what they might have together.
“What will you do with me after tomorrow night, once I have all this free time?” she asked, shifting from the intensity of their admissions to something a touch more playful, like they’d always been together. They’d had that from the start, from their very first night. She loved that they had so many sides.
“I figured you’d have your fill of poker, and be ready to move onto bridge. Strip bridge,” he added, raising an eyebrow.
“We could try canasta, even. Or if you really want to go wild,” she said, punctuating her words with a quick trip of her finger down his strong arm, “we could do Go Fish.”
He pretended to fan out several cards in his hands. “Julia, do you happen to have any sevens?” he teased, as if they were playing the kids’ game.
She mimed handing over a pair. “I’ll miss my lucky sevens,” she said with a pout.
“We’ll make new luck. Because I know what we’re going to do with all your free nights.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to take you to Vegas. Play for fun. We’ll play blackjack.”
“I’d love to go to Vegas with you.”
“You can meet my brother. We’ll go to Brent’s comedy club, then I’m going to take you to one of those late-night clubs in the Bellagio, where it’s dark and smoky and the music is low, and you’ll dance with me.”
“You dance?”
“Gorgeous, with you and me, dancing would be foreplay. I’d have you grinding against me on the dance floor,” he said, flipping her around so her back aligned with his chest.
She wiggled her rear against him in demonstration. “Like that?”
“Yeah, keep practicing that,” he said, low and husky in her ear.
“We’d play the slots, too,” she added, keeping up their Vegas dreams.
“We’d lose money and not care,” he said, brushing her hair off her shoulder. Planting a kiss on the back of her neck. Making her shiver.
“See a show.”
“Fuck in a limo on the strip,” he said, tracing her hipbone with his strong fingers.
“Fuck in the elevator,” she said, sliding her leg through his, wanting to be wrapped up in him.
“Leave work behind. Leave the past behind.”
“Not look at my phone. Not think about my phone.”
“No one could reach us,” he whispered. “We’d get drunk on each other.”
She turned back around, needing to look at him, to see him. She ran a thumb over his lips, watching his eyes float closed as he hitched in his breath. “I’m already drunk on you, Clay.”
“Stay that way,” he said. “I need you to stay that way.”
“I will.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
He didn’t want the time with her to end. He didn’t want anything with her to end.
As he stepped into the elevator after dinner at an Italian restaurant that evening, he was painfully aware of the ticking clock marching towards tomorrow’s game, then Sunday morning when they’d meet Charlie at eleven, then Sunday afternoon when he’d put her on a plane and let her crisscross the country. As they reached his floor¸ the thought of sending her home again was like a cut inside the mouth, an annoying reminder that couldn’t be ignored. Because he wanted so much more with her. He wanted these moments to unfold every damn day.