While he kissed her, plying her soft lips, she used that talented hand of hers to guide him right to the heart of her. And he took it from there. With a powerful surge, his hips pushed forward, and the penetration was something he felt to his marrow, the slick heat of her taking him all the way to the base, holding him in a grip that somehow managed to make him even harder.
In response, Mels cried out, her nails biting into his back, her body jacking up against his own, her sex spasming clearly as she orgasmed.
“Oh, God,” he groaned, crushing her to his chest as he started to move in the midst of her release.
He meant to go slowly. He really did.
But when she linked her legs around his ass and worked herself against him, something snapped. All at once he went ferocious on her, his hips swinging loose at the base of his spine, the urgency ratcheting up until he was positively pounding into her.
And God bless her, she was with him, every step of the way, wanting everything he had to give, taking him as he came—
His release shattered him sure as that explosion in the desert had—blowing him apart, sending him sky-high.
The difference was that instead of rocketing him into a hell on earth, it took him straight to heaven….
As Mels felt Matthias’s erection kick deeply inside of her, she held him tight, absorbing his orgasm, finding another of her own. Embracing him, she turned her face into his neck and shoulder, feeling the power in his flesh as his once broken body became whole again.
It was a…miracle.
There was no other word for it.
When she finally came back into her own head, she found him staring at her, his face grave…if not downright grim.
“I’m okay,” she said with a smile. “You didn’t hurt me.”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, but then he just kissed her softly.
He was still hard.
Rolling them over, he kept them joined. “I don’t want this to end,” he said gruffly.
Neither did she.
Moving quickly, they dealt with the particulars, getting the second of her friend’s condoms into place.
This time, she was in charge.
And she wanted to straddle him.
As she settled into place over his hips, she planted her palms on his shoulders and started riding him, his arousal going in and out of her, turning up the heat again. As the tempo increased, they were together in it, lockstep, the momentum of the sex taking on a power of its own.
They came at the same time, his release going right into her, her sex milking him, the pleasure so acute and sustained, it was a kind of pain….
And then, after what had seemed like a century, it was over.
Mels collapsed on him; then eased onto her side so they were lying together.
Staring into her eyes, he said, “You are incredible.”
“Wrong pronoun.”
He brushed a strand behind her ear. Then, with a gentle finger, he traced her face, as if he were memorizing it by touch.
“You’re leaving in the morning, aren’t you,” she whispered with sudden dread.
His nod was slow and steady.
Mels closed her eyes and fell back against the pillows. Putting her forearm under her head, she stared at the ceiling.
Man…this hurt—
“I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.
Her head jerked around. Matthias was still staring at her, those eyes level and penetrating, his harsh face dead serious.
For a moment of pure stupidity, she just wanted to slap him. He was pulling out of town for parts unknown, never to return, and he hit her with that?
Fuck. Him.
“I just wanted you to know.”
“Before you leave,” she muttered.
“Some things are worth saying.”
She turned back to him and tucked her hands in—in the event they acted on that impulse. “If that’s true, then why leave?”
“It’s not up to me.”
“So someone else is buying your bus ticket and forcing you on a Greyhound?” God, she sounded like a bitch. “Ah, hell…look, I don’t want you to go. But you know that—so, we are where we are.”
He loved her.
And as she looked into his face, her feelings were crystal-clear as well.
Reaching out, she put her hand on his cheek—and not in a slap. “What am I going to do without you?”
And P.S., how the hell had someone she’d just met come to mean this much? It wasn’t like she was a teenager in the heat of the crush years, when any passing guy could become a tragedy of Romeo and Juliet proportions. Yet here she was, on the verge of tears because she had nearly no time left with him.
“Will I ever hear from you?” she asked.
His answer was to kiss her, and as he did, her eyes stung so badly she had to blink fast.
This time the sex was slow and gentle, but no less devastating than the passion had been: As he touched her, as he reentered her, as they moved as one, she told her brain to remember every single gasp and groan, each and every shift and sigh.
It was going to have to last for a lifetime.
44
Sitting buck naked on the dock at the boathouse, Jim took his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket with hands that shook. Same thing with his lighter. And putting the flame to the tip wasn’t a coordination party either.
All the while, the sound of the Hudson lapping at the undersides of the empty slips crowded in on him, making him feel like there were bars on all four sides.
“She’s not actually the key to this,” Devina said from behind him.
Man, his hearing was just way too acute: Her zipper going up was like a scream in his head, and no one should ever take note of feet being slipped into stilettos.
“The reporter,” the demon prompted, like she was looking for a reply. “Matthias is so far gone, nothing can save him.”
Jim tapped his cig and watched the ash float off in the water.
Devina was right about one thing: She had managed to make him feel worse than before. He was positively stained, inside and out—from his anger, from the sex, from the game.
Saviors were not supposed to be hopeless—but here he was, completely surrounded by an utter lack of optimism.
Devina’s fancy-schmancy heels marched over and parked themselves in his peripheral vision, the bright blue alligator something-or-anothers burning his retinas.
He hadn’t intended on f**king her.
But he had. Twice.
The clash had been of biblical proportions—and it showed. The rowboats that had been so carefully stacked up were all over the place, pushed out of whack when he’d shoved her face-first against them. The buoys were scattered around. A number of life preservers had been torn, their fluffy stuffing like blood on a battlefield.