“Say what again?” I swivel my hips a little faster, arching up into the hand he has curved around my backside.
“Why you didn’t want to move.”
Oh. That.
“I want you inside me. Always inside me.”
The look he gives me … gods, I don’t even have words for what it does to me.
“I love that. Fucking love that you don’t want me to leave, and if I could stay here forever, I would. But right now, I’ve got to move.”
I nod. Knowing that my desire is irrational, impossible even. The hand on my face slips down to join the other. He doesn’t lift me off him, but he does rock me forward and up, tilting his own hips down at the same time. He slides out of me halfway, and I give up trying to keep the rest of our upper bodies separated. I drape myself over him, loving the glide of skin against skin. He pushes down on my hips, thrusting up at the same time, filling me completely again. He repeats the action, and this time I take a little more control over my movements, meeting him halfway. His thrusts are slow, but hard, and I gasp each time he fills me, hitting a tender spot inside.
Sweat beads up where our skin touches, making my skin slick enough that I slide over him in response to each powerful drive. I don’t know whether I want to beg him to move faster or to continue his slow, even thrusts so that we can stretch this out as long as possible. We stick with slow for a while, managing a long, languid kiss as our bodies slip and roll in tandem. But eventually, slow is not enough. Wilder shortens his thrusts, using his grip on my ass to match my speed to his. When we’re moving too fast to keep up our kiss, I end up hovering over him, eyes locked on his as he strokes into me again and again.
When I’m used to the new rhythm, he slides a hand up to cup one of my breasts.
“I want my mouth here,” he growls. “Can you lean up and over me?”
I lift up, planting my hands next to his head. The new angle, draws my hips farther away, and it causes his erection to nearly slip out of me completely.
I moan at the change, and push myself backward to keep him, slamming my hips down on his. Both of us freeze and groan at the sensation.
“Again,” he orders.
I do as he says, leaning far enough forward that he flicks a tongue out to tease my nipple, and then I crash back down onto him. This time, he thrusts up at the same time, and it rips a scream from my throat.
I don’t wait for him to tell me again, repeating the motion. It feels so good that my head actually goes a little fuzzy, leaving me dazed and grasping for a release that’s just out of my reach.
Eventually, I shorten my stride, not leaning all the way up to Wilder’s mouth, but I continue to bounce my body back hard against his. There’s no controlling the noises coming out of my mouth. There’s no controlling anything. All I can do is dig my fingers into his chest for leverage and meet him thrust for thrust.
It had felt magnificent to have Wilder so full and perfect inside me. I didn’t think anything could feel better. But each time he reenters me, it feels better than the time before. And my channel pulls tighter and tighter, as if it doesn’t want to let him go.
My orgasm takes me by surprise. When Wilder begins to withdraw, my body catches just the right friction on his, and with only the head of his cock inside me, my muscles clench tight. The force of the pleasure makes me arch my back, pressing back down onto Wilder, but he feels bigger now. Harder.
“Kalli. Ah, fuck Kalli.”
I get to see his face as he comes apart this time. Cheeks flushed, hair wild, mouth open. He is all chaos and beauty beneath me, his eyes lit with fire and love. He presses up into me as the moment stretches on and on.
I thank time. For making the best moments in life always feel longer than they are.
I thank the gods. For the gift that allowed me to live long enough to feel this.
I thank fate. For bringing him to me, and me to him.
I slump against his chest, feeling the comforting pull of the thread that binds us. This is meant to be, Wilder and me. I can’t lose him. I won’t.
The words of an oracle are not law, nor fate. They’re a glance at the future as it stood at that very moment.
But I know in the very marrow of my bones that the future must be different now.
Because loving Wilder, being with Wilder, changed me after a millennia of staying the same.
“Happy New Year,” he murmurs into my skin.
I glance up at the clock, and sure enough, he’s right. 12:04 A.M. Hope fills my soul to the very brim. I gave up marking the passage of years a long time ago. There wasn’t any point to it. Not then. Smiling, I tug, rolling at the same time so that my back hits the mattress and his body covers mine.
He looks down at me, his eyebrows lifted in question. I wrap my legs around his hips and smile.
“Wish me a Happy New Year again,” I say.
His eyes blaze with what I can only call hunger. Leaning down, he presses my body into the mattress with the weight of his own, and together we celebrate a new beginning.
“It’s not a problem. I swear.”
Classes have started back up, and the one marketing class Wilder and I managed to get together is the highlight of my week. Or rather, I know it will be. This is only our second week back, but I can already tell that this class is going to be perfect. We can’t exactly have a lot of physical contact in a lecture hall, so it allows me to see him, to spend time with him in a safe setting.
“Are you sure, Kalli? If it’s too much of a pain—”
I cut him off with a hand over his mouth. He stands in the hallway, looking incredibly handsome as he rubs at the back of his neck. I’ve really started to adore that nervous habit of his. I remove my hand from his mouth and lay my hand over the top of his, stopping the anxious movement.
“Baby, I’ve told you before. I love your sister. I can absolutely watch her until you get off work. We’ll have fun.”
“Mom might get off before me. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to fix the account I screwed up.”
Lines form around his frowning mouth, and I take over rubbing the back of his neck, knowing how stressed he is, trying to once again juggle school and work with me added on top of it. He wasn’t supposed to work today, but his boss called right before class. Wilder didn’t tell me exactly what he said, but seeing Wilder’s expression as they talked was enough for me. I’ve never been good at watching him hurt, even before I fell for him.
“You do whatever you have to do. We’ll be fine.”
He turns his head, kissing my wrist. “You know I love you, right?”