And he gives her more, his hips pressing forward, fucking her into the mattress, his mouth at her throat, his hands at her breasts, his entire body worshiping her from the inside out.
“B, I can’t . . . Are you close?” he manages to grind out, his hand falling between their bodies, a calloused thumb finding its target.
One moment she’s hanging on the precipice and the next she’s falling, the electricity running through her veins sparking into an all-consuming fire that she can’t escape, so good she doesn’t even want to try. She just allows it to rage out of control, as if she had any other choice.
He falls just after her, his body taking over, his rhythm faltering, his hips rutting forward until he stills above her, whatever strength he has left leaving him as he collapses down into her.
His weight is heavy, their skin sticking together, and when he tries to shift away from her, she stops him, wraps a leg over his hip and holds a hand against his back.
“Gonna crush you,” he mumbles against her neck.
“Stay with me,” she answers back, running her free hand up into his sweat-soaked hair. “Stay.”
The word spills off her tongue and for a half second she panics, her body tensing beneath his, because she doesn’t want him to just stay here, on top of her, still inside of her while fiery sparks are still making her twitch from the total destruction they just wrought between them, but because she wants him to stay.
With her.
Forever.
And he’s not going to.
He has dreams and ambitions and it isn’t even something she’d change about him if she could. She loves his passion. Sheloves how much he believes in the cause he’s dedicating his life to.
She loves him.
And she wants him to stay.
And she can never ask him to.
He must feel her tense, because a second later, he rolls off onto his back and she whimpers softly at the loss of him.
“That was . . .” He trails off. “Shit, I don’t even have a word. Bet you never thought you’d see the day, huh?”
He’s joking. She can hear the laughter in his voice. That’s . . . that’s good. He isn’t feeling what she’s feeling.
It’s just their circumstances, the proximity, the act. The other night at Erik’s house when she thought he was feelingsomethingshe must have been wrong.
She just had to fuck it up and fall in love with him.
And she can’t even blame him.
This is on her and she doesn’t know what to do.
Because she should call it off. It’s not fair to him. Not fair to her either.
But she can’t. She won’t.
She’s selfish and saying goodbye to him now?
It’s impossible.
There’s a ticking clock on this. There always has been. There’s no harm in just waiting for it to run down and to try and make the most of this time, knowing that the only person she’s hurting is herself.
Chapter 17
It’s been three days.
Three days since he felt her body pressed against his, full length, nothing between them except the words he absolutely can’t say to her. Three days since she slipped out of bed and went to work and he woke up to cold sheets beside him. Three days since Julie set off on the next leg of her tour, so his bedroom is free again and there’s nothing forcing them to be near each other, at least not without a wall or two between them.
