Each time Cole brought her higher, he’d shift his focus. Thick, indulgent, he filled her with his tongue and then covered her, vibrating until she arched her back and about came off the bed. With his fingers, he massaged, penetrating her. Accelerating, encompassing, he licked and sucked on her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything but how he made her feel.
With what little control she had left, she said his name, again.
The heat of his mouth, the pressure, drew her past the safety of comfort or the meditative massage as when he’d begun, and it all eclipsed as her climax spiked. Waves of orgasm surged over her again and again, her breath carried by each, her body rising to meet his mouth.
As it eased, he slowed, carefully bringing her back down. For a moment, he closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the inside of her knee, and he laughed subtly. “Fuck I hope you’re not still imaginary, because… that… holy shit, Trace.”
She tipped her head further into the pillow and laughed out loud. She opened her mouth to say something, realized she didn’t have a single coherent thought in her mind, and laughed again.
When words failed her, she sat up and rested her hand on his jaw, brushing her thumb over his lips, swollen and wet as she was.
He nipped at her thumb and moved with her, under her so he lay on his back, smiling curiously at her as she shifted his jeans out of the way and pushed his t-shirt up. Indulging in the moment, as tomorrow might not come, she lowered her body and took him into her mouth to unsettle him as much as he had her. When he writhed and groaned and gritted his jaw tighter, she released him and quickly sheathed him in a condom, straddled and took him.
The moment so acutely, exquisitely fragile, neither said a word. With his eyes, his hands, he studied her, watched her, felt her, while she steadied her hands on his chest and rocked, tightening around him as each motion sent heat coiling in her belly, radiating until she soared. Shifting the delicate fabric, he took her breasts in his hands. Overwhelmed by him, by the strength of her reaction to him, her body taking control, her pace quickened, faster, her focus narrowed in on one sweet moment. His gray eyes clouded, his control faded with hers, and he gripped his hands at her hips, pacing with her, his focus strained, and she felt him holding on as long as he could.
With one final, sudden rush, orgasm took over and her body moved of its own will, riding it, owning it, and she felt him releasing with her.
Wrung out and spectacularly energized and confused by the intensity of it all coming together, she shifted and laid down at his side, tucked into the crook of his arm with her leg draped over him. He kissed her temple, then collapsed back on the bed, wrapping his hand around her leg and his other around her middle, both holding on as they caught their breath.
17
It's always darkest before the dawn
Dreams.Imagination.Fantasy.Theykept him alive when everything seemed lost. When he was one strike away from breaking.
Reality slammed him hard and his body tensed with whiplash. Whyever the fuck he’d thought he could simply stop and live in a fantasy, he had no clue. Those three years of living here so long ago, in this house, in this town, with this family. He had carried the memories with him, pretending he could come back one day, prepared to live the life he wasn’t ready for then.
Trace in real life was so much better than he’d imagined, vibrant like a mountain sunrise, glowing with a warm light infusing into the shadows. Hiking in the mountains around Foothills had always been a treasured retreat, where nothing could touch him. When the winter freezes came, there were patches the sun never reached, where grass refused to grow and ice could outlast the day.
Cole knew his options, and they were pretty fucking slim. Trace was awake in his arms, a scowl etched into her brow, working a problem she should never have had to worry about.
Arm tingling and threatening loss of function—his good arm—he adjusted his shoulder underneath her.
At the subtle change, Trace said in a soft whisper, “How long do you think we have?”
Keeping his voice equally low, he said, “Not long. As soon as I give the signal, things are going to happen fast.” Under his wandering fingertips, her skin prickled at his touch. “I shouldn’t have come back.”
“Of course you should have.”
“Well, not at all, but from Sunset Beach. I should have run from there. Drawn them away from you.”
“If they tracked you to Sunset Beach, they had probably been following you for a while. They would know that we’re your weakness.”
He kissed the top of her head and breathed her in. “Not exactly the word I would have chosen. But, yeah, it was easier when I was alone.”
“I don’t like my parents being in the middle of this.”
He pushed his head back into the pillow. “Neither do I. I need to get all three of you out of the equation.”
Trace hooked her arm tighter around his middle, her hand splayed over his sternum. “I could refuse to leave you, but I don’t want to slow you down, or become bait, and then you’ll dramatically have to choose me versus saving the world, or something like that.”
A low laugh rumbled from his belly to his throat. “Or something,” he repeated.
“Do you trust the guards stationed outside?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“That’s why you had me turn on music, like in the movies? To drown out our voices?”
