“See?” I whisper against his mouth. “You’re not the only one.”
His forehead drops to mine. “Tell me this means something,” he says, and the words are so raw they almost hurt.
“It means I want you,” I answer.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t. But it’s what I have.”
He kisses me like that answer both saves and ruins him.
Then his hand slides between my thighs, over my panties, finding the slick heat already there. He groans at how wet I am and presses harder, rubbing slow circles over my clit until I gasp into his mouth and grab his shoulder.
“All this for me?” he murmurs.
“Yes.” The word falls right out of me.
He drags my panties down and pushes two fingers inside me, and I arch hard, moaning against his throat as he curls them deep and slow. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Of course he does. He works me open while kissing my mouth, my jaw, my neck, every thrust of his fingers steady and precise until my body starts trembling around them.
I reach between us and grab his cock, slick from my mouth, hard and heavy in my hand.
His breath catches. “Lena.”
“I know,” I whisper, guiding him to my entrance.
He stills completely, tip pressed against me, waiting.
In the dark, in this strange, almost holy quiet between breaths, it really does feel like absolution. Not because either of us deserves it. Because for once neither of us is asking to.
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him down.
He pushes into me slowly, both of us moaning at once. The stretch is deep and hot and perfect, my body opening around him inch by inch until he’s fully inside me and shaking with the effort not to move.
I cup his scarred cheek in my hand and kiss him.
“You can,” I whisper.
That’s all it takes.
Vale starts to fuck me like he’s starving.
Not wild. Not careless. Deep, deliberate thrusts that make the bed creak softly under us, make the dark press closer around every sound I can’t hold back. He keeps kissing me through it, swallowing my moans, his hand at my waist, then under my thigh, opening me wider so he can drive in deeper.
I dig my nails into his back and feel him shudder.
He groans my name against my mouth and thrusts harder, and I know without asking that the scars there pull when he moves, that it probably hurts, and the thought only makes me hotter, more desperate to give him something back.
I kiss his forehead. His mouth. The scar at his cheek.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice wrecked.
“Giving you what you won’t give yourself.”
That hits him so hard his rhythm breaks for one second before turning brutal.
“Lena—”
I’m too close to answer with anything but a gasp.