Page 114 of Sin

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

I smile, but it hurts. “Maybe.”

His thumb brushes my cheek. “Tell me.”

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

Something changes in his face. He understands. Maybe not the words. But the weight.

He rolls me beneath him slowly, covering my body with his. No rush. No frantic hands. No tearing at clothes because there are none left to tear. Just skin. His against mine. His bare hand sliding over my waist. No cold ring against my hip.

Only him.

Only us.

For one unbearable second, that feels like enough.

Then his mouth lowers to mine again, and the ache inside me opens. This time, when he touches me, he doesn’t do it like he’s trying to make me come apart as fast as possible. He takes his time. His mouth moves over my jaw, my throat, my shoulder. Down the soft curve of my chest. Across my stomach. Over every place I have ever tried to make smaller, every inch of me I have ever worried was too much.

He kisses me like none of it is too much.

My hands slide into his hair.

“Sin,” I whisper.

He kisses me once. Then again. Then he settles between my thighs and enters me slowly. So slowly my breath catches halfway out of my body. There is no frantic edge this time.

Just fullness.

Heat.

The impossible intimacy of his eyes on mine while he sinks into me inch by inch, like this is not something we are doing but somewhere we are going together.

When he is fully inside me, he stops. The room is quiet except for rain, breath, and the soft broken sound I make when he kisses the corner of my mouth.

“Laurel.” It sounds like something he is afraid to lose.

I wrap my arms around him and hold on. Then he starts to move. Every stroke feels different because he’s different. Because I am. Because there is no performance in this, no rush to prove how badly we want each other. We already know that. This is worse.

This is tenderness.

This is his hand lacing with mine against the pillow.

This is my mouth pressed to his shoulder when the pleasure gets too deep to hold.

This is him whispering, “Look at me,” not because he wants control, but because he wants to be there when I fall.

So I look and let him see everything. The want. The fear. The feeling I’m not ready to name.

His rhythm breaks when he sees it. Then his mouth is on mine, and the kiss is almost desperate in its softness.

I come quietly, with tears in my eyes and his name against my lips because for one moment, it feels like being loved. Sin follows after, holding himself deep inside me, his body shuddering over mine, his face buried in the curve of my neck.

He doesn’t move away when it’s over.

He stays.