Page 116 of Backlash

“I’d order you to stop wearing these,” I say, “but I do like ripping them off you.” I find the seam and pull, my efforts rewarded by the subtle pop of each thread giving way.

Lucky’s whole body begins to vibrate in anticipation as the last barrier between us gives way. She whimpers, her fingers tugging my hair, her hips bucking closer. “Put your mouth on me. Worship me."

“Fuck yes,” I say, so consumed that I don’t know which one of us needs it more.

I thrust my tongue inside her as her hips roll up, opening all of her to me. Licking slowly, I savor her with long, intense strokes, building in pace along with the guidance of her hips.

“Oh my God.” The words roll out of her like thunder when I take her clit into my mouth, sucking until it swells. The fingers in my hair grasp and pull. It’s not a plea to stop, just a tether to grip as she rides out the pleasure.

The surges fade to aftershocks and the hands pulling my hair relax. I crawl forward, kissing her belly, her breasts, and appreciating the languid, trembling of her body.

“I need you inside me,” she pleads, her voice a deep, aching thing. “Make love to me.”

“I worship you,” I say, kissing her collarbone as I lower my hips, nudging between her slick heat and lingering there. “I love you.”

There’s no resistance when I thrust forward. She takes all of me in one powerful stroke, and the look on her face is one I know I will see in my dreams forever, divine and profane at the same time. A goddess come to down to earth.

I can’t be gentle or slow. I need to watch her unravel again. Grabbing her shoulders, I slam against her again and again, a throbbing pain echoing from my balls with each stroke.

“Yes!” she screams, all restraint gone, total abandon unlocked.

It spurs me on, driving me into a frenzy. “I love you,” escapes my lips, the subconscious thoughts inside my head spilling out of me unfiltered, as easily as talking to myself.

“Don’t leave me again,” she sobs, hooking her heels behind my hips and adding their strength to my own. Her fingers dig into my back, and every time I pull away I feel their sharp sting, telling me the price of parting from her and inviting my return.

“Never,” I promise. Our eyes meet, finding calm in the eye of the storm ravaging our bodies.

She surrenders first, her body tightening around me and I join her, my low, unending groan filling the room in chorus with her own.

Her body melts into the bed as her shaking subsides, and I pull from her gently, turning her onto her side and drawing her to me, back to chest, my chin on her shoulder, my arms wrapped around her, promising never to let her go.

The world feels tender and raw, as new and beautiful as the woman in my arms. I want to explore both. For now, though, I want only to hold her.

Life from nothing. Rapture from ruin. Us.

28

Sterling

The Past

I don’t know how I wound up here.

A pin sticks my thigh, and I yelp, glaring down at the seamstress.

“Sorry,” she says past a dozen more of the offending instruments clamped between her teeth.

“Do I really need my own tuxedo?” I ask Adair for what must be the twentieth time this week.

“Cyrus’s does not fit you,” she says firmly, “and why rent? I’m probably going to have to drag you to a million more of these things.”

“Is your brother planning on getting married to a lot of women?” I cock an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror.

“Him and everyone else I know,” she teases. “It’s our way of life.”

The seamstress pops the final pin out of her mouth. “She’s got a point.”

It’s strange how easily people laugh off weddings and divorces around here. The closer to Malcolm MacLaine’s wedding we’ve come, the more jokes I’ve heard—from everyone. Cyrus. Adair. Even Poppy has made a crack or two, and she’s the optimistic one, usually.