Page 71 of Reckoning

For neither of us to have nearly died in the past week. To know we could sleep safely for more than one night.

My head hurt so much. In spite of that, the fear and anger, and the coldness of earlier, Meyer was right. I actually felt safe. He had gone up against his sister for me when he could have let me sink. He didn’t dump me at a hospital or just tuck me into a bed. He brought me back, inch by inch, and was holding me. He had never done that before. He had tried to contain me, box me up, send me away when he was feeling too raw, but he never just sat and held me like this. I noticed the way he angled his hips away from me and kept his hands from roaming over me too intimately. This wasn’t about seduction or charm—it was just us. Two humans who were hurting. Together.

“Always so busy. You never rest,” he said, brushing his lips across my goose-bumped skin. “Sleep.” Heat rushed to my belly with this thrill of having him so close and not wanting to push him away. I inhaled, my chest rising to meet his lips, and he kissed my shoulder.

I twisted in his arms, breasts against his chest once more, and there was no ignoring his dick growing between us, pressing into my leg. I took his hand and put it on my breast, feeling him harden beneath me as I did so. His fingers tightened even as he spoke.

“Maddie …”

“I told you I won’t fight you anymore. You win.”

His free hand brushed back my hair so that his lips could graze my ear. “What is wrong with you?” He bit my earlobe.

“You saved my life.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

I slid a hand between our bodies, wrapping my fingers around his cock as it jumped in my hand. He was so immense, and I found myself salivating at the thought of him. I wanted to taste him, to run my tongue over every inch of skin.

“I’ll never pay it back.”

“You already have, Madeline.” As I pressed my hand against him harder, he licked my neck, kissing the soft spot of skin below my ear. “You’ve saved me in more ways that I could ever save you, even if I tried for the rest of our lives.”

I pulled his head away from my neck to look at him. “Do you want to try? For the rest of our lives?”

He was shaking, breathing in jerky gasps. His cock jumped beneath my hand as he squeezed my nipple. “We need to rest.”

“We need each other.”

I kissed him now, gently, like our first kiss would have been if we had been given the chance to meet on our own. If I had found him out at dinner one night, catching his eye across the bar. Or at one of those fundraisers, unmarred by our perceptions of each other’s family. The way it should have been.

“Look at me.”

He did, still trembling. His raw gaze showed me the fear he worked so hard to hide every day of his life. He’d been able to hide it from me for far too long. Me, who thought I had him figured out right from the beginning. How had I been so blind to the truth, to the warm-hearted man who had survived beneath the layers of frost he’d used as his armor for three decades? More importantly, how long would it take me to melt away the iceberg he used as a fortress?

“Where did you go?” he whispered, snapping me out of my head. His hand curved around my naked back. I felt the pads of all his fingers in the spaces between my spine.

“Sorry.” I inhaled deeply, already dizzy, but there was no going back. His fingers pressed harder into my back for the briefest moment, and then I didn’t know which way was up.

Meyer pulled down my hands and latched his mouth over a nipple, and his warm tongue chased away the chill. I let my head fall back as I moaned.

“Shit, Maddie.” He moved to my other nipple, not neglecting me for a moment, rolling me to my back as he moved over me. “Are you cold?”

He was concerned, holding me so tightly, wrapping me up every way he could while still attacking my breasts with his mouth and grinding his hips against mine. I felt the surrender in his movements even though he hadn’t said anything out loud. He just needed me to let go of those chains and tell him this—this truth we couldn’t deny between ourselves anymore—and let himself love me.

“Freezing.” It was a lie. I was burning up. The warmth from the gas fireplace overwhelmed us; I threw away the blanket that hid us from each other. He sat up to look at me, my body that he had seen so many times yet never in this way, painted with desire and begging him to fill me with his hot, hard length I had been craving in my dreams since the first time I saw it.

I dragged his face back up to mine as he settled between my legs, sliding himself between my pussy lips. I gasped, feeling his hard length against my core, and shuddered.

He froze. “Do you want me to stop?” The concern in his face broke my heart. And there, he was using that word.

“Don’t go soft on me now, Meyer.”

He dragged his teeth across my collarbone. It was a marking, the possession he always wanted to have, but I didn’t mind it. I found myself hoping he’d bite harder, bruise deeper. I wanted to match the marks on his body until he didn’t feel self-conscious about them ever again. I would cut myself to copy every scar if it stole some of the shame from his eyes.

“I don’t want to fuck this up again.”

“You wanted to own me.” I traced my thumb across his swollen lips.

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