Page 123 of Creatures that Breathe

And then there’s more. Sliding deeper, pushing, unraveling my mind.

Breathing hard into my mouth, Cross grasps my waist, angling me, and a moan tumbles off my lips. I arch.

There.

We’re flush. Melded together, skin on skin. Ecstasy. He kisses me slow and sweet as he’s buried to the hilt inside me, and something ruptures in my soul. That’s what it feels like. The neatly stacked parts of me explode violently, only to lazily reassemble in a teetering pile that includes the wake of this new sensation.

I laugh.

A little one. A laugh and a tear.

Cross’s hot mouth trails a path along my collarbone. Inhales deeply. “I couldn’t have asked for a better sound than that.”

“I’ve been led to believe a moan is best wished for in bed,” I manage to retort through gasps and sighs.

“I’ll have your moans, love. Be sure of that. But a laugh”—his tongue scorches my jaw, as if on reflex, like he’s catching a runaway vanilla drip off his ice cream cone—“A laugh tells me you’re happy and that’s much harder to conquer than lust.”

With deliberate precision, he stretches back, pulls out and, with a punishing grip on my waist, he surges forward inside me again.

Automatically, I bend to meet him, to take all of him. “Gods, Cross,” I hiss, overwhelmed as he stretches me, long and wide and every other way. “I can’t believe you said no to this.”

Through a strained moan, he grates, “With the last of my will.” and surges deep. Pulls out. Nips my palm. Sweat beads on his brow, drips down his temple. “I wanted to. I just didn’t trust you.”

Guilt hits me.

“I couldn’t figure out how I drew the luckiest damn straw in the universe with you.”

My smile is wobbly and weak. I need to tell him the truth, but I can’t bear to ruin this moment. So instead, I reach up and stroke his curls, the loveliest soft shade of brown.

“I’ll remember this.” I clutch him closer, hungry. “Same as I remember every single thing about you. Every conversation. Every touch. I’ll remember it all, every line in your eyes. Even when we’re apart, even when you try to stop me.”

Before he can respond, I mesh our lips together, tongue diving and rolling against his.

Cross flips us around so I’m astride him, his thumbs firmly anchored on my hips, guiding and directing me to ride him, burying himself deep as he can with each thrust, impaling, ruling.

I’m dying. Gasping like it’s my last breath. I bite my tongue until I taste metal, keen his name, murmur affirmations as his thumb finds the most sensitive part of me and presses.

Hard.

“Be a good girl and give me another one. Come on,” he urges, all husk and heat. “You can do it again. Win the race.”

It’s his tone.

Soft as a feather, tickling electric pulses up my legs. I burst apart, tense and spasming, flying on wings of shadows in a starless sky, and he takes over the pace, pounding up into me. Hands pinching a little too hard as he yanks me down, pins me by the shoulders and sucks painfully at my neck as our hips collide forcefully.

He takes my bottom lip between his teeth, bruising my mouth, slick, hot, tasting like blood, pretty red blood, breaking away to bark a guttural shout into my skin as he explodes.

We lay together, tangled, boneless. Heartbeats synchronized in the same discordant rampage.

Once I have the air to say it, I rest my chin on his sternum and smile at his swollen, still moist mouth, curved upwards on both ends. “Bet you can’t do that again.”

Cross laughs, a deep rich sound that fills the room.

It’s too easy.

31

Cross

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