Page 16 of Under His Embrace

I wouldn’t be hearing a single protest from her lips. She wasn’t going to change her mind and choose to run from me now.

Not until I fucked her hard and fast, on a race to show her all that she—that we—had been missing for the last ten years. All that wasted time, gone and never to be reclaimed.

Like a machine, I pounded into her pussy, making sure to rub up against her clit with every downstroke. Then I pulled out to pummel her again.

Sweat dripped from my brow with the strain of slamming into her. Rubbing all up over her, I pushed her into the mattress and vented all the pent-up longing I’d bottled in for too damn long.

She wasn’t any stronger than me. She couldn’t resist how we drew to each other, not even in this. I predicted how close she was to coming, feeling her tensing up, and she started to rock up into me and meet me thrust for thrust.

I was so close, so damn ready to explode into her. There was no chance of either of us lasting, not with how suddenly andhungrily we’d crashed after arguing. It was torture to hear her talking about a life away from me, how she’d taken off to be without me for years.

Feeling her pussy clench erased the sting of that knowledge. Letting her cry out at the intensity of her orgasm droned out the negativity in my mind that she hadn’t ever reached out to me.

With another thrust in, my balls tightened and I felt my pending orgasm get closer. A tingle charged me from the base of my spine, and I was too far gone to try to savor this moment or drag out the tension of impending pleasure.

I couldn’t last. Groaning loudly, I emptied into her. My dick twitched, sunken in her warm pussy that milked me good. All my cum flooded into her, just where it fucking belonged. Where it should’ve belonged every day for the last decade.

Stop. Stop holding on to the past.My mental scoldings were feeble, too weak to register. Thoughts ceased. Ideas faded. I could only slump down to her and relish the feeling of our chests heaving against each other. We both raced to catch our breath. Sweat slicked our skin together, and as we lay there entwined, so deeply connected like we used to be, I let my mind blank.

Until something changed. She kept her arms around me, hugging me loosely, but her body moved differently. No longer drawing in desperate pulls of air to steady herself and relax, her chest lifted against mine. With sobbing, juddering pushes, she cried.

If there were any reaction I ever could have looked forward to after fucking my ex so hard and fast without any semblance of control, this wasn’t it.

I’d made her fucking cry. I wouldn’t—and couldn’t—take back the moment of having sex with her like this, but as I pulled out of her and eased away from her naked, flushed body, I felt like a monster.

8

CHLOE

No!Don’t. Please don’t leave me.

I wiped at my eyes, fighting through the blurry vision from my tears. Watching Franco get off the bed wasn’t easy. I struggled with the clawing need to beg him to stay with me, to lie with me for just another moment, but that was too cruel of a request to make. I had no right to ask him to cuddle. I had no grounds to demand more tender touches.

Nothing about that quickie was tender. Half the time, he taunted me, pushing me to tell him to go away.

I hadn’t been able to utter a protest once he laid his hands on me and burned up my skin. Words failed me when he explored, readjusting to loving my body.

When he first kissed me, I wanted to tell him that I shouldn’t rush into anything with him until he explained why I mattered in the deli getting shot up. Or how he thought falling into bed could be wise in the context of how we’d been reunited.

“Where—” My voice was too croaky, but I fought to speak again. “Where are you going?” Sitting upright, I could track where he moved in the room. While these damn tears continued to build up and spill, I followed his movements as he retrieved his pants and shoved them on before pacing.

He didn’t leave the room, and as I caught my breath, I tried to cling to that fact. He wasn’t running out of here, determined to flee.

That’smyjob.I was the one who ran.

I caught my breath, working through the emotions that clogged my throat. It was just so much to get past. So much to endure and accept.

Now that the last waves of bliss faded from that orgasm, I was vulnerable to feel so much more than the undeniable desire and urgency to come with him.

Shock. I was rooted in a deep pit of shock and stunned marvel that I’d just had sex with the one man I’d always loved. Franco had always been the one. From the first time we kissed, I knew he was the man who would hold my heart forever.

The moment he kissed me after his heartbroken statement, that it wasn’t fair of me to have left him, I felt like I had come home. Touching him, kissing him, and having him thrust into me hard like that, Iwashome. Falling into bed with Franco was living proof that I was a fool to separate from him. With him, I slotted into where I belonged in life—with him.

But that’s impossible.It was too difficult to figure out back then, when I ran from home, and it was still too challenging to accept now. Our decisions had pulled us apart, and I felt disillusioned to think we could have a future together. No matter how right it felt to really be with him, it couldn’t be feasible.

I heaved out one last sigh, comforted by his staying in here. He didn’t leave. Pacing back and forth, steadily, as though the movement calmed him, he remained in the room, almost as though he was waiting for me to get over myself, to settle down and be able to talk.

I licked my lips, torn with the need to speak up, but I didn’t know how to start or what to say.

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