Page 67 of Hold on Tight

He knew her, knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t going to make a big fuss over his stump, kissing it and petting it and pretending like it was something special. Nor would she make a fuss of him, as if he’d done something brave instead of what had to be done. And she didn’t—she put her hand on his arm, handed him a new condom, and waited for him.

She didn’t have to do anything to make him hard again except lie back on the bed and smile and beckon. He rolled to her, braced himself on his arms. With effort, he found a balance point, a strange, awkward triangulation that let him be on one knee and his shorter residual leg.

She let him find his way, then guided him back to her. Her heat and wetness waited for him, like a reward, like a blessing.

He buried himself to the hilt and he couldn’t help himself—the groan ripped out of him, loud and desperate, as he got that last inch he’d been craving, as he got the full effect of driving his body into and against hers, as he watched her eyes roll back in her head with pleasure.

It was awkward fucking her like this, more awkward with only one leg to brace him, but it felt more like him. With the prosthetic it had felt all wrong, like there was something between them. Like the fucking condom, which—well, if he had his way, he’d have peeled that back, too, and thrust straight into her wet heat without it.

Fucking her—oh, fucking hell, making love to her—like this wasoff, but in all the right ways. He could have everything, all of her, could brace himself and give himself completely into her, like a crazy backward gift, because of course, she was the gift.

His balance was off, his thrusts ungainly and uneven, but he didn’t give a shit, because she’d grabbed his ass in both her hands and was tugging him into her with so much force. Anyway, all the thrust was coming from his ass cheeks, and the tension there was becoming part of the tension in his lower belly and dick, part of the tension on her face, and it was all one big giant gathering storm of fucking awesomeness. The first time, the glory had gotten lost in frustration and triumph, in proving something and quenching thirst and scratching an itch. This time it was all glory, all bliss, the look on Mira’s face, all wrecked and open, a silent scream and her eyes squeezed shut and her hands coming off his ass and flopping back on the pillow behind her head as she arched up into him and he started to come.

“Fuck,fuck!”

Probably he yelled it, because he was beyond caring. He was beyond anything except the sensation of her clenching around him, the look of total abandon on her face, the fresh salt smell of her rising up from where their bodies met, and the wide, ripped-apart sense of falling and rising and turning inside out, the sense of being wrung, of having the resistance purged from him, of being remade, recast, and finally, finally, of crashing back down, spent, wherever and however she wanted him.

Chapter 21

“Jake. Jake. Wake up.”

It was too late. The sound that had roused Mira from sleep was the sound of her door opening, the herald of Sam’s morning entrance. She’d somehow forgotten to lock the door, and apparently, they’d accidentally fallen asleep after—after that—

—that epic, totally amazing, good-sense-melting sex. That colossal error in her personal judgment, that slow, should-have-been-able-to-stop-but-could-only-hang-on-for-the-ride slide down a slippery slope intoreally, really complicated.

Oh, God. Opal had been so right. “Not supposed to” was a flimsy barrier to the chemistry between her and Jake.

Jake scrambled to sitting and yanked the covers up. “Whoops. Sorry!” He looked as dazed as she felt. Maybe more so. His hair was mussed, his were eyes sleepy, and a pattern of pillow creases crisscrossed his cheek.

She had woken to discover her face snug up against his chest, her hand on his morning erection, but luckily he would not need to know that, since she’d disentangled herself before calling him awake.

Sam came over to Jake’s side of the bed. He regarded Jake thoughtfully. “You slept over.”

“I did,” Jake said.

“C’mere, Sam,” Mira said, but her son stayed where he was, scrutinizing Jake. She started to feel the beginning edge of worry about how thoughtful he looked.

“Does that mean you’re a good friend?”

Jake gave her an uncertain look, then dove in. “Yes. It does.”

The kind of good friend who could make you come several times in one night, harder than you’d ever come before, and who could also somehow manage to leave you wanting more. Because she did. Because who wouldn’t? He’d been everything she needed. Commanding. Needy. Masterful. Desperate. Rough. Grateful.And funny. Don’t forget funny.

He’d felt so good inside her. Not only the sensation of being stretched and filled, but the connection it forged between her body and her emotions. Her heart. As if she’d let him inevery way, not just the obvious one.

And it wasn’t only the sex. There was everything that had led up to it. His rescuing them, his cooking for them, his almost running away and then not. All the secrets laid bare—the story of what had happened to his leg, their mutual confessions about how they’d avoided each other with the truth about Sam, and the biggest truth he’d told her, the truth about how humiliating it had been for him when his knee got caught in the sofa.

I kept thinking about how I couldn’t do what you needed me to do.

She hadn’t been bullshitting him when she’d answered him. When she’d told him he’d been everything she needed.

And when he’d made love to her without his prosthesis—she didn’t have to be some kind of super-genius to figure out that had been complicated for him. Hard. Like getting naked, only naked-er.

So yeah. He’d been inside her, and they’d been inside each other, and there was a limit to how long she could keep running away. A point past which all the stupid rules she’d made for herself had to take a backseat to the fact that this thing had a life of its own.

So … maybe …?

Maybe she could stop fighting him off? Stop keeping him at bay? Let what was going to happen happen, and …

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