Page 74 of Irish Daddies
It’s not sex. Not heat. Not a fire. It’s an ache. It splits me in two and rebuilds me around her.
She pulls back. Her forehead presses to mine. “I don’t know how to survive this,” she admits.
“You’re not surviving it alone.”
“I still want to run.”
“I’ll chase you,” I say. “But I won’t drag you back.”
She makes a sound that’s half laugh and half sob.
Then she climbs into my lap and lets me hold her, legs wrapped around my waist, arms around my shoulders. Like we’re drowning, but we’ll sink together. Her fingers dig into my back like she’s trying to hold me inside her skin. Like if she lets go, everything will collapse.
I breathe her in. Her skin, her hair, the remnants of antiseptic and lemon and fear. I peel her bloody dress off her, tossing itaside onto the linoleum. My hands skim down her back until I find her bra and unclasp it.
Her mouth is hungry against mine as she unbuttons my shirt and throws it away, her hands running down my chest, admiring me in a way I’ve never been admired. I grip her thighs and rock her gently against me. She makes a sound I’ve never heard from her before, like she’s pleading with me and surrendering to me all at once.
Her hands move to unbuckle my belt and unbutton my pants. She releases my erection, gasping when she feels how hard I am. Her hand is warm around me, and I rock into her grip until her hands are moving her underwear aside and guiding me into her, her breaths deep and her lips pressed to my jaw.
She kisses me wordlessly, and her breath hitches when I push into her, stretching her around me, feeling every bit of the warm, wet place that I sink into. When she sways her hips, her hands steady her rhythm against my shoulders, and her fingers scan the scar beneath my collarbone like braille. She pauses there, asking how I got without words.
I pull her closer in response and tip my head up to her as she moves up to her knees for leverage. Our mouths find each other again, hungrier now, searching for truth with intermingled tongues. When I press up into her, my hands on the back of her ass, forcing my length as far as I can, she gasps into my mouth, and I feel the monster in me shaking the cage bars.
She buries her face in my neck as she moves over me, every slow thrust a confession neither of us can speak aloud. I hold her hips and try to remember to breathe. Her breasts brush against my chest, slick with sweat, and every soft sound she makes pulls something unholy out of me.
We stay like that for a long time. Moving together, shivering, breaking open in each other’s arms. She clutches the back of my head like she’s terrified I’ll disappear mid-breath, and I press kisses to her shoulder, her jaw, her temple. Anywhere I can reach. Anywhere she’ll let me stay.
When she falls apart, it’s silent. A breath that doesn’t make it out. A tremble that starts in her thighs and rolls through her like a quiet quake. She holds me as if the world might split in two. And when I follow her, it’s with a groan I try to swallow against her throat. I don’t want to scare her. I just want to stay.
After, we collapse into each other. There’s no separation between us. Just skin and sweat and whatever this thing is that’s grown between the wreckage.
“I keep thinking it’s not over,” she says after a long while, voice muffled against my shoulder. “Like something worse is coming. Like this peace is fake.”
“It’s not fake,” I say. “It’s fragile maybe. But it is real.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. Her face is raw, streaked with tears. “You really believe that?”
“I have to. Or I’ll lose my mind.”
She gives a bitter laugh, brushing at her cheek. “Too late for me on that front.”
I tighten my arms around her. “Then let’s be a little insane together.”
She rests her forehead in the hollow of my neck, and for a while we don’t move. I shift slightly, just enough to tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. Her skin is cool, damp from tears. Ifeel the weight of her on my thighs, the way she melts into me, no longer bracing for impact.
“You’re not alone anymore,” I murmur. “You don’t have to hold it all.”
Her voice is paper-thin. “What if I don’t know how to let go?”
“Then let me help you.”
She nods into my chest.
Minutes pass, or maybe hours. Time feels soft around the edges.
“I hated you,” she says eventually. “All of you. In the beginning.”
“I know.”
