Page 40 of Edge of Ruin
He stared into my eyes, shifted his weight, pressed deeper.
I gasped and bit my lip. “Oh, wow.”
“Relax,” he murmured, his voice strangled. “I’ll go really slow. It’ll be good.”
He did, and it was. I had braced myself for a sting, but he barely moved, just hovered over me, rocking gently, kissing me with all his incredible skill, melting me while he caressed my clit with his thumb.
His kisses were a silent language that some deep part of me understood. Something inside him, coaxing and pulling at something inside me. Beseeching me to soften, bend, and melt for him, then demanding it. And there was no way not to give him what he wanted when I wanted it myself so badly.
He made me come again, deep and hard and wrenching, and when I opened my eyes and remembered who I was, his cock was deep inside me. Huge and hard and throbbing. I could barely move.
But he was in no hurry. He rolled me onto my side, draping my leg over his, and we kissed, embraced, hips pulsing lazily together. Slowly, gently rocking.
Time stretched, creating a magical space around us. The room with its flickering leaf shadow was a verdant bower. Colors seemed unnaturally strong. The sleeping bag was the splayed petals of some voluptuous, sexual flower, and the two of us writhed and undulated inside its glowing, silky depths, utterly lost to pleasure.
At some point, I realized with some surprise that I was not uncomfortable at all anymore. My body had relaxed around him. He was easing in and out of me in slow, teasing thrusts, with a skillful swivel and slide that tenderly stroked over every wonderful, throbbing hot spot inside me. I jerked and shuddered with each plunge.
He was so attentive, so sensitive, feeling his way with unerring instincts. His passionate attention unlocked every closed, fearful place inside me and sparked an endless string of delicious explosions. We were fused, a single moving, surging glow. I could not stop the tears in my eyes from slipping out and rolling down, tickling my face, but he just kept tirelessly kissing them away.
It took me a long and delicious interval to convince him to let himself come. To persuade him that he would not hurt me or scare me if he did. He finally picked up the pace, and I clawed him into action, inciting, demanding. Sinking my nails into his ass, pulling him deeper.
He finally gathered me up tightly against him and gave it to me harder than I would ever have dreamed I would want it, but I did. I was transformed. There were no walls or locked doors inside my mind to slam up against. He’d gotten past them all. I was all softness, eagerness, pleasure. It was so good. I loved it all, his fierceness, his strength, his vigor, his size, jarring me, ramming into me as the energy gathered, and then, his hoarse shout. That hot blaze of explosive energy, pumping out of him—I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved it. I loved ... him.
The terrifying thought reverberated through me as our mutual climax wiped us out. When I opened my eyes, we were side by side, limp and damp and spent. Arms and legs entwined. Still panting.
He gazed into my face, touched my cheek with the tip of his finger. “I can’t believe how soft your skin is,” he said.
I grabbed his hand, and kissed it impulsively, my terrifying realization shining inside me. Part pleasure, part a keen, stabbing pain. It wanted so badly to be shared. But I couldn’t. It was premature, stupid, ill-considered. It would ruin everything.
I snuggled up to him, hiding my face against his chest, and we stayed that way until the afternoon sun began to lengthen and turn a warm gold.
Finally, he brushed my hair off my face. “Want to go and plant that Eranthis hyemalis with me?” he asked.
I was taken aback. “Right now?”
“I don’t know how much of a chance they have to root now, but we could give it a shot,” he said. “What the hell, right? I’d hate to see them just wither away without even giving it a try. Doesn’t seem right.”
I thought about that for a moment. What an ironic choice of words. And he had no clue. I could tell from his face. He was just talking about flowers. His mind was hardwired that way. Straightforward and literal. Calling a flower a flower.
I didn’t know how much of a chance the two of us had to root. Not much, maybe. But I was going to give it a shot, by God.
I sat up. “Yes,” I said, reaching for my clothes. “Let’s go plant those little guys right this very minute. They deserve their shot.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jack
I patted the earth down after setting out the last seedling and rose to my feet. “There you go,” I said. “Now we just watch, and hope.”
Vivi’s smile made me feel so strange and good. Charged with energy.
“Would you show me your other flowers?” she asked, hesitantly. “Margaret told me they were beautiful.”
“Sure.” I brushed earth off my hands, looked at them in a moment of doubt. I wanted to hold her hand, but it didn’t seem right, with all that dirt.
She resolved my dilemma by grabbing my hand herself.
We set out toward the river, through a clearing on the hillside that glowed with wildflowers lit from the side by the setting sun. They seemed to dance and flicker like flames. She hardly seemed real, wafting next to me in that floating skirt. Something from a dream. So pretty, she hurt my eyes, with that fiery hair streaming, cheeks so pink, lips so red. Eyes that bright, glowing gray. Already, I felt the hot tingle of a brand-new erection coming on.
