Page 82 of Depths of Desire
I grabbed the front of his shirt, some soft cotton thing that smelled like him, and spun us around with more force than necessary. His back hit the door hard enough that the wood rattled against the frame, the sound sharp and satisfying in the quiet cabin. Oliver’s eyes went wide with surprise, pupils blown with want, and I watched the exact moment the shock transformed into hunger.
“You missed me?” I kept my voice low, dangerous, letting all the hurt and anger I’d been carrying leak into the words. “You missed me while you were choosing your precious medal over us? While you were deciding I wasn’t worth fighting for?”
He opened his mouth to answer, probably to apologize again, but I was done with words. I silenced him with another kiss,this one rougher, claiming, my teeth catching his bottom lip hard enough to make him gasp. Weeks of hurt and anger and desperate longing fueled the fire burning through my veins, turning me molten and reckless. I wanted to mark him, to make him remember what he’d thrown away, to brand myself into his skin so deeply he’d never forget again.
But Oliver wasn’t passive. Never had been, not in the pool, not in bed, not anywhere that mattered. His hands closed in my hair, fingers tangling in the curls at the base of my neck and tugging until I gasped, my scalp tingling with the sharp mix of pleasure and pain. Suddenly, he was kissing me back with equal intensity, his mouth fierce and demanding against mine. We fought for control, tongues and teeth and breathless sounds that echoed off the cabin walls, raw and desperate and beautiful.
His body was solid against mine, all lean muscle and barely contained power. I could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, could taste the desperation on his tongue as he kissed me like he was trying to crawl inside my skin. My hands found the hem of his shirt and slipped underneath, fingers splaying across the familiar warmth of his back, tracing the ridge of his spine.
“I chose wrong,” he panted when we broke apart, both of us breathing hard. His forehead pressed against mine, eyes dark and wild. “Let me show you how wrong I was. Let me make it up to you.”
The raw need in his voice sent heat spiraling through me, pooling low in my belly and spreading outward until every nerve ending felt electric. This wasn’t going to be soft or gentle or romantic like our first time in this very cabin. This was going to be desperate and rough and everything we’d been denying ourselves for a week of hell, all that pent-up frustration and longing finally finding an outlet.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bed, my legs unsteady with want and adrenaline. The same place wherewe’d first fallen apart and put ourselves back together, where we’d discovered what it meant to need someone so completely it felt like drowning. The bed looked exactly the same, rumpled white sheets, but we were different now. Scarred by separation, desperate with reunion, electric with the knowledge that we’d almost lost this forever and somehow found our way back.
Oliver’s shirt hit the floor first, pulled over his head in one fluid motion that made his hair stick up in impossible directions. Mine followed a heartbeat later, and then his hands were on my skin, palms sliding over my chest with something that felt like reverence mixed with hunger. We moved with frantic urgency, hands mapping familiar territory that felt both familiar and new. Every touch was amplified, every sensation heightened by the knowledge of how close we’d come to never having this again.
When he pressed me onto the mattress, his weight settling over me, I felt something click into place in my chest. The missing piece I’d been carrying around for a week, the hollow ache that nothing else could fill. His skin was warm against mine, flushed with exertion and want, and I could feel the tremor in his muscles as he held himself above me.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered against my throat, his lips brushing the sensitive skin just below my ear. His voice was breaking, cracking around the edges with emotion.
“You did lose me,” I said, threading my fingers through his hair and pulling until he looked at me. His eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown with desire and something deeper. “But you found me again.”
The words hung between us for a moment, heavy and meaningful, before he was kissing me again. This time, it was slower, deeper, like he was trying to memorize the taste of me. His hands roamed my body with the focused intensity he brought to everything that mattered to him, mapping everyinch of skin like he was afraid I might disappear if he stopped touching me.
What followed was a claiming, mutual and fierce and threaded through with love even as we took out our frustrations on each other’s bodies. There was nothing gentle about it, nothing careful or hesitant. This was raw need colliding with desperate hunger, months of separation combusting into something that felt barely contained within the boundaries of skin and bone.
Oliver moved above me with the same focused intensity he brought to swimming, every movement deliberate and powerful, his body a weapon of precision turned toward pleasure. But I wasn’t content to be passive, wasn’t willing to just receive whatever he chose to give. I met him stroke for stroke, my hips rising to meet his with equal force, my hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave my own marks. We were perfectly matched in this dance of dominance and submission, had always been, push and pull and give and take until neither of us knew where one ended and the other began.
His breath came in harsh pants against my throat, hot and desperate, and I could feel the shudders in his muscles as he fought for control. But control was overrated, I wanted him wild, wanted him as desperate and needy as I felt. I dragged my nails down his back, just hard enough to make him arch into the touch with a sound that was half gasp, half growl.
“Fuck,” he breathed against my ear, and the word sent electricity racing down my spine. He was unraveling, coming apart in my hands, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
We were rough with each other in the way that only comes from absolute trust, from knowing that the other person could handle everything you had to give and would ask for more. Oliver’s hands found my hips and gripped them like anchors,his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, to mark, to claim. The pressure was just shy of pain, dancing on that knife’s edge between pleasure and hurt that made every one of my nerve endings sing. I reveled in it, in the knowledge that I’d wear his fingerprints on my skin for days, that every time I moved, I’d remember this moment.
My own hands weren’t idle. I mapped the planes of his back with desperate fingers, traced the line of his spine, felt the ripples of muscle beneath skin as he moved. When I couldn’t take the distance anymore, I pulled him down until our chests were pressed together, until I could feel his heartbeat hammering against my ribs. The contact sent shock waves through both of us, and Oliver’s rhythm faltered for just a moment before he found it again, deeper now, more intense.
My teeth found his shoulder, biting down just hard enough to make him arch with a broken moan. The sound was pure music, and it vibrated through his chest into mine. He tasted like salt and desperation and coming home, and I wanted to devour him, to consume him so completely that he’d never be able to leave me again.
“God, yes,” he panted, and his voice was wrecked, completely destroyed. “Mark me. Make me yours.”
The words shattered something inside me, some last thread of restraint I’d been holding on to. I bit down harder, sucked a bruise into the curve where his neck met his shoulder, and felt him shudder against me. His grip on my hips tightened impossibly, and suddenly, we were moving together with an urgency that bordered on violence, both of us chasing something we couldn’t name but desperately needed.
The bed frame creaked beneath us, protesting the force of our movements, but neither of us cared. The only thing that mattered was this, the slide of skin against skin, the harshsymphony of our breathing, the way Oliver’s eyes rolled back when I found that perfect angle that made him lose all control.
I could feel sweat beading between us, our bodies sliding together in ways that should have been awkward but felt like coming alive. Every sensation was amplified, every touch electric, every sound he made sending jolts of pleasure straight through me. When his hand found its way between us, I nearly came undone completely.
“Not yet,” I gasped, grabbing his wrist. “Together. I want…”
“I know,” he breathed and kissed me with bruising force. “I know what you want.”
The outside lights streaming through the windows turned everything orange, painted our skin in warm tones as we moved together like we were trying to fuse into one person. Every shadow and highlight played across the planes of his body, turning him into something almost otherworldly, all sharp angles and fluid grace, power and vulnerability wrapped in sun-kissed skin.
The cabin filled with our voices, gasps and moans and whispered declarations, like promises, like everything we should have said months ago but were finally brave enough to voice. Oliver’s name fell from my lips like a mantra. “Ollie.” Just like he liked it, broken and desperate and reverent all at once. He answered with my own, voice cracking on the syllables as if saying it was almost too much to bear.
“Lennox,” he breathed against my mouth, and then again, “Lennox, fuck, I…”
“I know,” I whispered back, because I did. I could feel it in every tremor that ran through his body, could see it in the way his eyes went wide and dark and desperate. “I’m right there with you.”
