Page 51 of Only Mine
He groans, his mouth finding mine again, swallowing my cries as he moves his fingers, a relentless rhythm that mirrors the storm’s fury.
The world narrows to this: to his touch, his taste, to the fire at my back and the inferno he’s building inside me.
My nails dig into his shoulders, not for balance, but to ground myself to the only solid thing in a universe that had tilted on its axis. He kisses me, deepening it and tangling his tongue with mine, the taste of him a drug I’m going to crave more of with each passing second.
“More?” he asks against my lips, his own breath coming in harsh pants that match mine.
I can only nod, a helpless gesture. His thumb finds that spot again, the epicenter of the earthquake, and presses.
Hard.
Arching off the mantelpiece, my body tenses, tighter and tighter. The pleasure is a sharp, sweet agony of unbearable velocity. The room spins, firelight blurring into streaks of orange and gold.
I’m unraveling, coming apart at his touch, and the only sound in the world is his name, torn from my throat as the first wave hits, a convulsive shudder that rocks me from head to toe.
Saint holds me through it, his mouth fused to mine, his fingers buried inside me until the aftershocks subside, leaving me boneless and heaving against him.
He lowers me slowly, his hands sliding from my hips, his gaze locked on mine. Firelight flickers across his face but isn’t able to chase away the harsh lines of his jaw or the shadows beneath his eyes.
For one dumb millisecond, I think he’s going to kiss me again and pull me back into that vortex of heat and sensation.
Instead, he retreats, taking one step back, then another, the growing space between us suddenly feeling vast and cold despite the roaring fire.
Saint’s hands clench at his sides. “Fuck.” He shakes his head. “This isn’t—we can’t. I can’t do this.”
His abruptness is like a physical blow. My body, still humming and pliant from his touch, registers the rejection before my mind does.
Saint notices. He turns away, running a hand through his hair, his back rigid. “This was a mistake.”
Each word is a perfectly aimed arrow. I wrap my arms around myself, the damp shirt inefficient armor. The heat in my cheeks turns to a burning shame.
“A mistake,” I echo.
Saint doesn’t look at me. “I shouldn’t have. I’m not…”
He trails off.
He’s not what? Not available? Not interested? Not capable of separating sex from the ghosts that clearly haunt him?
The storm outside seems to quiet as if holding its breath, leaving only the crackle of the fire and the thick silence of his regret.
And my dream, my beautiful, perfect dream, shatters into a million pieces.
“Right,” I say, my voice a fragile thread.
My skin still burns where he touched me, where his mouth had been. It now feels like a brand of humiliation.
Lowering, I pick up my discarded cardigan, a uselessgesture. The cold seeping into the room isn’t just from the storm. But before I can pull the sodden cardigan around myself, Saint’s sharp question freezes me.
“What happened?”
My blood runs cold. I yank the cardigan around me, desperate to cover the puckered, angry skin he’d glimpsed on my shoulder because of my wide collar.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Your shoulder.”
He advances, his eyes turning to flint as he targets my left shoulder. “Those marks. Don’t tell me it’s from falling into the fucking bushes.”
