Page 104 of Hard to Love
She closed her eyes. She didn’t need them to see what her mind already knew as well as she her own body. With her fingertips, she circled Alex’s ankle and traced his shinbone. “This tree is the symbol of life and connectedness.”
“Dammit, I don’t need a commentary on my body,” he rasped. “I need you.”
“Then be patient.”
“Fuck.”
She palmed his calf, the muscle there bunching under her touch. The fine hairs of his legs tickled her as she smoothed a path up his leg to where a tattoo of a spiked chain wrapped his thigh. Maybe she would ask him more about that one day. But not now.
The weight of Alex’s glute was a heavy warmth in her hand. She could spend a decade touching his ass and never get bored. Just to torture them both, she skimmed her nails just inside the cleft between his butt cheeks. Alex hissed, and his hips pumped forward so his cock skimmed hot and hard against her cheek. Instead of taking it in her mouth as she wanted to do, she licked his hipbone and ran her hand over his lower back. “The owl is considered a symbol of protection and transition.”
She couldn’t resist pressing a breathy, openmouthed kiss to Alex’s ab muscles, and they jumped under her touch.
“And it can also mean death.” Alex wrapped a hand in her hair. “Enough.”
She ignored him and ran her hands over his chest, flicking his nipple ring with her thumb, to cup his shoulder, inked with the intricate armor. “And I’m sure you know this is for self-protection.” As she was rising to her full height, she ran her tongue over his ribs and took a second to suck his nipple into her mouth, hard under the metal of the hoop piercing it. She’d been soft and wet since she’d woken to his arm around her body. But now, she rubbed her legs together trying to take the edge off only to feel her own arousal slick on her thighs.
With the flat of her palm, Greer rubbed a path over Alex’s collarbone and shoulder, to his upper back. She traced the picture of a wolf howling at a sliver moon by memory. “Some people think wolves only represent self-reliance, but they’re actually potent symbols of survival and loyalty. And they mate for life.”
“You see the world through rose-colored glasses, Greer. You see the me you want me to be.”
“No, I see the real you. A man with a painful past. A man with scars and regrets.” She cupped his cheeks. “And a man who has the opportunity to make all that pain and passion into something beautiful.”
Alex groaned and buried his face in her hair. “You make me want to.”
“You’re the only thing standing in your way.”
Gripping her waist, he reversed their positions to sit on the edge of the bed and pull her toward him. He leaned toward the nightstand, and Greer heard the rip of a condom wrapper. While he dealt with protection, she straddled his lap, spreading her legs wide to accommodate his hips and to offer him what she’d gladly give him for the rest of their lives, if he’d just accept it.
After he rolled on the condom, Greer positioned his erection at her entrance. “I want you to remember how good we are together. Not just in bed, but in every way,” she said softly. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, she opened her knees wider, leaned back a little to get the right angle, and lowered onto him, inch by inch.
“God, Greer,” he groaned. “That feels so fucking good.”
Goodwasn’t the word for it.Greatwouldn’t even do. This was about more than flesh on flesh, even as intimate as joining like this was. Taking him into her body wasabout the power of two people when they believed in the same thing and made it happen together.
That was the only way she and Alex had a chance in hell of going the distance.
She lifted away and slid onto him again, keeping the rhythm slow, almost sleepy. “Has it ever been like this with anyone else?” she said near his ear.
“Not even close.”
“The way we are together is more than attraction.” Lift and slide. Greer’s world threatened to coalesce into the space between her legs. But she couldn’t afford to lose focus yet. “More than chemistry.”
He gripped her hips but didn’t try to change the speed or slide of their bodies joining. God, the slow build was the most heart-gripping thing Greer had ever experienced. It felt as though Alex was doing more than sliding into her body. He was seeping into her soul.
And with that emotional pull, her orgasm built, sensation on sensation.
“You think I don’t know that?” The words came from between Alex’s tight lips. His head was thrown back, the tendons in his neck tight.
Greer brushed her torso against his, reveling in the feel of his burning skin against her nipples and belly. Absorbing the strength of his erection inside her body. “Then why are you fighting what we have so hard?”
Alex leaned back, bracing himself on one hand. His position change allowed him the leverage to pump his hips, completely scrambling her brain and breaking her smooth rhythm. Where they were joined, he veed his fingers, catching her clitoris in a mind-emptying friction.
Oh, God. She wouldn’t last. And being with him like this was about so much more than an orgasm. “Alex,please. I can’t…I’m going to—”
“I’m fighting so fucking hard,” he panted. “Because I’m so in love with you.”
That was all it took. Alex’s declaration sent Greer over the edge, into a grasping, clenching, shaking orgasm. Any semblance of control she had was gone. She’d given him everything she had.
