The Summer I Saved You (The Summer #2)(45)

His tongue flicks again, a sharp, sudden movement that has me jolting in surprise. He moans against my skin, sucking hard and then pulling back. “Jesus, I think I could come from this alone. Make that noise again.”

His tongue resumes and it’s…good. It’s really good. It’s not I’m-just-putting-up-with-this-until-you-move-on good. It’s I-know-it’s-selfish-but-do-that-for-one-more-minute good.

He slides two fingers inside me, hitting something I didn’t know was there, but if it was possible, I’d like to keep his fingers where they are forever—and then he pulls out and does it again. All while his tongue flickers and he makes those noises, as if it’s my tongue on him, and if he were a robot or a device—something incapable of boredom—I’d let him keep going. “Are you ready?” I plead. “I want you inside me.”

That’s all it takes for him to move, lightning quick, above me. “Do I need—” he begins.

“No,” I say, breathless in my haste. “I’ve been tested. Pill.”

“Thank God, since I don’t have anything.” He guides himself to my entrance and, with tortuous care, slowly pushes in, no more than an inch. “Jesus, Lucie,” he gasps, “you’re so fucking tight.”

He stops. Swallows. Begins again.

My knees drop open, wanting more even when I know he’s going slowly on my behalf, even when the pleasure is accompanied by an edge of discomfort. “More,” I plead.

“Oh, God,” he says, his jaw clenched. “Don’t beg. It’ll be over before it’s started.”

But he gives in at last with a single hard thrust, groaning quietly as he finally bottoms out.

I’m so full, stretched to the point of pain, and I can already tell that I’m going to come again and that when it happens, it’ll be beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I wasn’t broken, some stunned voice in my head whispers. I was never broken. It was just never like this.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks. He’s sweating, though the room is cool. He looks like he’s the one in pain. “I...it was as slow as I could go.”

“No,” I whisper, my head falling back, my whole body straining to spread, to take more. “It was a good gasp.”

“Oh, God.” His hand runs over me, beginning at my neck, running past my breast. “Look at you like this. It’s so perfect.”

He drags out slowly and pushes back in. His palm grasps my breast, and he leans over to take my nipple between his teeth. “It’s so good with you,” he murmurs. “I fucking knew it would be.”

My muscles begin to clench and clamp down on him against my will. His fingers press into my skin, his tendons strain. A drop of sweat lands on my breast and he licks it off.

“More,” I whisper, and he groans.

“It’s been too long, Lucie. I’m gonna come if I go any faster.” He pulls almost all the way out, then thrusts back in, hard and fast, only twice.

“Do it anyway.” My voice is pleading—not my own. My heels dig into his ass, forcing him to move.

He curses as he gives in, rutting into me. I clench around him, overtaken again by that blinding liquid heat and I cling to him through one wave after another as if I’m drowning.

When my eyes finally open, he’s looking at me through heavy lids, as if drugged. “Lucie,” he says, and his lids fall shut again. He’s still hard, still inside me. He pulses softly in and out. “I don’t ever want to stop doing this.”

I hold out my arms. “Come here,” I command, and he does, letting his weight rest atop mine briefly before he falls to my side and pulls me to his chest.

I breathe in, wishing there was some way to preserve this moment—his smell, his arm wrapped around me.

I love you. I have always loved you.

I silence the thought before it can escape. Nothing could ruin this faster than saying that to a guy you aren’t even dating—a guy who has no clue that you’ve adored him since you were small. A guy who’s moving away.

“Conferences are a lot more fun than I expected,” I tell him instead.

“I’ve got to say this isn’t what I pictured.” He laughs. “Okay, that’s not true. I pictured this outcome repeatedly. I just didn’t think it would actually occur.”

“The fact that you got a hotel room leads me to wonder if you were at least a little optimistic it would occur.”

He turns me, pulling my back to his chest. “I’m leaving for Tokyo in the morning. There was no reason to drive back to Elliott Springs.”

I grow still. He’s gone as often as he’s home, and it’s one of the reasons he will never want the things I do: because he’s decided his career and a family are incompatible.

“I’m sorry,” he says, moving my hair away from my neck so he can press his mouth to my skin. “I wish—”

He lets the thought trail off, but he didn’t need to complete it. He wishes it was different. He wishes we wanted the same things.

“It’s okay,” I reply. “You don’t need to apologize. It answered some questions.”

“Questions?” His lips graze the shoulder I raise.

“I wanted to know what it would be like to sleep with someone other than Jeremy. He used to imply that there was something wrong with me. Because I didn’t finish.” I laugh. “It’s pretty clear that the problem wasn’t me.”