She pressed her cheek into the mattress, eyes squeezing tighter.
Dan stopped moving, pressing their hips flush with a deep push. Harper continued to twist beneath him, her body fighting for more while her mind tried to escape the overwhelming pleasure. He felt her pulse tightly around him, and it took all his control to not jerk forward again to match its rhythm.
“Look at me.” His voice came out with jagged force. His hands gripped at her face and her eyes flew open, a wildness charging their depths.
Lust. Hunger. Fear.
Fear that the overwhelming feelings would last forever. Fear they would end too soon. He saw it all in her and felt the same.
He didn’t understand how his heart could feel like it was simultaneously being ripped open and stitched together. He wanted to cherish her and wreck her. He wanted to give her everything and ask for nothing while another part of him wanted to demand she give her mind and body to him alone.
Her body continued to shake, the tremors nearing on frantic, and she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face at the base of his throat, lifting her torso so there wasn’t an inch of their skin that wasn’t touching. She clung to him with blinding force, making unintelligible whispers of distress while grinding her body against his in a way that was going to make him lose it.
“How is it possible to feel this much?” she whispered into his skin.
“I don’t know,” Dan answered honestly, moving against her. “But I feel it too.”
She pulled back and her eyes sparked with vulnerability. She had never been so bare, and it took his breath away. Her nails raked down his back, digging into his skin as if she were anchoring her whole world on the connection of their bodies.
“Don’t leave me. Please. Just … try not to leave me.” Her lip quivered but fortified honesty filled her gaze.
His heart splintered into sharp fragments of tenderness. If she wanted him, he’d make sure she’d never be without him. Every doubt, triumph, misstep, and failure had been designed to bring him to this moment, where he could do nothing more than give Harper exactly what she asked.
“Never.” His mouth crashed against hers with force, saying what words couldn’t. He belonged to her in any way she wanted him.
As he felt her pulse around him, every part of her gripping him closer, he followed her over the edge, his body fracturing in the waves of pleasure.
As the sensation ebbed away, Dan hovered over Harper’s body, her panting breath against his chest, and their eyes locked with a heavy intimacy.
She reached up a shaky hand and brushed his hair off his forehead, then rested it against his cheek. He turned and planted a kiss into her palm, watching the smile bloom on her mouth.
CHAPTER 26
HARPER
Harper stirred from a light sleep to the feeling of Dan’s fingers tracing along her skin. She squinted one eye at the clock on her nightstand and realized she’d only been dozing for a few hours. The night had passed in short periods of sleep followed by bursts of kisses, touches, and sighs as they explored each other’s bodies.
Harper turned her head and her gaze traveled up Dan’s body. She ate up every piece—the long legs stretched under her comforter, his delicious bare chest propped against her headboard, the soft smile warming her from the inside out.
“Hi,” she murmured, closing her eyes again to the soft tickling of his fingers.
“Hi.” He slid down to lie next to her, faces level. “This is unexpected,” he said, tracing a fingertip over her ribs. “I like it.”
Harper stiffened. Her mind was so far removed from her sense of self—instead somersaulting about the future and what-ifs—that she often forgot about her tiny tattoo.
“It’s kind of silly.” Harper moved her arm from under her pillow to her side, covering it. Dan clucked his tongue and lifted her arm away.
“You seem to say that about the most interesting pieces of you.” His dimple made a morning appearance and caused her pulse to beat so forcefully that her tattoo was probably dancing against her skin.
“So what’s the story?” he asked, his finger returning to its tracing. “Why the canine?”
Harper arched an eyebrow at him. “Dental anatomy’s going well, huh?”
Dan laughed but his eyes urged her on. She took a deep breath.
“It’s a copy of the first anatomical drawing of a maxillary canine. I got it when I was accepted to dental school.” She chewed on her lip, remembering the day. “I never planned on getting one. But when I got the call from Callowhill and it felt so huge and special and surreal, I needed to do something just as monumental to remember it.”