tugged until my lips could land at her ear. Our eyes, in the mirror, met, burned with fever, burned with the understanding that it was all different now. Like she had predicted—there was no going back.
I fucked her from behind, against the dresser, kept my mouth at her ear and our eyes locked.
“The next time you want to be ravaged, Sloane, you say the word,” I growled. “If you want to be fucked until you can’t stand, I’m more than happy to oblige. Because whatever spell you’ve cast over me, I’m still yours, and I’m still here, and making you come just became my new fucking hobby.”
I buried my face in the nape of her neck, kissed her there, the crook of her shoulder, the space between her shoulder blades, worshiped all the vulnerability she hid back here. Sloane, for her part, met me thrust for thrust with a look of total bliss on her face. My lips stayed on her neck, my groans of pleasure growing more ragged, out of my control. With a sharp bite on her throat, I pushed her down, increased the speed of my motions, noted I’d probably have to pay the hotel for damage to the wall. All I could see was her ass, shaking with my thrusts. The magnificent curve of her spine and the feel of her hair in my fingers. Her face, a mask of pure ecstasy, her irresistible smile, the way “please, Abe, please, Abe” had become a mantra, spilling from her mouth.
Please, Abe. She didn’t need to say please, she didn’t need to say thank you, she didn’t even need to ask. I’d give her this freely, with nothing expected in return.
Her cunt gripped, gripped, fluttered, clenched. I swiped a palm along her spine, used my other hand to massage her clit. She needed only one rough flick before her orgasm sprang free and she cried out. I dropped my face to hers, let my own orgasm free, let myself experience the full-body high of sex with Sloane, coming with Sloane, fucking Sloane against a goddamn hotel room dresser.
I buried my face in the side of her neck, catching my breath over a long few minutes. When Sloane Argento kissed my cheek with a satisfied smile, I recognized this as the natural conclusion to our electrifying connection—even if it was mere days ago.
Maybe this woman’s entrance into my life wasn’t coincidence at all, but something much, much more romantic. And that felt like the most dangerous risk of all.
34
Sloane
Abe wrapped me in a warm blanket as I sat back against the headboard and watched him make us our first coffee of the day. The sun was brightening, it was now closer to 9:00 a.m., and we didn’t have much time to avoid the reality of our rapidly ticking clock.
Codex would be arriving any second.
He pressed a small mug of coffee into my hands—wearing nothing but sweatpants, feet bare, hair untidy. Messy, adorable, with a hint of morning stubble.
Devastating.
With concern, he touched my bruise. “Did I make it worse?”
“You made it better,” I promised. I pulled my hair to one side and displayed the string of hickeys he’d left there—a surprise discovery I’d spotted in the bathroom mirror.
“Christ, I’m a brute,” he muttered.
“The bruise on my jaw doesn’t hurt one bit. And these bruises hurt in the way that I like.”
His throat worked. He kept his steel-gray eyes on mine as he sipped his own coffee. “You are magnificent, Sloane.”
I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere.
During the course of Abe and I fucking each other senseless on a hotel-room dresser, I’d been delighted to learn his extensive vocabulary included a litany of filthy words. Made filthier by that growly sex-voice of his. Pleasure roughened the edges of his refined presence, made him dominant and greedy, skilled and possessive.
The man had delivered on his promise to fuck me into sweet forgetting. Like his intelligence, his integrity, his competence—he also wielded his cock with an elegant skill.
Although, elegant or not, he’d also shoved me down, face first, and fucked me from behind with a righteous fury. His skill had given me two earth-shattering, life-changing orgasms. And one perfect, golden memory: I’m still here.
Throughout my life, I’d learned change was the only constant; I’d either accept that fact or burn. Which was why I rarely complained about my upbringing—complaining meant I was out of control instead of embracing the change, no matter how scary it was. At seventeen, my reality had been