the kiss. Somehow managing to keep our lips connected, he shoved my leggings down and off before lifting me. He freed his cock and slammed into me, fucking me against the wall. It was hurried and frantic and desperate.
It was perfect.
“Tell me you need me,” he demanded as he used the wall and his hold on my hips to slowly slide me up and down his length.
I ignored him and demanded, “Faster.”
“Tell me.”
“Harder, please.”
“Tell me, flower.” He froze, his thick cock pinning me to the wall, stretching me and causing an ache only he could soothe. “Tell me you’re just as fucking obsessed with me as I am with you.”
“Yes! Okay? I need you so badly, it terrifies me.” I paused, my breath freezing in my lungs and my heart pounding as I admitted what terrified me even more. “I love you.”
As though my admission was his oxygen, his drug of choice, his sun… As though my love was the only thing he needed, he closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to mine.
A heartbeat passed. Then two.
And then he moved.
Hard.
Fast.
Brutally taking me to give me the kind of pleasure-pain only he could.
Ensuring he was my oxygen. My drug of choice. My sun.
And that I was his flower, needing only him to survive.
I knew we were being loud. It was likely my neighbor or anyone in the hall could hear us. Hell, it was likely people on the top floor could. But I was too far gone to care.
Body tightening, my muscles squeezed my bones until they hurt before I came. Unraveled.
“Love you,” Alexander grunted, his words raw and harsh as he thrust into me. Filling me with him and his come and his love.
“Love you, too,” I panted, clinging to him. Wrapped in his hold, his head tucked into my neck and his come dripping from me, my brain began to function again. I tried to push his shoulders, but he didn’t budge.
His body tensed even as his lips trailed along my sensitive skin. “Hmm?”
“We really need to do something about your penchant for sexual manipulation.”
Lifting his head, he grinned down at me.
And I decided I didn’t mind the manipulation so much after all.
_______________
“TELL ME ABOUT your appointment.”
I’d expected that. I was surprised he’d managed to hold off until after I was cleaned up, changed into my pajamas, and dinner had been ordered.
“Eh, you know how doctors are. It’s always a lot of hurry up and wait.”
He looked down where I was curled up in his lap and raised a brow, letting me know my vague answer wasn’t cutting it.
“They ordered a bunch of labs and tests for next week.”
“You said again earlier.”
Me and my big mouth.
“Did I? Weird.”
Another look that said he wasn’t buying it.
In order to tell Alexander everything, I revisited memories I’d rather suppress to the depths of hell where they belonged. My symptoms—both past and present. My diagnosis. My time in the hospital, praying for that same specter of Death to kill me. As I talked, I clutched him, anchoring myself. Reminding myself that I wasn’t back there.
That I wasn’t alone.
I told him about how my parents were absent through most of it. “My father, who was a damn doctor, was too busy with face lifts and fake boobs to come see his own kid. And my ugly illness disgusted my mother. I was ruining the perfect image she worked so hard to project.” I gave a laugh that was disturbingly warm. “It was poetic justice and karma and comeuppance all rolled into one that she died of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.”
“She did?”
I couldn’t hide my small, evil smile, and thankfully, Alexander didn’t recoil in horror at my macabre glee. “She was an alcoholic and a pill popper—and not a functioning one. Her body rotted away, but she was too doped up to notice until it was too late.”
He gripped my hips. “Is A.L.L. hereditary?”
“I don’t think so. No more than any family history of cancer increases your risk.”
“So it’s unlikely our kids will inherit it.”
My eyes went so wide, I was honestly surprised they didn’t pop out of my head.
I’d never planned on having kids. Not in my wildest dreams. Or maybe my worst nightmares. If having a pet—or, hell, a houseplant—was too much responsibility for me, a human was definitely out of the question.
Being in love with Alexander didn’t change that.
“In the far, far future,” he added, reading my panic.
“That future might require a portal to an alternate timeline,” I told him honestly, in