increases his force. I babble a thank you.
“You’re welcome,” he tells me and angles me higher. I have no idea how he’s not tired. I will write a thank-you card to his personal trainer. If my hand can ever grip a pen again. I bite my lip. I can’t let this end. I tell him so.
“Forever, do this forever,” I beg. I’m near tears. “Don’t stop.”
“Stubborn aren’t you, Shortcake.”
“I can’t let this end. Please, Josh. Please, please, please . . .”
He presses his cheek against my calf in such a sweetly affectionate gesture.
“It won’t end,” he tells me.
I can see he’s starting to lose himself a little. His eyes are lit in a bright haze, and I see him raise them to the ceiling, praying for something. His gorgeous skin is glowing gold in the lamplight.
It’s a smooth, deep rolling thrust like any of the others, but I break.
It’s not a sweet, tame thing sweeping over me. My teeth snap together, I grip on to him and wring myself out. The anguished sound I make probably wakes every single person in the hotel, but I can’t hold it in.
It’s violent. I nearly kick him in the jaw but he grabs my foot and holds on to me. The pleasure boils over, my body twists, squeezes, shakes me out, and I’m out-of-my-mind crazy for Joshua Templeman. He’s right. This will not be enough. I need days of this. Weeks. Years. Millions of years.
I’m falling, completely falling, and I look up as he falls too.
He leans down against my leg and I feel him shaking in release. He looks down at me, eyes suddenly shy, and I raise my hand to stroke his cheek.
He lowers me down carefully. I can’t imagine how I’ll let him go. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and press my mouth to his eyebrow and my chest has a cleaned-out feeling like I’ve run a few miles. He must feel like he’s done a triathlon.
He looks up at me. “How You Doing?” he whispers softly.
“I’m a ghost. I’m dead.”
“I didn’t know I was lethal,” he says and begins to pull away from me, achingly slowly. I beg and plead and say , No, no, no. I’m an addict, completely hooked, already wanting my next fix while the current one is still running brightly through my veins. My body tries to hold on to him but he kisses my forehead and apologizes.
“I’m sorry, I gotta,” he says and walks away into the bathroom. I watch his backside and drop back into the pillows.
Best sex of my entire life. Best backside I have ever seen.
“Is that a fact?” he says from the other room. Seems I said it aloud.
I lay my forearm over my eyes and try to regulate my breathing. I feel the mattress dip and he pulls the blankets up over my chilling skin, and turns off the lamp.
“Now you’re going to be unbearable. But goddamn, Josh. Goddamn.” I’m slurring.
“Goddamn, yourself,” he says, and I’m tugged into the cradle of his arms. I press my cheek against him, delighting in his sweat.
“Let’s work out a game plan for when we wake up. I can’t handle it if you go weird on me.”
“We’ll say good morning politely, then we’ll do it again.” I sound like I’ve had a stroke. I fall asleep with my ear pressed to his chest, listening to him laugh.
I SOMEHOW SURVIVE until morning. I’m washing my hands when I glance up at the mirror.
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
I open the door a crack. The room is dimly lit by strobes of light through the heavy curtains.
“I forgot to take off my makeup. I look like Alice Cooper again.”
My eye makeup is smudged black and it makes my eyes look milky-blue and lurid.
“Again? You’ve looked like Alice Cooper before?”
“Yeah, the morning after I was sick, I nearly screamed when I saw myself.” I brush my teeth and get my hair into a bun.
“I like you when you look a little wrecked.”
“Well, you’d like me right now then.”
I’m in the shower and trying in vain to get the tiny packet of soap open when I hear the door creak and he’s joining me, calmly, like we do this every day. Lust electrifies me; the strangest mix of joy and fear.
“It’s a Shortcake-sized soap,” he comments, taking it from me and biting the package. He pinches the little coin of soap out and holds it