I grit my teeth fighting the urge to come as I feel her squeeze me tight - so fucking tight. I drag my eyes up from where we join, to her slick, pink pussy, up her belly to her heaving chest, then higher, to her face.
Our eyes meet, and when I see the same hunger in hers that I know are in mine, I fucking growl as I throb deep inside of her ass.
"Go slow," she whimpers, her breath coming haggard and her mouth slack. Her fingers are tight on her own legs as I pull back, slowly inching out of her and feeling my fucking toes curl. I rock back inside, going slowly, but barely able to hang onto that promise as my eyes practically roll back in my head.
My hips roll as I start to fuck her slowly, her body trembling and her panted moans like honey in my ear on every stroke. I reach for one of her hands and pull it down between her legs. I move both of our fingers over her slippery clit, rolling them over her little nub and groaning as she cries out in ecstasy.
I move my hands to her thighs, pushing her legs back and wide as she plays with her pussy, her eyes locked onto mine. Her other hand finds her nipples, teasing and twisting them as her moans get louder and louder.
I start to lose control. I start to move faster. I start to drive every goddamn inch of my cock deep in her impossibly tight ass on every stroke, until we're both panting like fucking animals.
Her eyes never leave mine, and mine never leaves hers, and in some way, that alone makes this hotter than anything I've ever felt before.
Intimacy.
I've forgotten that word. That was something I played with - something like matches, or smoking, or swearing - when I was younger, back with Sheila. I dipped my toes in that water a long time ago, and when it all turned out to be poison, I never went back. I shut that out of my life and concentrated on what I was good at: structure, coldness, and being in control.
Sierra Hammond shatters all of that.
She destroys it, and somehow, that thought hits me while I'm balls deep in her ass, having the hottest, dirtiest, goddamn best sex of my life. She shatters all of that and sends my plans and my organization and my rules scattering to the winds, and I know that should scare the shit out of me, but it doesn't at all.
"Harder," she moans, panting, her forehead dotted with perspiration, her face flushed red.
And who am I to deny a lady?
I growl, every muscle in my body clenching tight as I start to drive in harder and deeper, our bodies coming together again and again as the inevitable begins to claw at my mind.
Her hand starts to move faster and faster over her clit, her breath starts to come staggered and heavy, and slowly, she loses control of that unbroken eye contact.
"Ohmygod, I think I'm- oh fuck, oh FUCK!"
"Come for me, princess," I growl, feeling my own control start to crack and shatter around me.
"Make that pussy come for me while I fuck your ass like it's mine."
She screams.
She straight up screams her orgasm, her entire body arching off the bed like she's been hit with high voltage, and her eyes rolling back in her head. I have never seen a woman come like this, and feeling her absolutely shatter around me is the last thing I can take.
And I fucking lose it.
I roar as I grab her hips, bury myself inside of her and just let go, holding her tight as I go crashing over that cliff along with her.
I keep my eyes open. I fight the urge to squeeze them shut with every fiber in my body, because seeing her face when she comes, and being right here in this moment with her is like discovering the part of me I buried years ago.
It's self realization.
It's like finding religion.
It's sweet, beautiful redemption.
Damned if this girl might just save me from myself, and damn do I want more.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sierra
For two days, I lose track of everything. For two entire days, we lose ourselves in each other completely. Day bleeds into night, and night blurs back into day. I'm aware of guzzling water and whiskey when we're thirsty, and giggling as Connor answers the door naked and completely casually for the pizza we order and then hungrily inhale naked in bed.
There's a shower or two in there, and some sleep, but the rest is just him and I learning each other's bodies like they're our own. It's an insatiableness that he brings out in me - a craving, a need, an addiction that I can't seem to and have no intention of quitting. It's a vacation from life - an escape from everything that's been pulling me under.
It's sweet agonizing ecstasy like I've never known, and it's an escape I never want to escape from.
I'm deliciously sore when I wake up at some point on that second night. We're not really on any sort of set sleep schedule, but I can only imagine it's late. I raise my head from his sleeping chest, blinking in the darkness and swallowing the cotton in my mouth as I slip from the bed. I take a blanket from the foot of the bed with me as I pad downstairs and grab a glass of water from the kitchen sink.
I swallow eagerly, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and glancing out the kitchen window at the beach dunes. The window's open a crack and I can hear the surf crashing against the shore down past the sands. My feet take me out to the front porch quietly, leaving the door open and sinking into the wicker loveseat. The waves are louder out here, and suddenly, it's like I'm back home in Shelter Harbor, listening to the rumblings of the Atlantic Ocean.
Well, home, but different, and the difference is him.
There's a part of me that knows that there's no scenario where this doesn't have an end date. I mean, I'm not fixing anything by holing up here with him and forgetting the rest of the world exists, I'm only escaping from it.
And eventually, the world always finds out where you're hiding. That I know.
But in this perfect moment of bliss, sitting here with the waves and the sea air, and the moon shining bright, and my heart filled with … well, something, I choose to ignore the things that chased me here. School, Jayson, my family, the goddamn Ukrainian mob - all of it simmers away as I lay back and listen to the waves.
Just enough like home to give me comfort.
Just enough not home to make me feel whole.
"Didn't peg you for a stargazer."
I grin and look up and behind me as he steps out of the kitchen door.
"You didn't?"
He grins. "Nah, that's a lie. You've got science nerd written all over you."
I stick my tongue out at him. "Dick."
"Only if you say please."
I snort a laugh. "Haven't worn you out yet, have I?" I glance down at his bare-chested torso, my eyes flitting down to his jeans and bare feet, the denim slung low on his chiseled hips in a way that makes me suck my lip between my teeth.
"Down girl," Connor chuckles in that deep baritone, sauntering towards me and sinking into the wicker loveseat next to me. We sit there side by side for a minute, just looking out over the moon-white sands and the surf beyond, just waiting in the silence of that moment.
And I guess there are words we could be speaking. There are questions we could be asking each other, and plans we could be planning for what comes next.
Or we could just sit here, just like this.
… Which seems absolutely perfect to me.
Connor puts an arm around me, pulling me against him as we sit there in the dark, and I know then that there aren't any words needed. We don't have to find a way to explain how the drunk girl on the edge of a breakdown and the gangster who kidnapped her after shooting a man somehow found themselves here, like this. We don't have to question the foundation of that or wonder how healthy it is for either of us to have started sleeping together and pretending the world and all of its problems don't exist.
For now, we can just sit here in this perfect moment, and just forget the world around us is even turning.
"I should take a picture of this."
He grins, turning his head to look at me.
"Of the dark beach?"
"No, of-" I trail off with a shrug, suddenly feeling stupid for thinking it.
Of us, sitting here like this, I want to say. But I don't.
Because I'm fully aware of what this is, especially with a man like Connor. This is an escape - a vacation from life itself. But like all vacations, eventually, we'll have to go back to our lives. Eventually, we'll have to go back to our jobs and our homes, and sort through our mail, and water the plants, and change the away message on our voicemails.
Eventually, this has to end, which is why I want to snap a picture of this moment in time so I can remember it later.
"What?"
I shake my head. "Forget it, you're right. It wouldn't come out at all."
"Just gonna give up just like that, huh?"
I roll my eyes as I turn to grin at him. "You have this thing for trying to get under my skin don't you?"
"You do have great skin."
I roll my eyes and turn back to the beach when he clears his throat.
"How about us?"
I glance at him, a brow raised. "Us?"
Connor clears his throat, shrugging neutrally. "Yeah, a picture of you and me being total beach bums."
I swallow, my eyes darting over his face, trying to read him.
"You know, for you to look at later."
My heart flips.
"It can be your zen thing for when you're thinking about burning down another building."
I roll my eyes, the tension suddenly deflating as I turn and punch him in the arm.
"Dick."
"Told you, you're going to have to ask nicer than that."
I grin, biting my lip. "You need a magic word or something?"