The world tilts and my back meets the mattress, and suddenly I'm under him with his weight settling over me, forearms braced on either side of my head, holding most of hisbody off mine. Not crushing. Hovering. His cock still buried inside me.
Different. This is different.
My chest tightens. Breath comes shorter.
He stops moving completely and his eyes search my face in the dim light.
"Okay?"
The question hangs between us. He's giving me an out. Again. Always giving me outs, letting me decide, never taking what I don't offer freely.
He's not Adrian. Look at him. His eyes. The way he's holding himself so carefully, like I might break, like I'm worth protecting even from himself.
My hands slide up his back and pull him down to me.
He kisses me, slow, deep, thorough, and starts moving again. Long, deliberate strokes that make my toes curl against the sheets. The angle is different now, hitting places that make my breath catch and hold and stutter.
"Don't stop."
He doesn't. His hips roll into mine with steady, certain rhythm, building me back up impossibly fast toward something I didn't know I could feel again. I thought the first orgasm was an anomaly, a fluke, my body short-circuiting after eight years of neglect.
But this is building too, tighter and deeper than before.
A sound escapes me — too loud, broken.
His hand covers my mouth again.
This time I don't freeze. This time I press my lips against his palm and moan into it, using his hand to muffle the sounds I can't control.
"I won't hurt you. But you're going to wake Chesca."
Chesca. Right. She's down the hall. Focus on that.
A laugh bubbles up, shaky, half-hysterical, but real. The absurdity breaks through the fear.
"Then shut me up."
His eyes darken. His hand returns to my mouth, but everything's different now. This isn't silencing. This is safety. Trust.
Cole's rhythm changes, his hips snapping harder, deeper, and I wrap my legs around his waist to pull him closer, needing more, needing everything.
Seven years of watching. Now he's having. And I'm letting him.
"Angelina—"
My name sounds like a warning. Like he's close and trying to hold back.
"Don't you dare stop."
His hips slam into me and I bite his palm to muffle the sound tearing from my throat.
"Look at me." His voice is strained now, the first cracks in his control finally showing. "I want to see you when you come."
My eyes meet his and hold there as the pressure builds and crests and finally breaks.
The second orgasm rolls through me different than the first — deeper, fuller, like something cracking open that's been locked tight for eight years. My body clenches around him and he follows me over the edge with a groan buried against the curve of my neck, his hips jerking as he spills inside me.
And then I'm crying.