Seth gripped my leg, my hip, angling me better, tension seizing his strong frame.Close. But I was closer. Sweat built on my skin, heat in my blood, my heart beating out of my chest, sweet madness overcoming me.
I pulled him against me, crushing us together while he thrust that steady beat inside me. It was so him—so relentlesslygood, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Of him. Of this. Most people didn’t know the darker, insatiable parts of me. The parts that cried out formore.
More pleasure.
More pain.
More Oxy…
But I was a world away from that right now.Seth fucked me harder, his jaw set in a soft snarl, his low sounds of arousal pushing me higher, until I came with a wild shout.
He was quieter, groaning into the crook of my neck, his whole body shuddering, his heavier weight pinning me down, still buried deep inside me.
Bare.
I shivered.
Seth pried his head up, his sex-dazed eyes sweeping me, missing nothing. It’s why he didn’t move, not straight away. He knew I loved this. That I needed it. He kissed me—the kind of kiss that would’ve led tothisif we weren’t already here. He held me as my cooling blood continued to dizzy me, and only the need to clean up drove us apart.
Seth left the bed.
I hauled myself up to the pillows, joints protesting, but I didn’t mind that this winter had found me in more pain than ever. I hadn’t for a while now—since Rocco—andI hadn’t thought too hard about what that meant.
Seth came back and stretched out beside me, covering us with the sheet we’d kicked aside. I rolled closer, under his waiting arm, resting my head on his chest. It was how we’d woken on Christmas morning, when I’d opened my eyes knowing I was going to ask him to marry me with the next breath I took. He’d been wide awake then, already alert and watching over me, a habit he’d fallen into over the past year as my mental health had declined, one I knew would recede as I recovered, but I still felt guilty for in the moments I wasn’t distracted by other things.
Like the shy smile on his face. “How does that keep getting better?”
The sex. We’d had a lot of it over the past few weeks, making up for lost time, perhaps. And he was right; it was better every time. For me, becauseIwas better. For him? I didn’t know. Maybe something had changed for him too. “I love you.”
Seth smiled, kneading the nape of my neck with gentle fingers. “I loveyou.”
We drowsed for a while. Until I got hungry, another trait I hadn’t realised had been so MIA until it had come back with a vengeance. Seth made lunch—we’d spent all morning in bed. I hassled Ranger, tapping him up for a hike I knew he’d like once I got him there, an ulterior motive he’d sniff out a mile away, no doubt.
And I wasn’t wrong.
Two hours later, he glared at me on the wet and windy beach. “I can see the rain from my house. What was so important you had to drag me out of it?”
“You don’t like walking on the beach anymore?”
“I like my bed.”
“You don’t have a bed and it’s the middle of the day.”
“So? Who made you the time police?”
No one. And Ranger was far from lazy. If he wanted to be in bed, it was likely for the same reasons as me. But I didn’t spend too long thinking about him fucking Viktor. Their love was as beautiful as it was unexpected, but me and Ranger…we had sibling energy when he wasn’t banging my sister and life wasn’t too stressful for us to be ourselves. Thinking about him fucking anyone was enough to put me off sex.
Right.
I could still smell Seth on my skin. Still feel?—
“Fuck’s sake.” Ranger kicked a piece of driftwood and stomped ahead of me.
Grinning, I followed him to the edge of the sea pool and took a seat on a rock while he rolled a cigarette a good few feet away. Waited for him to get over his grump and give me space to admit he was right—I’d brought him here for a reason.
He lit his smoke, dark gaze skating over the pool. It was too cold, and the sea filling it too rough, to bring Ivy right now, even with her wet suit, but a few older kids messed around on the rocks above the far end, as close to other people as Ranger seemed in the mood for, but he made no move to walk on. Just glared at me again with zero malevolence. Because Iknewhim. He’d been worried about me, and I didn’t like that. He’d wasted enough of his life worrying about my wellbeing—war, cancer, addiction. And that was without the craziness of the past few years. Craziness that had left him contorted on a bed, delirious with pain, and nearly cost me this moment.
It had nearly cost mehim.