Page 60 of Collide (The Rhapsody of Heartbeats #1)

And when I do, when the sensation crests again, crashing through me in waves so intense I forget my own name, he follows, groaning my name, our moans echoing through the cabin. His body tenses beneath me before a strangled grunt falls from his lips as he spills inside me.

I collapse against his chest, breathless and trembling.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the crackle of the fire, the mad hammering of our hearts, the rise and fall of our chests as we come down.

Then, he laughs. Low and satisfied, his chuckle rumbles beneath me.

“What?” I mumble against his skin, still dazed.

“Fuck,” he hisses, forehead pressed to mine. “We’re gonna have to get you the morning-after pill when we’re back in Stockholm.”

My breath catches, and so does my gaze.

He grins, dark and breathless. “Didn’t pack enough condoms for what I’ve got planned for you.”

My lips part, pulse hammering.

“No condoms needed,” I whisper, dragging my thumb along his lips. “I’m on the pill.”

His eyes snap like I’ve said the magic words and unlocked something in him.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “I’m going to have so much fun with you.”

“Yes, please,” I whisper

He chuckles breathlessly. “How was that? For you?”

I meet his gaze. Deep and quiet. He wants the truth, but more than that, he wants confirmation —that I’d remember this for the rest of my life.

“Incredible.” I smile, wistful. My legs are still shaky, the tenderness between my thighs a quiet reminder of how deeply we’d been connected.

He smiles, chest lifting with a kind of quiet pride. “I told you,” he murmurs, brushing his lips against my forehead. “I’m great in bed.”

I snort. Smug bastard. “Great?” My voice is hoarse from moaning his name into the firelit room. “Bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

He chuckles, the sound low, pleased. “I aim to please.”

And please, he did.

Because he wasn’t just great in bed. He was great on the table. On the couch. On the floor. In the shower. Out on the grass under the setting sun. Over the next few days, we’re a mess of limbs and lost inhibitions.

At one point, I half-jokingly mutter something about needing water for survival, and Alex—completely serious—carries me, bare-ass naked, to the kitchen, hand-feeds me strawberries, and makes me drink straight from his palm at the sink. While he helps himself between my thighs.

Another time, I tried to escape to the bathroom for a break, only for him to drag me back into the shower, murmuring something about how I’m too slippery to resist.

By the eighth—or is it ninth?—time, I accept my fate.

This man has no off switch.

And, apparently, neither do I.

I had no idea I was this insatiable.

I try to reclaim some semblance of dignity, rolling away for a moment of peace, only for him to tackle me back into the pillows, lips trailing down with a wicked grin.

“Alex,” I groan, half-pleading, half-laughing. “I need a break. I need food. I need—I don’t know—air?!”

He props himself up on one elbow, smirking like a man who has just discovered his new favorite hobby. “You’re cute when you beg.”

“I’m not begging,” I whimper, even as I shiver under the lazy drag of his fingers up my thigh.

“You will be,” he says simply.

And, to my complete and utter humiliation, he’s right.

By the time we finally pass out, tangled in the sheets, the fire nothing but dying embers, I have never felt more exhausted in my life. Or satisfied. Or alive.

He shifts behind me, rolling us onto our sides. One arm draped on my waist, the other under my neck, drawing me tighter against his chest like I might vanish.

His breath is warm at my ear. “Why’d you wait?”

“Wait?” I ask, my brain still a mess of thoughts.

“For sex?”

Oh.

It wasn’t a decision. Not really. I didn’t draw a line in the sand or swear anything off. It just… never happened.

Between Riley’s stories of dud roots , Mom’s mistrust of men that stuck to me like a second skin, and then her cancer, wanting never felt like a priority.

I inhale, grounding myself in the warmth and weight of his arm as he drags his thumb across my skin.

“It wasn’t a decision,” I say slowly. “It…never felt right. Not until now.”

He’s silent for a beat. Then his fingers trail along the curve of my hip, thoughtful, almost absent.

“I’m glad it was me,” he confesses. “I hate thinking about anyone else ever getting the chance.” His voice rasps against my skin. “It’s selfish, I know. But the thought of someone else touching you—someone else making you feel like this—would drive me fucking insane.”

I don’t move. Can’t.

He brushes my hair back, presses a kiss just below my ear. “You don’t even realize what you’ve done to me, do you?”

My pulse stumbles. His voice has that edge again—low, reverent, full of something I can’t name.

“Elena,” he breathes, voice wrecked. “You’ve bewitched me.

Being with you—it’s the only time I can be myself.

It’s freedom from the noise, the pressure, the past. I can’t escape you.

You’re in my head all day—what you’re doing, who you’re with, if you’re thinking of me. And then at night, in my dreams…”

“Your dreams?” I whisper.

He leans in closer, eyes burning. “From the moment you collided into my life, it’s only ever been you. You’re in all of them. I think of nothing else—being with you, touching you, holding you…making love to you.”

His voice drops, almost a growl. “ ?lskling , I would burn the whole fucking world to keep you. To feel you beside me in the dark. To know you’re mine—not just for now, but for whatever forever we can steal. I would give anything, say anything, be anything, if it meant you’d be mine forever.”

My chest rises, tight and too full. Something turns inside me, something soft, like a key unlocking a door. My heart beats differently, and I don’t think it will ever beat the same after this.

Is this what it feels like?

Is this… love?

“Alex,” I breathe his name like a prayer. “I’ve never felt like this. You make me feel seen, you make me feel desired, sexy, confident, I…”

And I know my heart has leaped over the edge, falling, deeper and deeper. I want to say it, but my mouth goes dry. It’s too soon . I’ll scare him away.

“I know, Elena, I feel it too,” he says, tightening his arm around me. “Too fast,” he whispers against my shoulder. “But I don’t want to slow down.”

Neither do I.

And that’s the most dangerous part of all.