Page 15 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)

TEN

LENNOX

I ushered him inside without another word. He looked like a wet towel left on the floor, with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. There were still those smoldering embers deep behind his chestnut irises.

Oliver stepped into my room, closing the door behind him. “Your roommate?”

I shook my head. “I’m alone.”

His hand moved back and turned the lock on the door.

My heart beat in my throat fearfully. “Do you…want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Absolutely not,” Oliver said, his voice like smoke.

Two words, one irresistible outcome. If it was a dirty distraction he was after, I knew how to provide it. My knees buckled just then, which was great fucking timing because I let my legs fold under me, kneeling before Oliver.

“Is this what you came for?” I asked, lips parting after the last word, my voice breathy and inviting.

Oliver’s gaze never left my face. “I don’t know what I came for,” he said and swallowed. Even so, he took a step toward me, then another, and a final one. His sweatpants bulged with a growing erection, and he paused inches away from my face. “Is this what you want?”

I balled my fists, arms stiff by my sides, and gave a firm nod. “It’s all I could think about, Oliver.”

“Ollie,” he said. “You called me that once. I liked it.”

I accepted that with a nod. “Go on.”

Oliver ran his fingers through my curly locks, then closed his fist on the back of my head, pulling it until I craned my neck and faced his towering figure fully.

“You did something to me,” he said, his tone dark and his eyes darker.

“In that cabin, Lennox. You consumed me.” The tug relaxed and morphed into a push, my face pressing against his crotch with a decisive drag along his hard cock.

He was holding back so much, so desperately, that it flowed out through the cracks.

“Ever since then,” he said, “I can’t swim, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep.

You’re all I see, Lennox.” He pressed my face harder against his crotch, and a moan ruptured through my tightening throat.

“What did you do to me?” he asked, pulling my head back and making me look into his eyes.

A spark of righteousness flared through me. “Nothing you didn’t do to me.”

He let out something like a laugh. “Seriously? You’re telling me I ruined your life back there?”

“Ruined? No,” I said, pulling all the courage into my voice.

I was afraid, it was true, but not of what he would do to me.

I longed for it. I craved it like an addict craved his next high.

It was denial that terrified me. Even so, I couldn’t pretend.

I couldn’t lie just to make him fuck me like he’d fucked me before.

“You made me feel alive for the first time in my life, Ollie. I can’t go back to how it was before. ”

He relaxed his hold on my curls as he thought about it. “I’d call that ruined.”

“Call it what you want, it’s true,” I said tightly. “I’m on my knees. I’m willing to beg if that turns you on. I just can’t watch you leave again.”

“What if I can’t stay?” he asked, his voice softening just a little.

“You can return,” I told him. “I don’t need forever. I don’t even need most of the time. I just…need a little.” I refused to blink first. Our gazes locked on one another, an unspoken standoff between titans.

Then, something rigid broke in him. Something stiff gave way.

Marble columns collapsed, cliffs fell into the sea, and Oliver relaxed, exhaling a pent-up breath of frustration as he fell to his knees, his eyes leveling with mine.

“I just want you . Even if I swore I wouldn’t.

Even if I swore I wanted just one thing in my life, you came in like a bulldozer, Lennox. ”

That was enough for me. “Shut up and kiss me,” I whispered hurriedly and grabbed his hoodie. He was cold despite the furnace burning in his chest and eyes. He had been wandering the streets for too long on his own.

He didn’t resist it when I slammed my lips against his, thrusting my tongue into his mouth without asking for permission.

His lips parted to welcome me without hesitation. Everything that we had just said dropped off the edge of the world. So easily, so smoothly, there was nothing beyond this, beyond us. A snowed-in cabin and a blaze no force could stop.

I had stopped hoping for it.

His mouth opened under mine like he’d been waiting for this moment since the second we parted. Not just with hunger, but with recognition. As if his body knew mine too well to pretend otherwise.

We stayed on the floor, still on our knees, breathing the same heated air between kisses that felt like answers to questions we hadn’t dared to ask.

His lips moved with purpose. Slow at first. Testing.

Then deeper, rougher, like he needed to know if I still tasted the same. I did. And I wanted more.

My hands slid up beneath his hoodie, mapping familiar planes, the ridges of his ribs, the small dip at the center of his spine. He shivered under my touch, and I nearly came undone from that alone, from the idea that I could make him tremble with something as simple as fingers skating across skin.

I pulled the hoodie over his head, and the moment his bare chest hit the air, I pressed against him like I could warm him by contact alone.

His skin flushed hot against mine, and my palms didn’t know where to stop.

I dragged them up his arms, around his back, greedy for the shape of him, the strength packed into every inch.

He gripped my waist hard enough to bruise and dragged me forward.

Our thighs slid together. My breath caught.

I was half-hard and getting worse with every shift of his body against mine.

He didn’t seem better off, grinding once, unintentionally, and groaning like the sound had been torn from somewhere deep inside him.

His hands found the hem of my T-shirt and fumbled, only briefly, before yanking it upward.

I raised my arms, too far gone to care if the move was awkward.

The fabric caught for a second, pulled my hair, and then I was bare-chested, too, flush with goose bumps and heat, and his hands were back on me.

The kiss deepened again. I opened my mouth for him, and he slipped his tongue in, slow, deliberate, and devastating. Every part of me lit up. My hips rocked forward without thinking. His breath hitched when we made contact again, firmer this time, and I felt the sound he made right in my spine.

We lost the rhythm. We gave in.

He pushed me back just enough to topple me onto my ass. Then he was on me, straddling my lap, knees pressing into the rug on either side of my hips. Our foreheads bumped as we panted into each other’s mouths, forearms tight around torsos, keeping the space between us nonexistent.

I ran my hands down his back, over the dimples just above his waistband, and hooked my thumbs beneath the elastic there.

His muscles jumped under my touch, his hips bucking instinctively forward, and my whole body flared at the contact.

Our cocks pressed together, thick and stiff through fabric, too much friction and still not enough.

“Lennox,” he said, like it was a warning. Like it was a prayer.

I swallowed hard and kissed down his jaw, then lower, down the column of his throat. His pulse thrummed against my lips, and I smiled, drunk on the feel of him unraveling above me.

“You came here,” I whispered, voice hoarse, teeth grazing his collarbone. “You did this.”

“I know,” he said, wrecked. “Don’t stop.”

I wouldn’t have stopped now if the room had caught fire.

He leaned in again, fingers sliding through my curls, and kissed me like he was sure now, like it wasn’t just about desperation anymore.

His mouth slowed, melted, grew reverent.

The heat didn’t leave. It only shifted, more devastating for its tenderness.

Like he wanted to remember how this felt in every nerve.

His hands framed my face, rough from pool chlorine and training. Mine were on his hips, guiding him forward, anchoring myself to the one thing in the world that felt right.

There were still too many clothes between us.

But this?

This was everything.

He kissed me like there was no such thing as later.

And I kissed him back like there’d never been a before.

The way he moved against me wasn’t frantic anymore. It was focused and measured, just so typically Oliver. Every shift of his hips, every inch of contact was deliberate, testing how we fit, learning it all over again, even though we both knew. We remembered.

His nose brushed mine when he pulled back slightly, his mouth just hovering above mine, like he couldn’t bear the thought of space but needed a second to breathe. Our chests heaved in tandem. Sweat slicked the small of my back. His hand found it and pressed, lifting me closer against his body.

“I kept telling myself it was the only time,” he murmured.

I slid my hand up his spine. “Then stop lying.”

A low sound left his throat, part laugh, part growl.

He kissed me again, this time slower, wetter, deeper, like he wanted to memorize the shape of my mouth with his own.

His palm cupped my cheek, his thumb dragged across the corner of my lips, and I bit down gently, just to taste the tip of his finger.

He inhaled sharply and bucked forward.

I knew that sound. I knew that reaction. It was everything.

The grinding got more intense. His breath stuttered as he rocked into me, friction building between layers of fabric that barely concealed how hard he was.

I felt the curve of him through his sweats, thick and hot, dragging along the front of my pants in a rhythm that made my head fall back against the floor.

My hand gripped his hip, keeping him close, keeping him there.

“Oliver,” I breathed. “You don’t have to stop.”