Page 65 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

My toes curled as his fingers dipped inside me briefly, then my feet flexed as he spread my wetness around my opening.

When he breathed my name, I tipped my chin up to find his gaze fixed on my face.

As soon as our eyes met, he pulsed his fingertips against my opening, and I writhed against him, wanting to pull him closer to me, but…

I didn’t seem to have arms.

My limbs hung limply by my sides, the occasional twitch in their muscles from the sensations he wrought the only sign they worked at all.

And it was… freeing.

Adair pushed a finger inside me, slow and steady, but instead of pumping, he just held it there, an almost shy smile on his lips as he panted.

I rocked my hips against him, savoring the slight pressure.

When his gaze roamed down to where he could feel his finger inside me but not see it, his cheeks flushed in pleasure as his smile widened.

“My God , Ireland,” he whispered. “Do you feel this?”

“I feel it,” I said, changing my tiny movements from rocking to swirling.

He groaned, pulling his finger back briefly before thrusting two into me even deeper, pressing his palm against my clit. I jerked and moaned, my toes pointing in a full extension as he pushed his fingers into my upper walls and slowly dragged them back out.

When he left me, I almost reached for him, almost grabbed his wrist and put him right back inside me, but I resisted.

I wanted to see what he would do. Needed to see it. To feel it.

I was rewarded for that restraint when he hooked his arm back under my knee and lifted my leg, opening me just enough for him to slot his erection between my legs.

The push and pull of our fabric—my underwear and his boxers—was so good, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out loud enough to wake the neighborhood.

Adair’s eyes flared at the response, turning molten as he punched his hips forward. That moan I’d held back finally escaped me, and something snapped in his gaze before he proceeded to dry hump me into oblivion.

“Dry” being a very loose term.

“ Ah ,” he cried out, the punch of his hips keeping a steady rhythm as I threw my head back and arched against him, nothing but pure instinct driving my body.

Adair dropped my leg to rest against his for a split second before the fabric of my underwear abruptly shifted.

I gasped, lifting my head to look down again, my mouth going slack when I saw the front of my panties fisted in his hand.

His veins flexed as he pulled them taut, rubbing the material against my clit.

I looked back at him with wide eyes, and he just smiled back, a husky, euphoric laugh escaping his lips as he started moving again, punching his hips forward before retreating.

His pace was maddening, intense, brutal, but… in rhythm.

“Oh fuck ,” I choked out, pushing back onto him when I realized what he was doing .

Adair Jacks was dry humping me in time to a Mahler symphony.

My panties rubbed against my clit with each of his strokes, and now that I’d acknowledged the music, it was all I could hear besides our panting breaths.

The theme changed, and Adair’s bicep flexed again under my head as his right hand smoothed across my chest, gripping my breast firmly, as if anchoring himself to me.

Then he started to thrust harder.

I arched again, turning my face to bury my moan in his bicep.

His hips stuttered, and he gasped, swiveling them several times before he pulled my panties against my clit harder and pinched my nipple.

I convulsed as the strings grew thicker, louder, biting into his arm as sparks sizzled across my skin.

As I came, my muscles froze and then constricted, pulling tight before wetness gushed out of me, soaking through our underwear.

A strangled noise tore from Adair as he pumped his hips into me one more time, his release joining mine as he let out a drawn-out moan into my hair.

Time suspended for several seconds before he slumped, relaxing back into the bed. His thumb rubbed absent minded circles around my nipple, making me twitch with each aftershock.

I felt his smile against my temple before he kissed me there sweetly, then slowly extricated himself from my body.

I turned my head toward him, watching as he carefully shimmied his ruined boxers off, his dick still half hard.

That’s what finally brought my arms back to life.

As I extended my arm toward him, a bass line from the piano came to the forefront of the music, and I remembered decade-old choreography as I reached for him.

I was eighteen, performing my senior recital.

I ran my finger down his stomach, smearing his cum.

Adair’s lips parted as he watched me, but I was only half conscious of what I was doing as I felt his release and sank into the memory.

A bright stage. Velvet curtains.

Choreography that was languid, romantic.

The ensemble piece that slowly became a solo by the end.

A spotlight that faded. Faceless members of the audience.

Bringing my finger to my mouth, I licked his flavor from my skin. Slowly. Thoroughly.

The only thoughts my brain supplied were: You will remember this. How much you love this.

He reached down and fisted his dick, sliding his release up and down his length as he trailed his gaze over me as if looking for where to explore next.

I was interested to know too.

He looked at me and then the bed with calculation before he released himself and ducked down to kiss me.

“Just feel, Indigo,” he whispered against my lips, pushing his hands under my crumpled shirt and lifting it off my head. “I’ve still got you.”

I closed my eyes, sinking into him, the music, and merged the faded memories of this song with these new ones.

Adair kissed my breasts in turn, the attention feeling almost reverent, before his fingertips traced down my side, sending goose bumps all over. Then his warm hand encircled my ankle while his other grasped my hip.

In one swift movement, he flipped me onto my stomach.

I tensed on instinct, but then he gripped my calf, massaging my tight muscles, and I melted again.

He pulled my panties down my legs, planting warm kisses against my ass and down my legs as he went. Once they were off, there was some rustling before he guided two pillows under my hips.

“Don’t worry, Indigo,” he rasped, situating me so my face was pressed into the bed and my ass propped up for him. “I’m a pillow tower expert.”

I giggled, and Adair’s hands encircled my ankles again before he slowly pushed them apart, spreading my legs just enough for him to kneel between them.

Glancing over my shoulder, I clenched around nothing at the sight he made looming over me, his messy hair hung over his brow, his glasses slightly askew, holding my ankles on either side of him and breathing heavily, eyes going wild over my body like he had no idea where to start.

His gaze flicked to mine, and precum dripped from his tip.

Or… was it still precum?

His grip on my ankles tightened before he released them, and the phantom bands of his warmth remained around them as he fisted his erection and lined himself up behind me.

I jolted when he found my entrance and pushed inside me experimentally.

With just the tip in, he stroked up to my hips, and then with a triumphant smile, he pressed his hips forward and pushed all the way in.

His eyes fluttered shut, a blissed-out expression on his face as he pulled out and pushed in again, his big hands grasping my hips deliciously.

“ Adair ,” I gasped, pushing my face into the bed and writhing uselessly when I realized I couldn’t push back at all. I had no purchase, and the fit was tight. My hands flexed on either side of my head, and once again, he read me perfectly.

His weight blanketed my back as he reached for my hands and lightly encircled my wrists in one hand. I met his eyes, reading his question in them before nodding.

His smile was more a pant than anything, but I still felt it wash over me as Adair carefully firmed his grip on my wrists and banded them behind me, resting them against my lower back.

My eyes fluttered shut as he pushed into me again, and a ragged exhale tore from my throat.

I had never . Never.

Never this. Never like this.

Adair’s grip was firm but gentle as he took full control of my body, pulling my arms behind me tighter, making my back arch and my nipples rub against the bed.

“Indigo, fuck,” he rasped, ragged and breathless.

I clenched around him, the curse sounding so taboo from his lips.

Mahler faded, and a Liszt piano solo started, the lilting piano somehow perfect for us—for this rare moment when the world was only ours.

Mumbled words of praise started pouring from Adair’s lips, from sweet to filthy, weaving with the modulations of the piece.

Just as I was about to fall apart, to lose myself like music dissolved by a sudden wind, Adair pulled out, and then the pillows were yanked out from underneath me.

I gasped at the sensation of free falling, but then Adair flipped me onto my back.

My eyes flew open just as Adair grasped my ass in both hands, lifted me off the bed, and pushed back inside me.

“ Ahh ,” I cried, grabbing at the sheets mindlessly. “ Adair. ”

“ Ireland ,” he answered, squeezing my ass firmly, his cheeks and chest flushed as his hips rocked into me. My head slid off the pillow as he pulled me closer, his powerful arms flexing as he worked me over.

Shifting his hold to one hand, he pressed his other where we were joined—his entire hand—adding pressure from above as he ruined me from everywhere else. My clit throbbed with his thrusts, and when Adair licked his lips, I jolted, the beginnings of my orgasm shooting through my nervous system.

His eyes flitted from my clenched hands to my chest, then to my face, and when I tightened around him with the beginnings of my release, he groaned and started punching into me faster.

My body buzzed all over as the orgasm washed over me, bright lights eclipsing my vision.

I lost myself completely.

I was no one, or everyone.

Nothing, but entirely his .

He followed me right over, finding his release with words of praise, of desire, of….

My heart beat in my ears, blocking the last of it out.

With our bodies still joined, Adair lowered me to the bed and took my face in his hands.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and I saw in his hazel ones what I hadn’t heard from his lips.

What I hadn’t let myself hear.

Adoration. Disbelief.

Love.

As my heart soared, the only thing I feared more than the long drop below was forgetting how high I’d flown.

“ Phone ,” I said brokenly, throwing out my arm toward my nightstand. “Please.”

Adair, still nestled inside me, reached over me, casting me in shadow as he did as I asked .

Concern pinched his brow as I took it from him, and he stroked my legs soothingly, waiting for an explanation.

I looked at him through my phone’s screen and took a photo.

And another.

And another.

On the next, I captured the moment his concern turned to a shy smile.

Satisfied, I tossed my phone beside me on the bed and opened my arms to him.

Accepting my invitation, he fell on me, wrapping his arms around me and turning us so we were lying side by side. His left foot trembled where it rested below my feet, but before I could ask him if he’d hurt it, he hugged me even closer to him, nuzzling into me.

“ Don’t ,” he said softly, kissing my hair.

I didn’t.

Even when he got off the bed and used his crutch to go to the bathroom, his movements careful, I said nothing. When he returned to the bed and spread my legs, gently applying the cloth, I let him keep my surrender.

Once we were back in bed, the bathroom lock firmly back in place though still relatively useless, Adair arranged me against him, each place our bare skin touched electric.

When he tilted my head toward him and kissed me, I melted into the pace he set, slow and languid, with no destination in mind except here, with him.

He reached over me and turned off the lamp, and on the way back, he put my phone into my hand, brushing his thumb over my fingers.

“The hydrangeas,” he whispered. “And now… me. What do they have in common?”

He was in the big spoon position again, so I braced my elbow on the bed and opened my photos where he could see over my shoulder. My screen reflected in his glasses as I selected all the photos I’d just taken of him and sorted them into my “happy” album.

His grip on me tightened before he reached for my phone. “May I?”

I hesitated, but then passed it over to him.

My heart thumped faster the longer he scrolled and looked at what had made it to the album. It felt more exposing than standing naked in front of him. Than being pressed against him like this.

The room went dark as he shut off my phone and laid it gently on the bed.

He was quiet for a long time, stroking my skin until my heartbeat returned to normal.

“Delly told me what you said,” he whispered, “that day you flipped the world upside down and kissed me in the Cadillac.” He smiled against my hair.

“That even when Pops forgets her, he won’t forget how she makes him feel.

” I felt the rise and fall of his chest against my back as he took a deep breath.

“I’ll remember how it feels to be in the same room as you for the rest of my life.

How it is to walk through the world knowing Ireland Sewell doesn’t just have my back, but… my heart too.”

My nose burned, and I turned in his arms and grasped his face. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him lean into my touch, felt his jaw move as he spoke again.

“I see you, Indigo,” he said, repeating what he’d said before, but it took on more meaning this time. “And I… I think you see me too.”

All I could do was brush my lips over his thundering heart in answer.