Page 44 of Faster

She wished she’d taken one of his T-shirts when she’d had the chance.

His scent immediately comforted and excited her, and she would need it when she got lonely.

It astonished her how isolated she’d been before Liam.

She had few friends because there were few to be had on the grid.

And other young women her age were either fans or completely uninterested in what she did.

Her job was so consuming that she’d latched on to the only other people—Brent and then Liam—who shared her obsession.

Liam must have sensed she was somewhere else, ruminating on what she was about to lose. He cupped her face in his hands and said, “I can hear you thinking.”

As he looked at her, she was sure he could see everything running through her mind, and the way her heart was breaking. She wanted to break away and run out of the room, but she also couldn’t bear the thought of this ending with him.

So, she didn’t bear it. She turned in his arms and vaulted up on her toes to kiss him thoroughly. For a second, she thought she would knock him off balance, but she should have known better. Liam was like a tree that had survived centuries of storms and remained standing.

His secret to never falling down was that he was also the storm. And he ravished her right back. Their kiss was a crush of lips and a whirlwind of limbs. Somehow, she crawled up his body, and her face was level with his. He held her up with his giant palms on her ass and groaned into her mouth.

“I have to have you hard and fast and then take you slowly,” he said. “It has to be twice.” He sat down on the bed with her straddling him, her hair covering them both.

At that point, they didn’t even bother to disrobe completely.

If she was going to have him twice, she could feel his skin against hers later.

He yanked up her dress and put his hand in her panties, finding her so wet that the sounds echoed in the room.

He gave her two fingers and then three, filling her up.

But not as full as she would be. She pushed herself to kneeling, balancing her hands on his shoulders, and pulled her underwear down on one side and off one foot.

This move put her breasts right in his face, and he bit down lightly on one nipple, through the cloth of her dress and bra.

The sensation made her mewl with pleasure.

Especially when he added a thumb to her clit.

Sex had never felt this electric before. It had never felt like a feast for her senses. Even as she savored Liam’s hands and mouth on her, the way his hair was cool to the touch between her fingers as she held on for dear life, she wondered if she would ever feel this way again.

As though he felt her body leaving this room, right now, he pushed those thoughts away by driving her toward an orgasm that would break her.

He knew exactly where to touch her and how.

He had enough experience with her body to know exactly how to drive her out of her mind.

She dangled for a moment, on the precipice of falling over.

And then she looked at him. The intensity in his inky-colored pupils and the way his jaw was set with determination was what finally made her come.

She shook in his arms while he calmed her by stroking his big hands on her back and thighs.

He was memorizing her too. And that almost made her cry again.

She was done crying for the night. It was a waste of the precious little time they had left together.

Instead, she pulled the button on his pants loose and lowered the zipper.

After she pulled his cock out of his boxer briefs, she stroked him for a long moment. They should really make a cast out of it and use it to model sex toys. It would sell out immediately—probably because she would buy all of them and lock them up in storage so that no one else could touch him.

“Are you going to smile at my dick or let me fuck you?” His question held a little bit of humor, but it was ragged.

She lined herself up and lowered down until he was fully seated inside her.

They both groaned with the pleasure of her wrapped tightly around him.

He unbuttoned the top of her dress and lowered the cups of her bra so her breasts were bare for him.

They were smallish, but he looked at them as though they were the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen.

When he sucked on her nipple again, she had to move. She posted up and down on his cock, slowly at first. He soon lost patience and flipped her until her back was on the bed. He pulled her dress up again so that he could stare at the place where they were joined as he fucked her.

“You’re going to come again,” he said, but it was already a foregone conclusion. His hair was messy and over his forehead as he fucked into her. The look of singular concentration on his face was so beautiful to her that she reached up and ran her finger over his jaw.

He didn’t break rhythm. Soon he moved at a pace that had her unable to keep her eyes open. She had to squeeze them shut against the wall of flame coming at her. She grabbed his forearms and held on as every muscle in her body tightened, bracing.

When she came, she felt him coating her with his seed, shuddering against her.

After it was over, they lay there, still partially dressed and covered with sweat.

She felt empty on the inside, but it was the kind of emptiness she felt after a good workout or a half hour in a sauna after a cold plunge.

She felt clean and new, as though her worries and fears were entirely outside herself.

Liam stroked her face with his fingers, just like she had moments before, and the spell was partially broken. She could feel the ties between them fraying—not because of time or distance—but because he was sawing through the rope.

This coming together had merely been the first act of their goodbye, and she wasn’t sure she would live through the second.

“I just need a second,” she said. He pulled out of her, and she choked on a sob. She didn’t want him to see her like this—vulnerable and sad. He would only try to fix it. Since he was the one causing her pain, that would only make it worse.

She looked at him lying there, with his eyes closed. “We can take a nap.”

“Hmmm.” He was already almost asleep. He’d emptied himself into her too.

His breaths evened out after a few minutes. Minutes during which she stared at the ceiling of his stateroom, gathering the strength to leave.

She smiled when he snored softly and somehow forced herself to walk out of the room.