Page 276 of Love Me in the Dark

“Hit me again if it helps,” he says. “I’ll still give you everything I own. Everything you need or want is yours.”

I want to scream. Want to crawl out of my skin.

Instead, I pull him back to me in a frantic kiss.

It’s desperate. Messy. Furious.

He undresses me like he’s unraveling a secret. Touches me like he already knows every scar on my body. But he doesn’t thrust up into my body.

He leaves me there, completely naked while his pants stay on.

Until my hand slips down and I’m the one undressing him. Slowly, making sure to draw out the torture for both of us. Needing him to break first.

He doesn’t.

His hard length slaps his stomach as soon as I free it, and my core clenches at the sight of pre-cum at the tip. With a smile more for myself than anything else, I wrap one hand around him as much as I can and shift my hips until his length is rubbing against my clit.

“God.” He groans. “You’re so perfect. So fucking perfect, Ivy. Made just for me.”

I’m trembling, soaking, and ready to cry if I can’t have an orgasm, and soon.

Impatient and needy, I slide down onto him with a hiss.

That’s when he finally takes me, and I wassowrong.

This isn’t possession.

It’s devotion.

Slow. Deep. Unrelenting.

He makes love to me like he’s praying.

And I explode around his body, pressing my forehead to his chest as I ride out the shaking mess that’s taken control of my body.

I think he follows me over the edge into oblivion, but honestly I can’t even process words, let alone thought, and definitely not enough coherent understanding to know if I brought him to completion or not.

At least not until he starts to move again and I can feel a mix of our releases escaping with each thrust. He flips us without pulling out of my body, wrapping my legs around his waist and taking control in one movement.

The second orgasm takes me by surprise, but he keeps going until we’re both a boneless, breathless heap in the middle of the bed.

Neither of us move right away.

We lie in silence, skin to skin, the steady thrum of his heart under my cheek. His hand strokes my back—lazy circles,fingertips dragging lightly, like he’s tracing constellations into my spine.

I should be slipping away. Quietly, efficiently. Making a plan. Reclaiming space in my mind that isn't his.

But I don’t move.

Not when he eases out of bed and disappears into the adjoining room.

Not when he returns, wordless, and pulls the sheets back from my body like I’m art he’s unwrapping.

“Come,” he says softly.

It isn’t a command.

It’s a request that he’s waiting for me to address as he holds a hand out for me.