Page 74 of Nine Months to Love

So I don’t.

I push inside her in one hard thrust and she cries out, her back arching. I freeze, afraid I’ve hurt her, but she digs her nails into my shoulders.

“Move,” she demands. “Stefan,move.”

I set a brutal pace, one hand braced on the bench beside her hip, the other gripping her thigh to keep her steady. She meets me thrust for thrust. Her body takes everything I give her and demands more.

It’s not making love. It’s not even sex, really. It’s anger and fear and relief all tangled together, both of us trying to prove something neither of us can articulate.

The rain pounds down on us. My hair is dripping into my eyes. Olivia’s skin is slick under my hands. Every time I drive into her, water splashes between our bodies.

“Harder,” she gasps. “Can you—Oh,God, yes, like that.”

I slam into her with enough force to make the bench creak. She throws her head back and I lean down to bite her throat, tasting rain and salt andher.

“Look at me,” I growl against her skin. “I need you to fucking look at me.”

Her amber eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. Her mouth is swollen from my kisses. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“You’re mine,” I tell her. “Say it.”

“Yours. All yours.”

I can feel my orgasm building, coiling tight at the base of my spine. But I refuse to go over until she does.

I slide my hand between us until I find her clit and brush it with my thumb. She keens, her inner walls clenching around me.

“That’s it,” I murmur. “Come for me, little fox. Let me feel you.”

She comes with a cry that’s half my name, half incoherent sound, her body trembling in my arms. The feel of her pulsing around me drags my own orgasm out of me, and I bury myself deep as I empty inside her.

Then Olivia starts laughing.

It’s not hysterical laughter. It’s genuine, surprised, delighted laughter. I pull back to look at her.

“What?”

“We just had sex in a thunderstorm,” she says between giggles. “On a yacht. While we’re both supposed to be processing trauma. We’re a really fucked-up cliché.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. “Yes, we did. And yes, we are.”

She cups my face as her laughter fades into something softer. “I don’t regret it.”

“Neither do I.”

I kiss her again, slower this time. Gentler. When I pull away, I tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get dry before we both catch pneumonia.”

I help her up and we make our way to the covered section of the deck, still mostly naked, still dripping. I grab a blanket from the storage bench and wrap it around both of us.

We sit on one of the padded loungers, Olivia tucked against my side, and watch the rain hammer the ocean. Lightning flashes on the horizon. The yacht rocks gently with the waves.

It should be peaceful. And it is, mostly. But I can feel the tension still radiating off Olivia.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing.”