Page 260 of The Fall

Each thrust drives the air from my lungs; each withdrawal leaves me clutching for more. I listen to the slap of skin on skin as he bottoms out again and again. We move together, chasing the same rhythm, kissing more than breathing.

His tongue licks into my mouth as he pounds into me harder. My legs clamp around his waist, and I pull him deeper still. My cock drags slick through the mess between our bellies with every thrust. Blair’s free hand skims down to wrap around it, stroking in time to his rhythm inside me. I buck helplessly between his hands and cock at once.

“There?” His voice is wrecked.

I nod, panting.

“God,” he pants against my lips, breath hot and shaking. “You feel so fucking good.”

I can’t answer. All I can do is choke out broken sounds as he slams into me again and again until all I am is sensation: this burning stretch, his hot fullness, the slippery glide of skin on skin. The bed rocks beneath us; sweat slicks our bodies together.

I careen toward release, his name breaking on my lips while he fucks me through wave after wave. Is it possible to come undone any further? I catch his gaze—wild, desperate—and that look alone threatens to finish me. He grinds deep and holds there, and the sound of his soft moan in my ear makes me shiver, makes my eyes roll back in my head. I’m nothing but heat and friction and the frantic need to let go under him.

Blair grabs my leg and hikes it over his shoulder, and his cock pushes deeper than I thought possible, stretching me wide around every thick inch of him. My body splits to accommodate him, the base of him grinding against me with each thrust. The slick drag as he pulls nearly all the way out before plunging back in rips a shout from me. Each time he bottoms out, the blunt crown of his cock pounds brutally into my prostate. My legs tremble around his waist, stretched so wide for him it aches in the best way.

He’s everywhere, filling me so completely that I can’t tell where he ends and I begin. Sweat drips from his chest onto mine as he drives into me with punishing force; the bed frame rattles with every thrust. I clench down around him and he groans, lost.

“Again,” I gasp.

His voice is a hot rasp against my ear. “That’s it. Let go for me.”

The pressure builds, a tidal surge threatening to swallow everything, tightening until heat coils vicious and bright at the base of my spine, ready to snap loose at any second. Everyragged inhale tastes like him, like coconut and salt-skin, like heat rising off us in waves so thick I could drown in them.

My fingers dig into his muscles, still trembling from restraint as I arch helplessly beneath him. Every part of me screams for release but refuses to let go without one more desperate rush of friction, one more savage grind of his cock deep inside me. His teeth graze my jaw as he drives in again, again, again. It’s a gathering storm inside me, pulling everything taut, tight, hot, hotter?—

I bury my hands in the slope where his neck meets his back and breathe in all the salt and sunlight I can drag into my lungs, wound tight as the tide. If I can remember enough, hold enough, maybe I can?—

Our eyes meet and I fall. “Blair,” I gasp. His name is the only word I have left.

Everything fractures—blinding heat, a wild shudder—and I cry out, clutching him as obliterating pleasure rips through me, white-hot. He swallows the sound with his mouth on mine. We tumble over together, locked tight. He shakes against me, emptying deep as his release follows mine. Our bodies strain and cling while aftershocks ripple through us both. Sweat slicks our skin; breath tangles with breath.

Slowly, the world filters back in: the faint flicker of candlelight across tangled sheets, the echo of our hearts thundering in tandem. Blair gathers me close and collapses on top of me, his head over my heart.

Nothing matters but his body holding me here, the rise and fall of our breathing finally evening out.

Warmth bleeds outward from where he settles against me, and he shifts just enough for his nose to nudge behind my ear. He hums low in his throat, his arms tightening around my waist. I don’t need to look at him to know he’s watching me. His lips brush my skin as he says softly, “I’ve got you.”

The candles gutter on the dresser. Their light slides over his shoulder and across the rumpled line of his jaw. Damp hair clings to his brow, and sweat cools on our skin. His breath stirs the hair at my temple.

“I love you,” he whispers. “Never forget that.”

I close my eyes for a heartbeat, long enough to feel his lips on my brow. If this is what forever tastes like, let it linger; let it echo.

“Say it again,” I breathe into the dark.

His lips find the shell of my ear. “I love you.” Then softer, like a secret: “I love you.” Once more: “I love you.”

Three times, like a spell.

“I will never forget you,” I promise.

If love could anchor us, we’d never fall. But time doesn’t suspend itself for love.

I have fought and failed and found myself in him, and each day I love him sharper, deeper, truer than the one before. I will love him when he is beyond reach, and I will love him when he is beside me, always, always. This moment—his breath against my skin, his arm across my waist, the moonlight catching the curve of his shoulder—is what I choose to carry forward. This is what I refuse to lose.

I try to burn this into my soul: the salt-sweet taste of his skin, how his fingers curl around mine, the impossible tenderness in the space between his heartbeat and mine. If I’m going to lose this again, if I’m destined to watch it all unravel, then I’ll take this with me. Every cell, every nerve ending, every fragment of my soul will remember.

If time is a loop, let tonight be the axis it turns on.