Page 105 of The Hardest Fall

I swallowed and nodded, but a few seconds later, I couldn’t help myself. I shimmied my butt then stilled when he groaned and his teeth grazed my neck.

Shifting in the small bed, his hand dragged lower on my stomach, causing me to hold my breath. Lower and lower he went until his palm lay flat over my underwear, just a few inches higher than the center of my body. A second later he pressed his palm against me and shifted higher in the bed at the same time, safely nestling not just the mushroom head but also the thick length of his erection right against me.

“Dylan,” I moaned, feeling a little dizzy and maybe a bit drunk on him as I restlessly tried to move my hips. I buried my face against his arm and, still holding his forearm with my left hand, put my right one over his hand on my lower stomach. Flipping his hand, he linked our fingers together and lay still.

I wasn’t ready to lay still. I was ready for anything but lying still.

His mouth gently sucked on my neck as his hips moved behind me, once…twice…thrice, just a slow roll of his hips, a barely there movement I might not have been able to feel if my entire body wasn’t screaming for him. I whimpered, my whole being electrified by his touch, down to my soul. Never in my life had I felt anything like it.

“I’m so tired, baby.” A kiss on my neck and then everything stopped. “And you just went through hell. You need your sleep—I’m not gonna do anything.”

“But—” I sputtered, earning myself another soft kiss that caused all kinds of tingles and shivers to go through my body.

“Sleep, baby.”

Are you kidding me?

He’d just played Tetris with our bodies and then what? I was supposed to just drift off to sleep?

I wouldn’t have thought so, but to my utter shock, I did just that. With his breathing steady and reassuring against my back, I did just that.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dylan

Before I even opened my eyes, before I was even fully awake, I could feel her next to me, not because I’d have known her smell anywhere or because we were still pretty much wrapped around each other in the exact same position we’d fallen asleep in, but because it was her that was in my arms.

Not knowing what time it was, I opened my eyes to darkness. Frowning, I moved just an inch or two and tried to reach under the pillow to get my phone without waking Zoe up.

“Dylan?”

Her voice was still husky, still groggy.

“Ssshhh, I’m here. Go back to sleep,” I whispered into her neck then finally managed to grab my phone under her head.

The light coming from the phone illuminated us, and I had to blink to see the time on the screen.

“What time is it?” Zoe asked as she shielded her half-closed eyes with the back of her hand.

I turned the phone off and pushed it back under the pillow.

Zoe shifted and turned her head to look at me. I could barely make out her features in the dark, but I could see that her eyes were open and staring into mine.

I ran the backs of my fingers against her cheek. “It’s only four thirty.”

“So we slept, what, just a little over two hours?”

“Something like that.” I let my fingers trail down to her neck and tried to be gentle as I did a quick sweep.

“It felt like more,” she whispered in a low voice.

“Does it still hurt?” I whispered back, anger laced through my voice. She swallowed and I felt the movement under my touch.

“It’s okay.”

I could’ve killed that sick bastard for putting his hands on her. If she hadn’t stopped me, hadn’t burrowed herself into my arms, I’m not sure I would’ve stopped. Feeling helpless, that deep burn in my chest—the same one I had felt at the library when I’d first seen him press Zoe against the bookshelves—started to consume me again, that intense initial shock, the sudden anger.

“Dylan? What’s wrong?”

After three maneuvers, she was facing me. At first, she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, but then she placed her right one on my chest.

“Hey, where did you go?”

I covered her hand with my own and dropped my forehead against hers.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to go back to sleep. Since I’m already awake, I’ll get in a workout. You go back to sleep. You need a few more hours.”

I moved to leave but had to stop halfway out of bed when she spoke up.

“I can’t go back to sleep either.”

“Zoe—”

“I can go back to my bed if you can’t sleep because I’m here.”

Frowning, I folded myself back into the bed.

“Where did that come from?”

“Why are you leaving?”

“I won’t be able to fall asleep, Zoe. I’m still angry. You can go back—”