Page 24

She crinkles her nose at me in the dark, as if I’m the world’s shittiest doctor, and then, without a word, she slides until her face is tucked under my jaw, her hair fanning over us like a tent.

There’s a new quiet, one that isn’t lonely or awkward but has a weight, as if we have finally reached the center of something we’ve both been circling for years.

I stare up at the ceiling. Maybe I should say something profound, something to acknowledge that we just torched the last bridge between friendship and whatever the hell happens next. Instead, I listen to her breathing settle and watch the goosebumps fade from her arms.

She drags her thumb along my ribs, humming some song I don’t recognize.

Thirty minutes.

That’s what I said.

I picture a timer ticking down in the corner of the room, but will I even care when it dings?

Probably not.

2:00 A.M.

“Fuuuck,” Ledger. “Please. God, how is this so good?”

Her enthusiasm for my cock at nearly makes me chuckle as I bend her thighs back against her chest.

My body will hate me for this night when I’m trying to do my job on the ice tomorrow—well, later today, but do I care?

Fuck no.

Not even a little bit.

Because right now Marlee’s glistening pussy is on display and as far as I’m concerned I have no other job than to give her every last drop of cum that my body will produce for as long as I can keep going.

And I can keep going a long fucking time.

“Because your body was meant for me and me alone,” I tell her as I bury myself in her over and over again. I thrust hard and fast until I can’t see straight and then I lift her up and roll us both until she’s topping me. “Lift up and sit on my cock. Take it all, Mar. You’re in the driver’s seat.”

She’s not careful or slow. She knows what she wants and she goes after it. Her gorgeous tits in my face, she positions my cock at her entrance and slides down over it and, “Motherfucking fuck, Marlee.”

She stills, her eyes bulging. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry! Did I?—”

“No.” I still her with my hands on her hips.

“Do not apologize for being a good fucking girl and do not apologize for having the most alluring cunt I’ve ever experienced in my entire existence.

Never apologize for that. Your body is my paradise, Marlee, and if I die tonight, I will die a fulfilled and very happy man.

” Bending my fingers into the soft skin of her hips, I help her move up and down on my shaft.

“Now use me. Chase your next release. Fucking milk my cock until it’s empty. ”

She looks shocked at my words, at herself, at us, I don’t know.

But it only lasts for a heartbeat. Then her head falls back, and she moves.

Everything about her is reckless and divine, like a woman who’s just realized every rule she ever learned was stupid and wrong.

She rides me, slow at first, savoring, then faster, harder, making the headboard shudder with every thrust. I dig my fingers in, spurring her on, wanting to see how wild she’ll get before she lets go.

She locks her eyes on mine and all I can think is how beautiful destruction looks in the right hands.

My hands.

“Ledger! Oh, Christ, Ledger…” she pants.

I feel her coming before she gets the words out.

Before her nails rake down my chest and her whole body buckles like she’s been electrocuted.

She clamps down and milks me just like I told her to, and it’s so fucking perfect, I lose it.

My vision goes white around the edges, every muscle cording in my neck, my hands, my back.

I spill inside her, head swimming, and she collapses on me like a ragdoll, both of us sticky-hot and panting, out of breath, out of words, but somehow knowing exactly what comes next.

3:10 A.M.

“Oh fuck! Oh, God, Ledger!”

“I know babe. But I can’t stop touching you.” I circle her clit with my wet fingers and glide my other wet soapy hand down over her slick body, the water from the shower head dropping on us like we’re about to fuck in the most heavenly rain shower.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she pants against me, her back to my front as I palm her breasts. “It feels incredible when you touch me. Like I mean something. Like I’m cared for and desired all in one.”

“Because you are cared for, Mar,” I answer.

“Hell, I’d spend the rest of my life caring for you if you’ll have me.

I’ve desired you as long as I’ve known you.

And now that I finally get to have you, I’m afraid to stop.

I don’t want to wake up from this dream.

I want to give you all the babies you could ever dream of. I’d give you everything.”

I pinch her nipple slightly and her legs weaken.

“My legs, Ledge!” She whimpers, shaking her head. “It’s too good. I can’t stand up.”

“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her ear and then spin her around, lifting her by her thighs and wrapping her legs around me. “Put your arms around my neck, Mar. And hold on.”

I don’t do leg workouts for nothing.

I’ve got muscles of steel in my thighs. I could go all night and not tire.

Especially with this much sexual adrenaline coursing through my veins.

4:00 A.M.

“Ledger…” My name is a whisper on her lips as I curl my body around hers. My hands move over her soft skin with awe. Like I’m memorizing her through touch alone. The slope of her hips. The soft rise and fall of her stomach. The places that make her sigh, arch, whisper my name.

She’s so fucking beautiful.

Not just in the obvious, stunning ways, but in the way she trusts me with her.

With her body.

With her desires.

With her dreams.

Every tremble, every shiver I pull from her is her letting me in, and I know it’s not just her body opening to me.

It’s her.

All of her.

And I’ll forever treat that like the honor it is.

“You’re beautiful, Marlee,” I murmur behind her. “I could spend forever wrapped up in you.” I hook my hand over her hip and lazily slide my fingers between her tired legs. “Still wet for me. Do you know how incredible you feel?”

“That’s all you, Ledger.”

I smile into her neck, getting a good whiff of the shampoo I just used to wash her hair in the shower.

“Good.” I spread remnants of my past orgasms around her clit nice and slow, enjoying every squirm of her body, every hitch in her breath.

“I like feeling myself all over you, Mar. And I like knowing you’ll be reminded of me as I drip out of you. ”

“As if I could ever forget,” she responds, chuckling softly in the calm, peaceful quiet of my hotel room.

“I won’t let you forget, Mar,” I tell her, lifting her leg and hooking it over my own. I rub the swollen head of my cock through her warm, wet folds and line myself up with her entrance one last time.

When we come together, my cock slides inside her with ease.

It’s quiet but for our own pleasured sighs and I’m certain the world has fallen away and we’re the only two people left on this earth.

The closeness we have in this moment, in this bed, just our bodies, it’s the kind of closeness that doesn’t need words— just breath and skin and the weight of emotion rising between us like a tide.

And when Marlee turns her head toward me, she reaches her hand between her legs to caress my balls as I slide myself in and out of her body. She whispers my name into the space just beneath my ear and I think to myself this is what love feels like, right?

This is what it means to be wanted not just tonight, but tomorrow, and every day after.

I don’t rush this last time together. I don’t want to. I want to ingrain this moment into my core memory. I want her to feel everything she deserves—tenderness, safety, pleasure. I want her to know, in every touch, every kiss, that this is more than intimacy for me.

It’s a promise.

“I’m so full, Ledge. It’s incredible when you’re inside me.”

She looks up at me with a warm vulnerable expression and something in my chest tightens.

Something tender and protective and fucking overwhelming all at once.

I want to tell her this isn’t just desire for me.

It’s something deeper. It’s the kind of ache in my chest that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with her.

I touch her face, just the edge of her jaw, my knuckles smoothing against her cheek, and she leans into the gesture like she’s been waiting for it.

Maybe we both have.

“Marlee…” I don’t even know what to say because she’s so damn beautiful here in my arms that the words fall away. So, I kiss her.

Slow.

Intentional.

I take my time because every second with my lips against hers feels sacred. Her breath hitches when I trace the curve of her jaw with my mouth down to the hollow of her throat. I place my hand over the bottom of her abdomen as I slowly push inside her and she gasps.

“God. Ledger, yes.”

Just feeling her words against her throat is my undoing. “This won’t take long, Marlee. I need to fill you one more time before I can sleep.”

“Please…”

In the following silence, in that steady pulse of her throat beneath my hand, I realize I’m never going back.

I can’t go back to what life was like before Marlee.

I’ll never go back from this.

Not from her.

When we finally fall still—tangled together, warm and quiet—neither of us speaks.

My mind finally sated, I hold her in my arms and allow the night to take us to a place where all of our wildest dreams come true.