She let herself cry for a moment before swallowing it down and repackaging the gift. “He knew how much I wanted PaulVer to give me an Easter egg. After a year of trying and failing, I was so frustrated with myself.”
“So he gave you an egg himself.”
“Yeah.” She set the package on the nightstand and twisted around, straddling his lap. “I’m okay. The pain feels really heavy, and everything around me has slowed way down, like I’m trying to move through thick mud. But you keep me centered, focused. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m here for you.”
“I keep picturing his body lying there in the snow. He’s just lying there alone, cold, abandoned. I don’t have any religious or life-after-death beliefs, but I can’t bear the thought of him shoved into a refrigerator drawer, anonymous, forgotten.
“His body was moved to a funeral home and will remain there until you decide—”
“How do you know?”
“Last night at the apartment, after you fell asleep, I called Romero. He took care of it.”
“How?”
“Digital records. He hacked into the Coroner’s Office and changed the orders for the body’s final destination.”
“Oh my God, Cole.” She stared at him, overcome with indebtedness and adoration and…more. So much more.
Deep inside, beneath the sorrow, something was building, thickening, and growing unstoppable.
“Thank you.” She framed his gorgeous face with her hands and kissed him. Her pain, devotion, desire—she poured it all into the warm union of lips and tongues.
He groaned, breaking the kiss, and they stared at each other. They stared as if they were both expecting some form of emotional breakdown from her. When none was forthcoming, he curved his hands around her hips and hauled her impossibly closer.
“I want you to be happy.” He kissed her slowly. “And naked.”
His tongue stroked. Her breaths shortened, and his fingers traveled everywhere. Caressing turned into grabbing. Soft nipping into passionate biting. Heartbeats accelerated, pounding harder, growing louder.
She met him lick for lick. His cock hardened, swelling against her leg as his hands roamed, worshiping, tearing at her shirt. She twisted to tug the garment over her head, exposed and bare.
He looked at her, panting. She looked back, wanting.
She needed his body pressed against her. His warmth. His protection. His talented fingers deep inside her. His beautiful dick. His possessiveness. The taste of his kiss. The heat of his mouth. She needed him.
“I’m addicted to you,” she breathed.
“I don’t want to be an addiction. I want to be the love of your life.”
Then he was on her, his mouth attacking her breasts and his hand between her legs, shocking her with three assertive fingers delving into her wetness. There was no warning, no warm-up. The intrusion bowed her back and reverberated to the soles of her feet.
He bit her nipples and fucked her with his hand. She bit his lips and pulled his hair, trembling, moaning, burning for him alone.
“I love seeing how much you want me.” He raised his soaked fingers in her periphery.
She kissed him harder, momentarily shutting him up.
With a firm grip on her waist, he pulled her tight against his erection, withdrawing only to yank her back again in a slow, teasing grind. She whimpered, needing him, wanting him to fuck her, her fingers gripping the striated lines of his muscled back, her breasts aching fiercely.
“I’m going to put you on your back with your knees against your shoulders, and you’re going to take it.” He rocked beneath her, hips circling, grinding her on his lap. “I’m going to be so deep inside you you’ll feel me from your cunt to your throat.”
She couldn’t wait.
Rolling her to her back, he looked into her eyes and sank into her body, inch by inch, stroking, panting, working himself in. He groaned loudly, and she nearly choked on her own rapture.
With her body folded in half at the waist and her knees on her shoulders, he fucked into her ruthlessly, tirelessly, his eyes fevered and breaths heavy. The pressure on her muscles created a tightness in her pelvis, increasing the sensations with each delicious thrust he delivered.
His tendons and sinews contracted and stretched as he dug into her, deeper, harder, lunging, spearing, putting his magnificent body to work. The position gave her hands access to his ass, and God help her, she couldn’t stop groping him, her palms molding to the rock-hard shape, basking in the movement of those round sculpted muscles.
He was a high-performing, wild animal with endless endurance. She dissolved beneath his potency, her legs losing strength in the restraints of his hands.
Once he thoroughly pounded the deepest parts of her, he eased up and gave her a break from the stretch. Adjusting her here and there, he straddled one of her legs and hooked the other over his shoulder, scissoring her in a side-straddle.
Her arms lay boneless above her head, putting the upthrust of her chest into his ravenous reach. His hands kneaded her breasts, his fingers punishing the nipples, and his intense gaze never leaving hers as he gave her the most sublime pleasure with the thick, long strokes of his dick.
He had full control of her body in this position, and he took it, impaling her in fluid, possessing thrusts. Her breaths came faster, his caresses rough and greedy. His hips snapped in a fury.
He rode her with a single-minded focus, parting that jaw, staring into her eyes, and chasing her urgent sounds with growly, winded grunts. Then he drove her into a back-arching, body-shaking, screaming orgasm so powerful that she damn near blacked out.
As she fell apart beneath him, he threw his head back and braced himself on outstretched arms, stiffening, shuddering in the throes of his release.
His roaring, volcanic pleasure was such a glorious sight to witness. She could spend the rest of her life doing nothing else but watching him come.
His dark bedroom eyes looked dazed, lust-drunk, and terrifyingly, thrillingly in love as he stared at her and bucked, jerked, and thrust his way through ejaculation. His lips parted. His neck corded, and his gaze clung. He seemed helpless to hold the smallest part of himself back as he spent himself in an endless climax within her.
She was melting. Slipping. Falling like a feather on the wind. As long as she was in his arms, she never wanted to touch the ground.
“Touch the ground.” Danni rudely snapped her fingers, setting Lydia’s teeth on edge. “When you shimmy down, go all the way down. Fingertips to the floor. None of this halfway bullshit. And loosen those hips! Start again from the top.”
After five days of dance instruction, Lydia wanted to wring the woman’s neck. The sweet little blonde from the first night had vanished the moment she donned a leotard. Danni Savoy was a goddamn Dance Nazi.
Every time Lydia tripped, forgot a step, or copped an attitude, she was met with Danni’s withering glare. If her spine bent incorrectly, it earned her a stinging pinch from Danni’s hand. If she did a butt-wiggle instead of a figure-eight-sway, she got a scolding swat on the ass.
Her feet ached in the heels. Her muscles protested every brutal, repetitive movement, and her heart fought it all, because more than anything, it just wanted to heal.
The days and nights swirled into a fugue of sweating and swaying and tapping and sliding. She was naturally uncoordinated, stiff through the hips, and not always receptive to Danni’s criticism.