I swallow down the hard ache in my throat, my lips swollen and throbbing from the kiss. “Is it supposed to feel wrong?”
He pulls back to stare at me. “Oscar Wilde said, I can resist anything…except temptation. You are temptation, unadulterated and wrong in all the most alluring ways, and I’m too weak to resist you.”
I’m supposed to feel hurt or insulted. Maybe if I was born of flesh instead of stone I could feel the injury, but all I hear is the crack in his voice, the waning of his will. My opening to slip inside and take charge.
My fingers work the buttons of his shirt open and I shed the soaked material off his shoulders. “Wilde suffered for his conflict.” I lay my hands on his bare chest. He shivers at the intimate touch. “Don’t make me suffer, Alex. Not when we know how to cure our ailment.”
I glide my hand down his taut stomach, my fingers discovering the firm V of his abdomen, and undo the snap of his slacks. That one action decimates the tentative control holding him back.
With a low groan, Alex tears at the wet clothing separating us. He recklessly removes my shirt to bare my breasts to the elements. My nipples find heated friction against his chest as we move through the water, losing the remaining pieces of our clothing.
His mouth is on mine as we pass under the waterfall, the kiss tasting of river and mist. The intoxicating mix of icy water and our heated lips arouses something ravenous inside me, a starvation I sense in my flesh as I tangle myself around him.
As my back hits the rough surface of rock, Alex grasps my thighs and hoists me up against him, driving a needy ache deep inside. I moan against his mouth, the sound muffled by the kiss and the fall of water around us. He feels the need in it, though, because his tongue delves deeper as his fingers dig into my skin.
He’s hard and pushing at my entrance. I undulate against him, sliding my sex over his length and eliciting the sweetest growl. Alex is all strained muscle and heavy breaths as he grinds against me, working past the water to reach my wetness and, when he gets the satisfaction he’s seeking, exhales a fervent curse.
A tender pain pinches inside my core. My thighs clench around him, coaxing him closer. “I need you inside me,” I say, my voice thick with that demand. “Alex, now—”
It’s the plea of his name that levels him. With aggressive urgency, he reaches above to grip the rock overhang, gaining leverage as he lifts me onto the smooth precipice of stone to position me right where he wants me.
A moment where our eyes lock and everything between us—past and present, lecherous desire and venom—is said in that exchange before he slams inside me with a devastating thrust.
I sink my nails into his back as his face hovers above mine, those intense blue eyes regarding every shift in my expression. For once, I have no control over what he sees.
He’s inside me, and I’m shaking.
I’m numb and yet I feel everything. He releases his hold on the rock and places his hand alongside my head as he pulls out only to drive in deeper, filling me completely. I want him to smother me with his body so he can’t read me—but his gaze won’t stray. He’s greedy and wants to observe every reaction.
My knees dig into his sides as I lift my hips to meet his forceful thrusts. The sound of our flesh crashing against each other ricochets off the rock and water, amplifying every lustful craving.
I’m just as greedy, loving the way his eyes crease, the way his features tense, straddling the edge of elation and torment. Then he’s kissing me with a fire meant to sear, meant to make me feel all the anguish and carnal sin devouring him.
And I want to feel it. For the first time, I’m envious of his ability to experience such intense passion. A bitter seed burrows in the hollow shell where those dormant emotions lie and take root.
He’s touching me everywhere, as if he can’t decide where to focus. Fury brims in his gaze, a wanton rage that begs to be sated. “Fuck, Blakely. You’re so damn beautiful it kills me.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to see him or hear his breathy words of admiration. I focus on the physical indulgence only, letting the hedonist within dominate. The first burst of yearning crests, sending a pleasurable shockwave through my body.
The rock beneath us is cold and ungiving, but our bodies are furnaces, creating a torrid den out of the harsh elements. We’re unfeeling of anything other than the unbearable hunger that makes us slaves to our senses.
His weight bears down on top of me as he kisses a tantalizing trail to my neck. He tastes my skin, moving down to suck my breast, where he flicks his tongue over my nipple. Charged waves crash over me. My hands are on him and then the rock, searching for something solid to grip as the sensations tear through me like an electric current.
And with that thought comes a flash of the last session. Strapped to the gurney. Paddles clamped to my temples. Severe pain stabs at my head, blinding white light webs across my eyelids. Panic is a lead weight in my chest, fear that it will concave under the pressure.
“I can’t breathe,” I say around a gasp, but my body claims differently, my lungs struggling to drag in each inhalation. The higher I climb, the heavier the weight pushes down, and I cling to Alex, unable to stop the onslaught. “Oh god, more. I need you deep inside me, Alex.”
He answers my demand with a powerful thrust as he buries himself inside me, shattering the fragile and tenuous insulation that’s been holding me together.
I break.
We’re flesh and bone. A conflict of soft and callous. Every tender surface of our bodies grates against rigid rock, shredding us bare layer by layer. The sharp edge of stone slices into my hand. I smear my palm along his bicep, across his chest, fascinated by the dark trail of blood staining his skin.
It’s intoxicating, and I’m intoxicated with his scent and his arousing sounds. His groan rumbles against my ear as he grows harder inside me, and I arch my back, needing him to touch every inch of my skin.
I bite down on his shoulder. The pain urges him on, the way the burn of the rock against my flesh steers me closer to that maddening edge.
He cups the back of my head, holding me tight to him. “I never want to stop.” His words race with his erratic movements. Every pulsing, painful lunge deeper teeters us both closer to the precipice.
“Don’t ever stop,” I hear myself say.
“Ah…fuck. I want all of you.”
The confession digs beneath my Teflon layer—all the pain and bliss and elation sets something fierce and uncontrollable free.
Alex hooks an arm beneath my knee, spreading my thighs wide so he can get even closer. He fucks me hard. He fucks me with wild, insatiable abandon that destroys the last of my sanity and control.
And when I feel the building pressure, I push back against him to alleviate the achy need tearing through me.
“Fuck, Blakely… I love you.”
His words spear me, and the burn blazes through my body like a brushfire. I squeeze my eyes closed as I try to hold back the dam, only the hot sting of tears threaten, and the release gives over to something volatile and explosive as it rips through my chest.
“Oh, god…it’s too much—”
“Let go.”
A war rages between us. My fight to restrain; his struggle to make me release. Soon the clash unfurls a light from the darkest corner—and I can’t fight anymore. I’ve lost.