IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(63)

So instead, I did as he asked. I bent his knees up and entered him again, matching his groan of pleasure with one of my own. It felt like coming home again, and when he wrapped his legs around me, I didn’t want him to ever let go.

Our eyes locked together in the light of the city night as I pulsed in and out of him slowly and deliberately. His hands moved across my chest and shoulders, my sides and into my hair, but his eyes stayed on mine, solid and open. Trusting and so very present.

There were reams of words I wanted to say to him, confessions to make but also promises. But none of them came. We stared at one another while our bodies wrecked each other, and when I felt the telltale squeeze of Conor’s channel around me, I remembered to give him the order.

“Come.”





23





Conor





The middle of the night lovemaking changed things. Oh, how it fucking changed things.

The man above me wasn’t at all That Asshole I’d thought him to be. He was powerful and domineering, but he was also kind and soft. He gave me pleasure as if mine was all that mattered, and his was nothing but a footnote to be seen to after the fact.

After we’d both come and he’d gently cleaned me again, he slipped into bed behind me and pulled me against him. One arm wrapped possessively around me, pinning me to his body, and I could have almost sworn I felt his lips move in a soundless “Mine” against the back of my neck.

“Yours,” I breathed. I wasn’t sure if he heard me, but his fingers tightened around mine as he pulled me closer.

I felt tears threaten again. I let them come. Because the moment was too perfect, too real, and I wanted it to last forever. It was as if Wells’s bed had become a bubble removed from the real world. Here it didn’t matter that he lived in New York and I had a business in North Carolina. It didn’t matter that he was married to his job and I had a sick mother to care for.

It didn’t matter that he was a man who eschewed relationships. Who refused to trust. Who kept emotions at bay because they were the one part of his life he couldn’t control.

Tonight he’d let that control falter. He’d let me slip through the cracks. But that didn’t mean when morning came he wouldn’t revert to who he was before. Seal the cracks, shore up his defenses, double down on his need for distance.

Except I’d seen him tonight. The real him. As he’d rocked into me, his hands twined with mine, my legs locked around his hips, he’d let his defenses fall away. His eyes had shone with the emotion he normally kept so carefully hidden.

He’d let me see his need, his hunger. His pain. All of it.

I’d seen the truth of Wells Grange tonight, and it had caused my heart to swell. To ache. To need.

And I knew with absolute certainty that what I needed was this man in my bed. In my life. In my heart.

He’d felt that need too. Of that I was certain. It had been clear in the way he looked at me. In the way my name sounded on his lips as he came. The way he clung to me as he emptied himself into me.

The way he held me now, his possessive breath warm against my neck. His lips just a whisper away from my flesh.

This had been no one-night-stand sex.

What that would mean when the sun rose remained to be seen. But for now I snuggled deeper into Wells’s arms. We would figure it out, I told myself. There was no other option.





I woke to the feel of Wells’s lips trailing a path across my shoulder. His hand rested on my ribs, fingers curled possessively around my side. I hummed my appreciation and arched back into him. He was hard and though I was a little sore from the night before, I was ready for round three.

“Morning, sleepy,” he mumbled into my ear before taking my lobe gently between his teeth.

I groaned and ground my ass more insistently against him.

His laughter was deep and still a little raw from sleep as he shifted his hand to my hip, holding me in place. “Easy there.” He dropped a kiss to the base of my neck, spending an extra moment nuzzling the sensitive skin and causing my breath to hitch.

Then he was gone, the cold air stark against my back. He leaned over me, tucking the sheet around me. “Let me freshen up first,” he said, dropping another kiss to the side of my mouth.

I reached for him. “No need to rush off.”

“I’ll be right back.” He winked, the promise clear in his eyes. “I have plans for you.”

I sighed as I watched him shuffle to the bathroom, admiring the way the muscles in his ass bunched and flexed with each step, the unexpected tattoos that had surprised me when he’d stripped his shirt off. It made me wonder if there was more to him that would surprise me, things like the ink that might reveal themselves to me in time.

When he disappeared behind the closed door, I flopped onto my back with my arms thrown wide. I knew I must have had a stupid grin on my face, but I didn’t even care. Because the Wells of last night—the one who’d opened up and shown me his true self—was still here this morning. He hadn’t retreated. He hadn’t woken regretting or second-guessing what we’d done.

Which gave me hope for our future.

My heart was fluttering like a fool’s. I was having feelings for this man. Serious feelings. And I was giddy with it.

Because I was pretty sure Wells had similar feelings for me.