Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(59)

It was incredibly intimate, covered like that, his body flush against my back. His lips moved slowly and gently over the back of my shoulders and his hands soothed up and down my arms. He began to rock into me with small rolls of his hips. Not hard, not deep, not nearly enough to drive me to the edge. Leisurely. Like he had all the time in the world to just be there, on me and in me.

I felt protected.

That thought scared me; I’m not sure why. Suddenly I was trying to buck underneath him, to lift my hips and thrust back, maybe even get to my hands and knees so he’d have to move off me.

“Shhh. Take it easy. We’re not in any hurry.”

“You might not be,” I choked. “Fuck me, damn it.”

“When it’s time,” he said patiently. No matter what I did, he refused to be rushed. Eventually my only choice was make him stop or go quiet beneath him and let him do it his way. Once I’d gone still, he began to pull his hips back a bit more, sliding in a little deeper and harder each time, though he kept up the undemanding pace.

“You don’t have to rush, Topher.” His voice was soft and hypnotic, barely more than a whisper, and so tender. His breath warmed the back of my neck. “Not with me. You don’t have to settle for getting off and getting gone, or think a quick, barely satisfactory f*ck with someone who doesn’t give a shit is the best you’re entitled to. You’re better than that.”

I whimpered, rolling my face against the pillow in wordless denial.

“I don’t know your story, and I’m not going to ask for any more than you want to give. But I know, I can just tell from the way you act, that people have tried to take things from you, tried to take you from you. They tried to take away something amazing, something that deserves more, something that wants to shine. I see it. I see the part they never managed to steal, no matter how hard they tried.”

I was beyond words. I trembled beneath him, less from desire now as from something deeper and far scarier. I think I made a questioning sound, asking him to complete the thought even as it terrified me.

“Your soul,” he whispered, answering the unspoken inquiry.

A ragged half sob burst from my lips, bit off at the last instant, and I realized the pillow was damp beneath my cheek. What the f*ck was this? What was he doing? Part of me wanted to throw him off and storm out, and part of me felt anchored in place, mesmerized. I kept trying to convince myself he was being creepy, but it didn’t feel that way. He saw so far into me it was terrifying.

“Please,” I whimpered, frozen with fear and filled with unspeakable need, both to deny what he’d said and to give in to it, to let him get that deep into my head.

Jace drew back, out of me. I moaned when the pressure of his cock filling me was gone, nearly sobbing again with frustration. But he just grabbed a thick pillow and put it next to my hip, then rolled me onto my back with my ass on it. I can’t even imagine what I must have looked like to him—dazed, lost, so damned confused and needy. If he minded, it didn’t show. He just guided my knees up and apart and slid into me again, much more forcefully this time, his hips bumping hard into the backs of my thighs.

“Oh God!” I flung my head back, shouting, but he caught my hair and pulled me into a fierce kiss. For someone who said he’d ask nothing of me, that kiss seemed to demand everything, and I gave it. I gave it all.

He covered me again, his mouth hungry on mine, his hips pistoning, slamming against my ass. His weight pinned me down and kept me trapped while his tongue f*cked my mouth as urgently as his cock was f*cking my ass. I clung to him, overwrought, overwhelmed, my fingers scrabbling on the sweaty skin of his shoulders until he drew off me far enough that I had to grip his forearms instead. He bent me in half and he f*cked me. Hard. Like he wanted to come out the other side. His skin slapped against mine and his grunts underscored my wails. He felt so f*cking good inside me, but the pleasure was almost an afterthought in comparison to the way my thoughts and emotions short-circuited, spitting dangerous sparks, threatening a full-on inferno.

My cries became near screams and still he pounded me, until it ached, until I spewed hot, thick cum all over my stomach. I was so lost in it, I didn’t even feel how tight the grip of his hands had become, nor did I hear his low howl, or feel him pulsing. He collapsed onto me, quaking as I wrapped my limbs around him and whimpered into the curve of his neck. A final spasm rippled through me, leaving me wrung out and stunned in its wake.

I stared up at the ceiling, still gasping and shaking.

What the f*ck had just happened?





You are stronger than your agony

Give it time and I know you’ll see

Everything I can see

—Casey Stratton, “Highway”

I sort of drifted, lost in the afterglow, while Jace cleaned us up. Then he slipped into bed behind me and drew the covers up over us, wrapping himself around me and kissing the back of my neck, right on the knob of my spine above my shoulders, in a spot that I was starting to think of as his.

He was silent, but he wasn’t sleeping. I knew he was waiting, because his plans weren’t fulfilled for the night. He didn’t ask, though, and I didn’t make him.

Sighing, I began to talk. I told him all about Brendan. Everything, more than I’d even confided to Robin and Geoff. I couldn’t see if he was appalled, but his arms never withdrew from around me and there was no judgment in his voice when the tale wound to a close.