Ugly Love: A Novel(45)

I place my hands on his shoulders and begin to straddle him while he slides on the condom.

“Keep it quiet,” he says teasingly. “I’d hate to be the reason you get fired.”

I glance at the window, still unable to see outside. “It’s raining too hard for anyone to hear us,” I say. “Besides, you were the louder one last time.”

He dismisses that with a quick laugh and begins kissing me again. His hands grip my hips, and he pulls me to him, readying himself against me. This position would normally cause me to moan, but I’m suddenly feeling stubborn with my noises now that he’s mentioned it.

“There’s no way I was the louder one,” he says with his lips still touching mine. “If anything, we tied.”

I shake my head. “I don’t believe in ending things with a tie. That’s a copout for people who are too scared they might lose.”

His hands meet my hips, and he’s positioned against me in such a way all I would have to do to take him inside me would be to allow it to happen. However, I’m refusing to lower myself onto him simply because I like competition and I feel one about to begin.

He lifts his hips, obviously ready to get things going between us. My legs tense, and I pull away just enough.

He laughs at my resistance. “What’s wrong, Tate? You scared now? Afraid once I’m inside you, we’ll both see who the loud one really is?”

There’s a challenging gleam in his eyes. I don’t verbally accept his challenge to see who can stay quieter. Instead, I keep my eyes locked with his while I slowly ease myself onto him. Both of us gasp simultaneously, but that’s the only sound that passes between us.

As soon as he’s all the way inside me, his hands meet my back, and he pulls me against him. The only sounds we make are heavy sighs and even heavier gasps. The rain slapping against the windows and the roof magnifies the silence we’re experiencing inside the car.

The strength it takes to hold back is coupled with a need to hold on to each other with more desperation. His arms are around my waist, gripping me so tightly it makes it hard to move. My arms are wrapped around his neck, and my eyes are shut. We’re barely moving now because of the tight grips we have on each other, but I like it. I like how slow and steady our rhythm remains while we both focus on how to continue suppressing the moans caught in our throats.

For several minutes, we continue in the same manner, moving just enough but at the same time not nearly enough. I think we’re both too afraid to make any sudden movements, or the intensity will cause one of us to lose.

One of his hands glides around to my lower back, and the other hand meets the back of my head. He takes a handful of my hair and gently tugs until my throat is exposed to his mouth. I wince the second his lips meet my neck, because staying quiet is a lot more challenging than I imagined it would be. Especially since he’s at an advantage with the way we’re positioned. His hands are free to roam anywhere they want, and that’s exactly what they’re doing right now.

Roaming, caressing, trailing down my stomach so that he can touch the one place that could make me cede victory.

I feel like he’s cheating somehow.

As soon as his fingers find the exact spot that would normally make me scream his name, I tighten my hold around his shoulders and reposition my knees so that I have more control of my movements. I want to put him through just as much torture as he’s putting me through right now.

As soon as I’m repositioned and able to ease myself further onto him, the slow-and-steady disappears. His mouth meets mine in a frantic kiss—one with more need and more force than any kiss before it. It’s as if we’re attempting to kiss away our natural desire to verbalize just how good this feels.

I’m suddenly hit with a sensation that ripples through my entire body, and I have to lift myself off of him and hold still before I lose. Despite my need to slow things down, he does the opposite and applies more pressure to me with his hand. I bury my face against his neck and bite down gently on his shoulder in order to stop myself from moaning his name.

The second my teeth meet his skin, I hear the hitch in his breath and feel the stiffening in his legs.

He almost loses.

Almost.

If he moves inside me even an inch more while he’s touching me this way, he’ll win. I don’t want him to win.

Then again, I kind of do want him to win, and I’m thinking he wants to win with the way he breathes against my neck, gently lowering me back down onto him.

Miles, Miles, Miles.

He can sense that this isn’t about to end in a tie, so he adds more pressure against me with his fingers at the same time as his tongue meets my ear.

Oh, wow.

I’m about to lose.

Any second now.

Oh, my word.

He lifts his hips when he pulls me against him, forcing an involuntary “Miles!” out of my mouth, along with a gasp and a moan. I lift off of him, but as soon as he realizes he just won, he exhales heavily and pulls me back onto him with more force.

“Finally,” he says breathlessly against my neck. “I didn’t think I could last another second.”

Now that the competition is over, both of us let loose completely until we’re being so loud we have to kiss again to stifle our sounds. Our bodies are moving in sync, speeding up, crashing harder together. We continue our frantic pace for a few more minutes, escalating in intensity until I’m positive I can’t take another second of him.