Destroyed (Lost in Oblivion, #3)(88)

But he couldn’t.

Determination and the blush of alcohol on her cheeks combined into a force that could only be called Margo. It was the only reason he’d lasted as long as he had.

Her hands on his body, the music, the need to stamp himself over her, inside of her—to make her his. He’d lost it.

And now in the crashing aftermath, he’d gone too fast. He hadn’t even realized the words were bubbling inside of him. Denial had been his friend for too many months.

He couldn’t breathe around the stupidity.

The only reason he hadn’t stumbled out of her bunk was because of the gentle glide of her fingertips along his back. She hadn’t spoken, but she hadn’t pushed him away, either.

He pressed his forehead into her shoulder, inhaled their combined scents and her more prevalent honeysuckle, and just let himself own the words. Even as his belly quivered with nerves and fear, he held them close.

In the silence of the moment, the slap of skin and the sounds of Nick and Tori intruded. His body reacted to the sounds and his constant need for her.

He rolled to the side of her bunk, the insulating material at his back as he tucked her ass against his front. He licked along her neck and dragged his nose through her hair to the nape of her neck.

He stroked his hand down over her heavy breasts, plucked at her nipples until she rocked back against him. He tried to put himself back into the box she’d owned since the release party.

The need to give her pleasure, to take her pleasure. To smooth over the huge words that had changed this thing between them. Words that should never have been uttered—both because he was ordered into silence, and because he knew she wasn’t ready to hear him.

Maybe she would never be ready.

He fell back on the things that did make sense. The utter destruction that they raced for each time they got their hands on one another.

The noises outside taunted him.

Nick was making up for lost time, for his self-imposed dry spells that Simon never understood. If he was single, then why would he deny himself?

Each moan from the neighboring bunk seemed to make Margo more fitful. The rustle of sheets, the moans, the slap of flesh. Imagination was a far better aphrodisiac sometimes.

Gauging the culmination of sounds from outside and how they were syncing up in the heated space between them, he knew it wouldn’t take much to bring Margo over.

Maybe that would even overshadow his words for a moment.

He wouldn’t deny them, couldn’t now. Once they were out of the secret spaces inside of him, he couldn’t shove them back. But he wouldn’t use them as a weapon.

They were precious, because he honestly hadn’t thought he had the capacity for them. He’d never known softness. A belt, a backhand, a fist—those were things he understood. The occasional slap on the back from his friends had sustained him for so long.

He hadn’t realized how greedy he was for something bigger than that. Something more.

She was restless against him, her belly and hips undulating to bring his fingers lower. He knew once he touched her silky liquid he’d be done.

He was only a man and the real live sexcapades outside the curtain had pushed him further than he realized.

Margo fumbled above her head and he covered her hand, realizing she was looking for the hidden pocket along the bunk walls. There were no headphones, no iPod, no stash of mints in her hideaway. No, it was far more important.

His fingers found the plastic wrappers of condoms and palmed one. He ripped and fumbled to cover his dick. His one focus had become delving into her warmth. He wanted to hold on to this moment. One that wasn’t taking place in some stairwell or against the wall or acting as a quick fix.

He reached around her and brought her knees up against her body, groaning into her ear as she clung to his arms, her breathing shallow in readiness.

He tucked the head of his cock into her waiting body, hovered there at the precipice of her fisting around him. Knowing that the instant he drove inside he’d be gone, he held them there.

The small, keening noise that escaped her and ended in his name was the catalyst. He thrust inside of her, holding her tight against him as his hips took over. Sweat and the ache of overused abs and thigh muscles frayed the pain centers of his system, but the intense pleasure trumped all of that.

He curled his fingers between them to find the slick, stiff clit that crowned over their joined bodies. Her * so swollen and sensitive that she tried to twist away.

He hushed her as memories of their first time together and her struggle against the pleasure made him hold her tighter. She shook and nearly hyperventilated, but he held her and fought against the blackness that was creeping around his brain and threatening to end this moment.

He wasn’t ready to come yet.

He wanted to ride this release that she was fighting against. Her sob turned into a hiccupping moan of his name and then she trembled.

He buried himself deep and let go. The soul-destroying pleasure wrapped around him, shredded him, then reformed him into something else entirely.

A man who loved this woman.

Completely.

When he woke, he didn’t quite know how the night had ended. They’d been so drained—literally—that they’d both just slipped into sleep.

He was facedown in the bunk, Margo’s chest plastered to his back, one leg between his and the rest of her curled around his side.

He could happily wake like that for the rest of his life. And that was too serious to think about first thing in the morning.