She was so warm and soft under my touch. So much the opposite of everything that was locked up tight when she looked at me. She was supple and sweet as she moved in time with my stroking fingers. She moved to lift her head up and I knew she was going to look at me over her shoulder and I wouldn’t be able to deny the connection, the pull to try and save both of us from drowning as the current inside her pulled us farther and farther apart. I let go of her hip and leaned forward to bury my hand in her hair. I pulled with little finesse, sending the tie and a million bobby pins scattering across the bed and the floor. The blond tresses fell in endless, kinky waves across her shoulders and into my waiting hand. I grasped a handful and used it to keep her where I wanted her, which was as far away from me as possible, even though my fingers were inside of her and my dick was happily rubbing along the crevice her perfectly formed backside offered up. I felt her mutter a sound of distress as my belt buckle hit the back of her legs, but I still didn’t stop what I was doing to her. We could both be distressed as far as I was concerned.

She started to make little noises in her throat, and I could feel her body quicken and tense where I manipulated it. She was close to coming, close to letting me give her the one last thing I could, pleasure and memories, and I knew I would regret it if I gave that to her without being inside of her to share it.

I pulled my fingers out of her now dripping core and yanked her closer to the edge of the bed. That had her ass even farther in the air and it took very little effort to sink down deep inside of her scalding heat. I felt her muscles contract around me as my eyes nearly crossed at how good she felt. I might not like either one of us very much at the moment, but there was no denying I would always love this. Worshipping her body with my own was never going to be an ugly or brutal thing. There was no punishment when we joined together, only acceptance and beauty. I was an idiot to think otherwise.

Steam . . . fire and ice made steam. It boiled and percolated between us and bubbled viciously and fiercely.

I couldn’t stand the distance anymore. Couldn’t handle fucking her and not being with her while I did it. So I used the hold I had on her hair to pull her up so that her back was pressed into my front and so that when she turned her head to look at me, our eyes were only a few millimeters apart.

She was crying.

Big, fat tears rolling out of her eyes as we watched each other. I put one hand on her breast and squeezed and the other over her heart so I could feel it beat out my name in code. I slowed down the pace I was moving in and out of her. I slowed my fury down by lightly touching my lips to hers. I slowed my heart down by realizing those tears were the ice she was forever encased in melting. There was hope. It was small. It was fleeting. It hid behind so many other things that felt so much more important. But it was there and it wouldn’t be ignored.

I kissed her for real. Kissed her with everything I had. Kissed her with the desperation and fear that I had felt the first time our lips touched. I kissed her with enough force and fury that I knew she had to make room for it. She kissed me back the same way. It was a collision of lips and teeth. It was a duel of tongues and pounding hearts. It was slippery and messy in all the best ways, and when I mimicked the motion my hips were making as I drove into her harder and harder, she groaned into me and clutched at the back of my head like I was her lifeline.

I wasn’t. She had to save herself, but I would be around waiting on the shore to scoop her up when she did, when the storm she was caught in subsided and the howling winds that were whipping her emotions back and forth died down inside of her.

I rolled her puckered nipple between my fingers and then circled it with my thumb. She panted into my mouth and one of her hands fluttered over mine where I was still holding on to her heart. I caught her free hand and dragged it over the flat plane of her stomach until we were both at the apex of her thighs. I knew how to touch her now, how to make her go off and wilt with just the barest hint of pressure. I knew all her secret spots of pleasure and how to manipulate them to make her break for me.

“I still want to watch, but not today. Today I just want to feel. I want you to feel us together and understand what you’re giving up.”

She made a strangled noise in her throat as I told her to spread her fingers around where I was driving in and out of her body. The added stimulation from her touch and the gentle squeeze she added had my eyes rolling back up in my head as I used my index finger to circle her straining clit. Everything between us was coiled so tightly and ready to snap that neither one of us really needed the extra stimulation, but fuck if it didn’t feel good.

Her fingers had her spread wide and everything was wet and warm as I felt my heart rate kick up and as pleasure almost took me to my knees. I applied even more pressure, used a firmer touch than I normally would on that sensitive little nub that was singing under my fingers, and continued to eat at her mouth like it was my last meal.

Her fingernails raked across the back of my skull and she jerked her head back so that she could scream my name. She wasn’t much of a screamer when we had sex, usually just urging me on with soft little mewls and whimpers that made me feel like I was king of the sheets. But the scream . . . God . . . the earsplitting, brain-rattling, throat-breaking scream was the prettiest sound I’d ever heard. My name never sounded better. She owned it now and I knew there was no way she could deny it after coming apart like that.

I let her go and she folded back over so that I could reclaim my maniacal hold on her hips and ride her hard. It didn’t take long, not with my name still singing in my ears and her body pulling at me with desperate tugs.

I came so hard my vision went black.

I came so hard my knees shook and I almost fell across her back.

I came so hard I felt it in my back teeth.

I came so hard that I knew that she would be feeling me for days and days after I was gone because I would be feeling her.

When my breathing regulated itself and I could see again, I ran both of my hands up either side of her spine and through her now ridiculously tangled hair and shifted so I could pull out of her and kiss her on the back of the neck.

The despair was there again when I separated our spent bodies, but this time it didn’t feel like it was going to crush me. I took a step back from the edge of the bed and hefted my pants back up as she rolled over onto her back and stared straight up at the ceiling. She was so pretty and mussed up and messy from my hands and mouth. Her chest was flushed, her breasts still had pink imprints from my hands, and where her legs were slightly spread we both glistened shiny and real as our good-bye leaked out of her body.