World Enough and Time (24 page)

One tremor after another surged through me, and I thought my spine would fall to pieces along with my mind. I came so hard, so violently, tears welled up in my eyes and my vision became nothing more than a blurry shower of white sparks.

When I could finally see again, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t convince my hips and legs to listen. My body was weighed down, held in place, and I thought I’d simply forgotten how to will myself to move. Then Connor moaned and shuddered, and I realized my paralysis came from him, from his arms wrapped tightly around me, holding me against him while he came.

His arms relaxed. I slumped over him, resting my forearms on his shoulders while I caught my breath.

“Wow, I needed that.” He released a long breath.

“You’re not the only one.”

He smiled and raised his chin to kiss me. With the hunger sated for the time being, our lips moved gently and lazily, as did the trembling fingers running through my hair.

He looked over his shoulder, then back at me, laughing softly. “Well, we made it
to
the bed.”

Shrugging, I smiled. “Close enough.”

He smoothed my hair. “I’m really, really glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” I kissed him gently.

Still half-dressed, my knees raw from the bite of the coarse hotel carpet and my body trembling from the power of my orgasm, I could think of nowhere else I’d rather be.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I dreamed. Of what, I don’t know, but I know I dreamed because when I awoke, I remembered being… elsewhere.

My dream faded and I returned to a world illuminated only by the curtain-dulled glow of streetlights spilling in through the window. The room was silent except for the soft hiss of skin moving across skin, a sound underscored by the slow, rhythmic drawing and releasing of breath.

We were touching. Not just passively, no longer just holding each other in the stillness of sleep, but touching. Reaching. Feeling. We faced each other, lying on our sides, and though sleep still clouded my mind, my nerve endings were alive with awareness of him.

His lips moved lazily against mine and mine responded in kind. Warm skin drifted past my palm, and only when it stopped moving did I realize I’d been running my hand down his side. How long we’d been touching like this, I couldn’t say, but my body was already restless with arousal.

Evidently, my body didn’t need my mind’s permission to respond to his touch. Or was he responding to me? Some contact must have been made in the beginning, but it didn’t matter when or by whom. God only knew who’d started pulling the strings, but whatever the case, we’d come to life. Our bodies were simply drawn together, regardless of our minds. Just as breathing continued into unconsciousness, so too did our desire for each other. Touching wasn’t enough, though, and so our bodies had roused our minds into something resembling consciousness, and the path was clear to satisfying that desire.

Like mine, his movements were slow. Slurred. Languid. Weighed down by fatigue. Probably not fully awake, probably just as caught between here and a dream as I was. Sleep lapped at my consciousness like the tide on a beach, trying to pull me back, and judging by the way his movements ebbed and flowed, he too struggled to stay here.

Sleep beckoned, but still we sought each other, moving closer, moving together. Knowing, but not knowing. Dancing to unheard music, following steps I didn’t know but had memorized nonetheless. His palm tracing the curve of my spine before his fingers tangled in my hair. My foot sliding up the back of his calf when I hooked my leg around him. Lips against my neck parting with the release of a hot breath.

Light and dark followed our lead, shapes playing on our bodies while we moved. Only abstract shapes existed in this half-dream: a sliver of light implying the curve of his pronounced cheekbone, the shadow of his hand just before he touched my face, a soft glint when I ran my fingers through his hair. The air around us was alive, the air between us even more so, and wherever we made contact, I half-expected to see electricity arc from my skin to his.

Movement. Shifting. Imbalance. A suggestion of panic flickered through my mind, but Connor’s body was still against mine, guiding mine, over mine, and when the bed sheets gently caught my back and shoulders, I relaxed.

His hand covered my breast, drawing lazy circles around my nipple with his thumb. For an eternity, he just kissed me and teased my nipple, hypnotizing me with this gentle eroticism.

Eventually, his hand moved farther down, following the curve of my waist and the swell of my hip, then to my inner thigh. His fingertips teased my pussy, slipping in just enough to make my breath catch. They drew lazy spine-melting circles around my clit, and every fiber of my being focused on that delicious contact, on the maddening tension that built with every touch and filled the darkness with sparks of white light. All the energy crackling in the air around us converged, concentrating in the non-existent space between Connor’s fingertips and my clit.

It all released in a silent, shuddering orgasm, the sheer magnitude rendering me completely mute. I held onto him and simply gave in as everything inside me melted and shattered, collapsed and exploded.

When it passed and I opened my eyes, the dreamlike haze was gone. My climax had pulled me into full consciousness, and with consciousness came higher awareness. Specifically, awareness of my need for
him
.

I put my arms around him, but didn’t have to tell him what I wanted. Either he read my mind or he wanted the same thing, because he moved on top of me. His hand ran down my leg and gently hooked behind my knee, pulling it up to his hip. I wrapped my legs around his waist as his shoulder dipped once, then came up, and with one hand, he guided himself to me.

His breath cooled the side of my face and his shoulders rose. Breath slipped out of my lungs at the exact same speed he slipped deeper inside me.

My God, Connor, my body was
made
for yours
.

He moved just as slowly as he did when I was still half-dreaming, but it seemed deliberate now. He wasn’t weighed down anymore, just holding back, as if moving in slow motion so he could really, truly feel me. Every now and again, he stopped. All the way inside me, as deep as he could go, he stopped. Only our lips and breath moved while we lost ourselves in a sensuous kiss. Then he’d start again, withdrawing slowly and resuming his smooth, gentle rhythm.

With a shiver, he pushed himself up and picked up speed, a faint ribbon of light rippling up and down his arm and shoulder with every stroke.

Faster now. Thrusting.
Needing
. The bed protested with half-hearted creaks, just loud enough to push the quiet back, a crescendoing intro making way for something more, something louder. Something that waited just beyond us, ready to break the near-silence.

A tremor drove him deeper, and a heartbeat later, he broke what was left of the silence. It wasn’t a loud cry, just a long, whimpering moan that seemed to echo for miles as he came inside me.

He shuddered, gasped, then sank down to me, kissing me gently. As the aftershocks of his orgasm subsided, we fell back into the lazy, languid touches that had roused me out of my sleep. Our hands moved less deliberately, with less precision, weighed down by sleepiness. After a while, I could barely keep my eyes open, and whenever I closed them, fatigue tried to take over.

Finally, Connor rolled onto his side and I did the same. He held me close and kissed the side of my neck, lacing his fingers between mine.

Warm and satisfied in his arms, I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When my eyes fluttered open the next morning, the room was an entirely different world. Sunlight poured in through the window, washing away the darkness, and the air was vibrant with the life of a new day. The crackling energy from last night was subdued, reduced to a lingering tingle beneath my skin.

In our sleep, Connor and I must have moved apart, because we faced each other now, lying on our sides with our fingers loosely intertwined between us. He was still asleep, his head slightly inclined and one side of his face obscured by the pillow. Stubble dusted his jaw, his hair was just disheveled enough to remind me of how many times I’d run my fingers through it hours ago, and I don’t think I’d ever imagined a man could look quite so beautiful.

After almost a week of waking up without him, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed him until now. Or at least, not until last night, when I just couldn’t get enough of him. After only a few days apart, my desperate hunger for him had become unbearable.

He must have been on the same page. That, or he was just hornier than usual, but whatever the case, he’d been
relentless
last night. He’d hooked his hands under my shoulders, digging his fingers in while he’d fucked me harder, harder, harder, so hard it hurt, and still I’d begged him for more. And I still wanted more. Even while I was asleep.

I’d never been with someone I needed to be with all the time, someone for whom my sexual appetite was never quite sated. Then again, I’d never been with someone I knew would be gone in a short time.

Ah, that’s it
.

Every night we spent apart was a night we couldn’t get back, and we only had a few to gamble with in the first place. Last night we’d made up for lost time because we didn’t have much time to lose.

Maybe this was a taste of what a long distance relationship could be like. Winding each other up via phone and text, followed by as much sex as we could possibly get during a short visit. Just enough to ease the worst of the hunger, not nearly enough to completely satisfy. Maybe we—

No, no, no
, I told myself. There was no sense even entertaining that thought. When he moved away, that was it. This was over. I didn’t want to let him go, but the alternative was something I couldn’t entertain.

Connor stirred, murmuring softly. Stubble scuffed across the pillowcase and his brow furrowed, as if he was trying to decide whether to stay asleep or give in to consciousness. He drew and released a long, deep breath, and I thought he’d gone back to sleep, but when he reached the end of his exhalation, his eyes opened. He blinked a few times, then met my eyes and smiled.

“Hey, you,” he said, touching my face.

“Hey.” I kissed him lightly.
God, I missed you. You don’t even know, Connor
.

He ran his fingers through my hair, blinking again as he woke up completely. “So, what do you want to do today?”

Doesn’t matter. I just want to be with you
. I shrugged. “You know the area better than I do.”

“Hmm, well, I bought the tickets for Alcatraz when I got here, but we still have plenty of options.” A mischievous grin lit up his face. “I did take the liberty of coming up with something to do tomorrow, though. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh?”

He rolled over and picked his wallet up off the nightstand, then returned to his side. “Call me presumptuous, but I thought you might like this.” He searched through his wallet, then pulled out two strips of paper and held them up. “Would you be opposed to spending an afternoon with the Giants?”

“You know me entirely too well.” I plucked the tickets from his fingers. “Against the Mets, no less.”

“They’re not the best seats in the house, but it was the best I could do on short notice.”

I smiled. “Nothing wrong with the cheap seats.”

“So, I assume this pleases you?” He batted his eyes.

I kissed him gently. “Like you even have to ask.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to be displeased.”

“Not a chance of that,” I said.

“Good.” He touched my face. “I’ve been looking forward to this all damned week.”

“So have I.” I gave him a toothy grin. “And I didn’t even know there were baseball tickets involved.”

“Oh, so now you’re more interested in the game, I see how it is.” Clicking his tongue, he shook his head and feigned offense. “I’m touched, Dani, I really am.”

“Oh, shut up, you know what I meant,” I laughed.

“Uh huh,” he said. “You’re just using me for baseball tickets.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining about how I was using you last night before I even knew there were tickets at stake.”

He snatched the tickets out of my hand. “So if I throw these away, will you use me that way again?”

“Don’t you dare.” I lunged for the tickets, but he held them out of my reach. Just when he started to gloat that I couldn’t reach them, I grabbed his wallet out of his other hand.

“Hey!”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” I said.

“Give that—” He reached for it, but I held it to my chest and rolled away.

“Give me the tickets, and you can have your wallet back.”

He didn’t give me the tickets, nor did he speak or reach for his wallet. Instead, he kissed the back of my shoulder, the scuff of his unshaven jaw against my skin making my breath catch.

“That’s not going to work,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” he murmured, kissing his way up to my neck. “Are you sure about that?”

I clutched his wallet tighter, knowing full well he was just trying to distract me enough to let go. But the way his tongue flicked across the base of my neck, and the warmth of his skin when he molded his body alongside mine, and the softness of his lips, and the coarseness of his jaw, and—

“Got it!” He grabbed it out of my hands. Laughing triumphantly, he rolled away, leaving my skin tingling and my body cool wherever he’d touched me.

I turned onto my side while he put the wallet and tickets on the nightstand. When he faced me again, he grinned, looked like he was about to speak, but I kissed him before he had the chance.

After only a second’s hesitation, he returned it. He wrapped his arms around me and rolled me onto my back.

“You never get enough, do you?” He grinned just before he kissed me again.