Page 34 of Solstice

I pulsed around his cock and the plug, my smile giving me away. I wanted to fight it. I wanted to shove at him and make him earn it, but the thought of doing thathere,where I was supposed to be America’s Sweetheart,yanked at a filthy, demented part of me. I gave in with little rebuttal. He twisted me around and bent me at the waist, his fingers inching the fabric of my dress up until it puddled around my hips.

“Wow.” He smacked my ass again. “What a fucking beautiful sight. Green reallyisyour color, X.”

“You have less than a minute.”

He made a dark chuckling sound and wiggled the plug out of me. I put my arms above my head, bracing against the crown molding to keep my balance, my head ducked between my elbows. The cool lube made me straighten, but when his fingers pushed inside me, all around me, I bucked against the touch.

“Right there,”I told him.“Yes, yes, yes.”

“You like that?”He crept deeper into my mind, blending our arousal, combining our pleasure. This hadn’t been like the last time; this felt like Lex was seeping into my molecules. I’d never been so intimate with anyone else in my life, not even Carter.

What was happening? And more importantly, why didn’t I want to stop it?

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“There’s my X,” he snarled. “You love this, don’t you? Sneaking up here to do rotten things with the one person you hate most in the world.”

“Do it, Lucifer. Jesus Christ.” I growled the words but felt no wrath behind them anymore. I hated him, and I loved him, and I’d never be able to get enough of either.

He nudged inside me, slow and easy, taking all the fucking time in the world like we didn’t have to be somewhere in thirty seconds. He put one hand on my shoulder and wrapped the other around my waist to fiddle with my clit while he fucked my ass in that tiny alcove. He filled me in every way, in my most private spot. Carter was the first person to fuck me in the ass and he’d done it so well as to make me crave it. Lex brought it to another level.

After all the edging, after hours and hours of foreplay, I should have seen this coming. Lex would be damned determined to make a mess of me, no matter what. He took me until I came in a hard, pounding climax that turned my knees to jelly. I couldn’t hold myself up, and if it wasn’t for his arm bracing me, I would have crumpled to the ground.

My come dripped down the insides of my thighs, and I was certain I’d left a sloppy, wet mess on the floor. Fireworks exploded outside over the river, the countdown now having reached midnight, and I moaned, loud and guttural, clinging to the curtains while my orgasm detonated behind my eyes and around my spine, curling my toes in my shoes, tensing all of my muscles, all at once.

My blood burned and my brain sparked, and the whole world stopped moving for one brilliant moment.Finally. After all goddamned day.

Lex kept going, chasing his pleasure until he found what he needed. He shoved his cock deep inside of me. Once. Twice. He froze on the third time, coming in deep groans and hard kicks, digging his nails into my fleshy hip.

“Happy fucking New Year.” Lex chuckled against my neck, sinking his teeth in nibbles up to my ear and back down again. I tried to move away from him, conscious that we were being missed right this second, but he didn’t let me go. He held me tighter. “Thank you for the wild ride, X.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked over my shoulder at him. “Don’t get sentimental on me, Lucifer.”

A floodgate opened in his mind and images overflowed—how much he had loved our time in the cabin, how much he loved this new rivalry between us, this new intimacy, how much he realized he had loved me his whole life.

He saturated my heart with it, and I nearly drowned, my eyes burning with tears as a sob racked the back of my throat. Then he showed me how he felt during that orgasm, how his pleasure had become mine and mine was his.

“It’s real,”he said.“It’s always been real, X.”

My heart squeezed so hard it nearly punched out of my chest. Maybe he wanted me to repeat it back, or maybe he already had his answer by how quickly my pulse fluttered in reaction. What could I say? I couldn’t deny the swell of thisthingbetween us; it dominated every part of my mind and soul. Was that love? I couldn’t deny that my life would be fundamentally altered if he were gone, that I would likely cease to exist. Was that love?

Maybe he was right. Perhaps this infatuation for each other had always been there. Perhaps I couldn’t let myself admit it until now.

I should have thought more about that sensation of becoming one or what it meant that I’d never experienced that with anyoneexceptfor Lex. But the high of our connection kept me buzzed, and he gave me one last kiss before pulling out of me.

“My mother’s going to be pissed,” I said, wiping myself off with tissues and righting my dress before running my hands over my hair. “I was supposed to do a speech.”

Lex gave me a crooked smile and leaned down to kiss me again. “Just tell her you had better things to do with your mouth.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’ll go over well.”

Drunk with lust and giddy with the excitement of the night, I kissed him slowly, secretly admitting for the first time in my life that I had fallen madly and stupidly in love with Alexei Fairfax.

Miracles really do come true.

Once upon a time, Lex had sworn there would never be a day we’d say we liked each other. And now? Well…

“I love you, Lex,” I told him, seeing no reason to keep it to myself anymore.“I really love you.”

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