Page 64 of Grift

Another tear falls, sliding hot down over my cheek. He goes to brush it away with his knuckle.

“I don’t want you,” I say again, my voice breaking.

“Then tell me what you do want, darling.” He’s so impossibly gentle.

I want him. I want that – that kindness, that connection, that joy. But for now, I’m done talking.

I reach up to push past him, and he grabs the shirt that I’m wearing and tears it down the front. Expensive buttons pop off a shirt my mother bought for me in Paris, hitting the tile floor with metallic twangs as they roll off into obscurity.

My fingers are wrapping up in his shirt, and I pull it hard enough that it starts to tear at the collar.

Fuck this.

“What I want is you, Patrick. The real you.” That admission is like tearing a piece of myself and laying it bare.

His head falls back, eyes closing for a second.

Our eyes meet, anger, frustration, fury, desire all mixed up and snapping there.

“What do you want from me, Patrick?”

He regards me carefully. “I just want what’s best for you.”

Another surge of anger crashes through me. “And what’s that? Treating me like we’re strangers? You don’t get to fucking decide that. You don’t get to decide that for me. I’m done with people deciding my life for me.”

He reaches for me then, hoisting me up onto the washer. If it weren’t for his hands holding me there with an iron grip, I wouldn’t be able to keep my balance perched on the edge.

Electric blue eyes bore into mine, as he takes my mouth possessively. His kisses are expert, his tongue sliding between my lips and probing. Invading. It’s a hard, hungry demanding kiss. Staking territory, staking claim. It’s exactly what I need, and I can’t stop myself from groaning against his mouth.

“Fuck,” he rests his forehead against mine for one long second.

Heat creeps over my face. No, enough of this. He’s a man of action. Passion. I want it all.

“Fuck me,” I demand.

That’s when I see it: the relief. The need for someone else to take control. Patrick Carney is in as deep as he can get, fighting for oxygen in the world around him, and just needs to let go. That’s what he means about being alive. Sex as a place to get the full experience of his feelings.

That, I can give him. And take for myself. If nothing else, a parting gift to remember this man by.

All I can feel is the mounting frustration, the fury, the tightness that went from my heart to my core at the thought that we might never get this again.

Reaching down, I yank down his boxers in a rough move, his cock springing free. He’s hard and already straining toward me.

“Off,” I say as he’s already stepping out of them, and he slides off the t-shirt that I really wanted to rip but couldn’t manage.

I pull off what’s left of my shirt, discarding it behind me and lift my hips when he yanks off my pants and panties.

“Rough,” I whisper. Less confident, but not less clear.

His eyes are blazing as he pushes my legs apart, dropping his lips to my throat in a kiss that starts gentle. Teeth nip and bite, and then testing, sink in.

“You’re mine,” he rumbles against my throat, kissing and nipping his way to my earlobe. He bites it, hard, and when I push against him in surprise, I can feel the length of his hard cock against me.

His hand slides down between us, easily finding just the right angle to sink first one finger and then two. With the rocking of the washing machine, its almost instantly too much.

Digging my nails into his shoulders, I drag them down and he pulls back in surprise and something else. There’s such pure want there that I do it again, this time harder and lean forward until my lips find his neck. I sink my teeth into him, and he lets out a guttural sound.

“Mine,” I say softly against his neck.

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