Page 73 of Sunshine

My hips buck from the sensation, and I can only nod as I reach up to brace myself against him—I feel my orgasm coming, like a building wave across the surface of the ocean, bigger and brighter than anything I’ve ever felt before.

It’s a dizzying thought. The only other person I’ve been with was Jason . . . but it was nothing like this—I don’t know what to make of it.

Wells forcibly pulls the top of my dress down further until my full breast is on display, and he’s completely entranced, as if he’s discovered a trove full of riches. “You’re so beautiful.”

There’s an odd sensation behind my sternum, as if my ribcage is expanding beneath my very skin. I’m desperate for the man who’s already pressed against me. It feels white-hot and dangerous, like it will destroy me if I let it.

He bends his head down to take my nipple into his mouth, his tongue hot as it flattens against the peak, and it’s all I need to tip into the unyielding pool of pleasure. And this time when I cry out from the force of it, he does nothing to quiet me. Instead, hebeams.

“That was so hot,” he says, mouth curved high. He winds his fingers through my hair and tugs my head back, exposing my neck to him. “Can I have you like this?” He presses a soft kiss to the center of my throat as the hand beneath my dress glides across my hip to palm my ass. He rocks against me, and I feel him everywhere. “Please?”

“Yes,” I pant, reaching for his belt—he can have whatever he wants. Right now, I’m willing to give him anything he asks for—my body . . . my heart. He’s rock hard beneath his jeans, the shape of him almost unbelievable. I want to get himout, want to see him for myself.

As soon as I get past the clasp of his buckle and the button of his worn jeans, he helps me push them down his muscular legs—and my mouth goes dry at the sight of him. He’s all hard angles and sharp edges, his thighs straining against the fit of his jeans where they’re bunched halfway to his knees. He reaches over his shoulder to grab the neck of his T-shirt and pulls it over his head. For the second time tonight, my mind completely blanks.

His shy smile tells me he notices the effect he’s having on me, but it slips as his eyes dip to my exposed chest. And once again, he’s enraptured.

Moving to close the short distance between us, his hands wrap around the backs of my thighs behind the skirt of my dress as he lifts me, pinning me against the wall. He settles his hips between my legs, burying his face in a sensitive spot between my chin and collarbone that has me gasping for air. I feel every inch of him pressed firmly against me, and it winds me right back up again.

“Is this okay?” he rasps, fingertips digging into my hips.

“Yes,” I hiss through the pain, loving the way it feels. Loving how much he seems to need this as much as I do.

“Tell me again,” he murmurs, his lips against my jaw. “Tell me I can have you like this.” His voice grows softer. “Tell me this is real.”

I moan as he palms my breast, warmth radiating through my skin. I reach to press a hand to his jaw, forcing him to lookat me. His need is obvious, but I can still see traces of his worry. Of a quiet shame in giving in to what he wants most—knowing what it means.

“Wells,” I say firmly as I heave out a breath. “This is real,” I insist, watching his molten eyes clear as he hangs on to every word. “I’m right here, in your arms, and there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.” My eyes sting with the truth. I know this probably won’t end well—how could it? But all I see is him. All I feel is his body against mine, anchoring me to something that feels a lot like hope, and I know with a newfound clarity that it’salwaysbeen like this: Wells has put my needs first for so long, over and over and over again.

I lean forward to kiss him, and it’s not long before we become a frenzied tangle of limbs and mouths and sticky heat.

“Can I fuck you bare?” he asks, winded. “I haven’t . . . I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

The question sends a shiver through me, an electric edge of power. He’s already positioned where I want him most, it would take only the smallest adjustment to make it count. “Yes,” I breathe.

My body is pliant, especially after the two orgasms he’s already pulled out of me. I feel loose and heavy, but he has no problem holding me up with his hefty thighs and strong arms. He reaches to shove the cotton of my underwear to the side and, despite his size, rocks into me with a single, blazing thrust.

Immediately, his eyes squeeze shut, one palm slapping the wall beside my head to steady himself. “Fuuuck,” he whooshes out. He keeps his body completely still like he’s in anguish.

My chest heaves as I stretch around him, burning and pulsing and at once utterly bent to his will. “Oh my god,” I whisper, pressing my mouth to the notch at the center of hiscollarbone. Wells trembles around me, his quiet vulnerability shining like a beacon in the otherwise dark room.

I find him looking at me, his eyes a liquid pool of emotions: euphoria, anticipation, shame, and a palpable layer of grief that mirrors my own. Because we’ve done it—we’ve irrevocably crossed this line. It’s a freefall plummet into the chasm of everything this could lead to—both good and bad—and neither of us is wearing a parachute.

Somehow, I’m struck by what a relief it is.

“This is real,” I say again with clarity. And I’m grateful when it seems to wash most of that anxiousness away as he leans in to kiss me, open and raw.

And then he starts to move.

I become nothing but flesh and bones as an electric tendril of pleasure pulls taut. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he admits before biting into my shoulder, showing he’s not quite in control. He keeps a hand braced against the wall, his thrusts brutal and vicious and so perfect in all the ways that light me up.

The sounds he makes are guttural, his heat blistering as he sinks further into me. His body cocoons around me, a temporary home that I never want to leave. I lose myself, pinned between the wall and the weight of him, a whole new wave of satisfaction scorching me from the inside out as my boots knock against his bunched jeans.

My mind spins as my body tenses, right on the cusp of losing it. His mouth is hot against my ear as he tells me over and over again how beautiful I am, how he never wants to let me go. It’s when tells me all the ways he plans to fuck me on every surface inside the cabin that I finally launch over the edge. I come hard, so hard my vision blurs andstars seem to float around us. They’re so captivating and beguiling that I almost don’t hear him say it.

“Layla.” His voice is low, frantic. “Fuck, Layla, should I—should I pull out?”

I shake my head, mind buzzing, body deliciously numb. And when I smile, he erupts, concealing his sounds in the crook of my neck. The sounds of his pleasure, of his undoing.

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