Page 101 of Lessons in Heartbreak

My hips rocked forward an inch. Then back.

In. Out. In and out again. Then again.

Each inch gained, I slid farther and farther into absolute heaven. Ruby couldn’t stay still; she met my rhythm perfectly, working herself onto me as each shallow thrust brought me more fully inside.

The screaming impulse to snap my hips forward had me gritting my teeth, and that restless energy had me biting down on her bottom lip until she whimpered. My tongue licked into her mouth, my hands wrapped around her back to grip her shoulders for leverage.

Ruby wrenched her other hip up onto my side, widening her thighs, and I sank in, slick and effortless, like an anchor cutting through water, a groaning sound I’d never made before wrenched from the back of my throat. Helpless desire. Desperate wanting. A crude need to rut into her until we both blacked out from the force of what raced furiously through my veins.

I buried my head into the curve of her neck and felt the trembling of my hands as I held her tight. “You’re so good.”

We paused there, unmoving, as she acclimated. If I closed my eyes, it would be so easy to get lost in the slick, tight feel of her around me. My mouth nuzzled at her jaw, seeking her sweet lips, and Ruby sighed quietly as we kissed.

When the kisses turned sharper, fiercer, the licking of our tongues wilder, she rubbed her breasts against my chest. “Please, please, please,” she chanted.

I propped my weight onto one elbow as I lifted up to watch her face while I slowly pulled back, pushed forward. Pulled back, then pushed forward. Her brow furrowed adorably at the steady drag of my body in and out of hers, and she bit down on her bottom lip when I ground against her when my hips met hers. Pulled back again, holding there until my pulse screamed, my body shook from the restraint it took to stay in place, teasing her that way.

She wriggled helplessly, and my eyes fluttered shut for a moment. When I opened them again, a flush was crawling up her neck into her cheeks.

“Tell me what you want, baby,” I commanded. “I’ll give it to you.”

Eyes locked on mine, Ruby didn’t even hesitate. “Harder.”

She was perfect. So incredibly perfect. All the things I didn’t know I wanted, and she was right fucking here for the taking.

“You sure?” I asked, tilting my head as I made a few shallow thrusts. She was already fluttering around me, her pulse visible at the base of her throat as she made a tortured keening noise.

“Griffin,” she begged. “Please.”

I gave my girl what she wanted. With a ruthless snap of my hips and a loud groan, I bottomed out in one thrust.

Heaven.

I’d never get over this. Never have anything better than her.

Ruby took everything I had for her, over and over and over, and with each pivot of my body, each roll of my hips, each rocking thrust that brought me against her again and again and again, she sobbed against my mouth as she told me it couldn’t possibly get bigger, that it wasn’t stopping, that it kept growing bigger and bigger.

She slapped a hand over her mouth to stem the sounds, and when I slid my hand down between her legs and pressed with my thumb, herback snapped in a powerful arch, and Ruby let out a muffled scream behind her fingers, tears streaking down her temples.

My own orgasm crashed over me, a blistering squeeze of painful pleasure that started at the base of my spine and split out in a wide burst. I yanked her hand away from her lips and grunted into her mouth as we kissed through it.

I didn’t want us losing those noises because we were afraid of someone hearing; I wanted to take hers and give her my own. I wanted the whole fucking world to know that we were doing this to each other, because there was no way anyone else had ever experienced sex quite like this.

I hadn’t, at least.

The truth of that—of how she’d changed me down to my marrow, carving her name somewhere deep and vital where I’d never be able to remove it—had me gathering her into my arms while we kissed in the dark.

And I knew, even as I felt the wild crash of her heart against me, I was never going to have her in the way I wanted.

Chapter Twenty-FourRuby

Fucking oxytocin.

Eventually, I’d blame that for everything. For the fact that waking up with my face pressed into the broad expanse of his chest had me imagining that this was heaven on earth. For the way his arm banded around my back, holding me against his side, was the most poignant and bittersweet of anchors.

Not the kind of anchor weighing me down, but keeping me in a safe, warm place, making sure I didn’t float away into nothing. He was my gravity, and there was no denying it anymore.

After a brief trip into the bathroom to pee and clean up (no one needed a UTI), Griffin tugged me right back toward the bed. There was no time to worry about where I’d sleep or what might happen, because he slipped one of his T-shirts over my head and pulled me straight into his side with a contented grunt.

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