Page 36 of Double Apex

His eyes narrow. When I slide a finger into the shirt’splacket, he scoops my hand up and delivers a kiss to my knuckles before placing my hand on my own hip and giving it a pat.

“You’re good at two things,” I tell him, “and I’ve only seen you do one of them.” Reaching for his shirt front again, I flick another button free. “I need the other one now.”

“You’d be angry with us both tomorrow.” He skims a finger down the bridge of my nose. “Also, I’m good at more than two things.”

I close in and kiss him. For a mortifying moment his lips don’t move, but as I’m about to pull back—my cheeks hot with embarrassment—he opens and touches my upper lip with his tongue. His hand slides into my hair and draws me closer as the kiss intensifies.

I suck his lower lip and give it a nip, and he lets out a soft groan just before the hand that was in my hair drags down my back and splays over my ass, holding me in place as he presses his pelvis against mine. I equally want to push my ass back into his hand and shamelessly mash my crotch against his, so I end up sort of doing both, and the undulation makes Cosmin pull in a gasp through his nose.

“I don’t think this is what you really want or need right now,” he insists.

“Bullshit.” I twist open the rest of the buttons on his shirt. “And you want it too.”

“Of course I do.” He responds to my next kiss with a faint moan, then pulls back and looks at me seriously. “But we both know why it’s a bad idea, no?”

“It’s agreatidea.” I give his lower lip a small bite. “I want you to make me feel good for twenty minutes—that’s all I ask.”

“You’re worth more than that.”

“Cool.” I part his shirt and stroke his smooth, rock-hard chest. “I’ll take thirty.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He traces my cheekbone with a knuckle.

I brush his hand away like a gnat. “You’re a total man-whore twenty-four seven, but now that I’m asking for it, you’re getting all emo?”

“Fiery girl. So intense,” he murmurs with a pensive smile.

“Here’s intense for you: I want you tofuck the life back into me,” I demand through clenched teeth. “Then we can forget it happened. Are you game or not?”

The look in his eyes goes savage. He rises on an elbow. The hand he still has on my ass digs in hard enough to hurt, but dear God it’s wonderful to feel something, anything.

“It’s not agame,” he growls an inch from my lips.

I reach between us and jerk open the fly of his shorts. The fabric of his boxer briefs strains across a cock huge and hard enough to make me weak in the knees. I yank the elastic away from his skin, plunging inside and grabbing him with a single possessive jerk.

His eyes glitter. “No.”

“You mean you’re not going to fuck me?”

My harsh whisper is somewhere between furious and taunting. I expect him to pry my hand off that massive hot steelpiston and walk out, but instead he kisses me so passionately I accidentally bite my own lip and taste blood.

“I mean, draga mea,” he tells me, pushing my skirt up, “that we’re not going to forget it happened.”

The next minute could best be described as “a tussle,” in a way that I previously thought was purely for artsy nineties films where people hate-fuck, and there’s no soundtrack aside from angry panting and the noise of thread popping as clothes are wrenched out of the way.

Ardelean is a goddamned beast and it’s exactly what I want. Everything else in my life mercifully blurs like scenery outside a white-knuckle car ride as we claw our way to operational nudity—close enough to get at the parts we need.

The oxford shirt I’m wearing hangs from one arm and my bikini top has been whipped off and tossed. My skirt is twisted at my waist, panties torn free at one side—forcefully enough that the fabric left a welt on my hip. Cosmin gasped an apology into my mouth when I yelped, and my reply was something like “I don’t fucking care—get your cock in me.”

He rises to his knees on the bed, and I wrestle off what he’s wearing from the waist down as we kiss in a frenzy. He collapses on his back to kick his clothes free before springing on me like I’m a prey animal. I thump against the wall while reclining, and Cosmin cradles my head in a way that feels too sympathetic—any tenderness now might bring my sorrow back in a smothering avalanche.

“Don’t be nice,” I snap, lunging for his mouth again.

He makes a noise of assent and I’m relieved he understands.Grabbing the backs of my knees, he hauls me toward him. Two long, hard fingers thrust into me, and he pauses, watching my face. I think he’s testing to see how deep I am, and a wicked smile curls on his lips.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs.

How did it used to annoy me when he said that?It’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

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