Page 166 of Carrick
“You are such a menace.”
“I told you I would be.”
“I thought you were bluffing.”
I let my fingers drift lower, just to feel the way her stomach twitched under the touch.
“Have I ever bluffed about what I’d do to you?”
She peeked at me from under her arm—eyes softer now, unfocused from exhaustion and release, but still glowing with that look that punched me square in the chest every time.
“No,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
I leaned down and kissed her. Not hungry this time. Not demanding. Just… coaxing. Deep and slow, like I needed her to taste the wreckage she’d left in me. Because I wasn’t untouched by this. Not even close.
Her scent clung to my skin. Her moans echoed in my head. The heat of her thighs trembling around my hand still burned against my palm. Every inch of me thrummed with the memory of her—slick, aching, wrecked for me. My chest ached with it. My cock still pulsed, hungry for what I hadn’t finished taking. And if she had looked at me in that moment, eyes hazy, mouth parted, whispering more—I would’ve given her everything. Fucked her until the sun bled through the blinds and we were nothing but sweat and bruises and the kind of pleasure that leaves you marked for days.
But she didn’t. She just curled into me—bare skin sliding against mine, warm and bare and unguarded—and tucked her head beneath my chin like that’s where she’d always belonged.
Her fingers brushed along the stubble of my jaw, soft and aimless, like she couldn’t help touching me even now.
“You’re dangerous,” she whispered.
I smiled into her hair. Pressed a kiss to her temple.
“You’re the one who brought the blanket,” I murmured.
That earned a laugh—real this time. Quiet, shaky, but real. Her whole body moved with it, and I felt it all, every flicker of warmth she let me hold.
And then… she stilled. Not just her body, but something deeper—like whatever had broken loose inside her had finally found a place to land. Her breathing slowed. Her fingertipsquieted against my skin. The chaos eased, leaving only silence and the echo of release.
When she spoke again, it was barely more than a breath.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t ask what for. I didn’t need to. It wasn’t just about the teasing or the orgasms, or that I’d played her body like an instrument and left her in shivering pieces. It was the way I’d stayed. The way I hadn’t flinched when she unraveled or pulled back when she went quiet instead of loud. I’d seen all of her chaos and cracks and molten edges, and I hadn’t left. I never would.
My hand traced the slow, reverent path down the curve of her spine, memorizing each vertebra like a verse, each warm dip of skin like a secret. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder, soft and claiming, like she was holy and mine all at once.
“You don’t have to thank me, Bellamy.”
She exhaled—a long, quiet release that sounded more like hope than belief, as if she didn’t quite trust the safety, but she wanted to.
“I know,” she whispered. And then, even softer: “Thank you.”
Again. Like once wasn’t enough. Like the words were standing in for everything she didn’t know how to say.
I didn’t answer. Just pulled her closer, her bare leg hooked over mine, her breath slow and warm against my chest. Silence settled between us—not awkward, not hollow, but something rare and reverent. It was the hush that follows when two people have taken everything from each other and still, somehow, ache to give more.
And when her breathing deepened, and she finally slipped into sleep beside me, skin to skin, chaos to calm, all I could think was?—
This woman wrecked me.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to be whole again.
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Carrick
