Page 36 of Holly & Hemlock
He fumbles at the buttons of my shirt—his hands are too big, too calloused for such delicate work—so instead he just yanks the fabric apart, popping two buttons into oblivion and baring my shoulders to the air. The cold hits for an instant, but Lane’s body heat closes the gap, burning it away. He drags his mouth down my throat, tongue mapping the line of my clavicle, and I gasp, hands winding into the thick pelt of his hair.
Lane kneels, pressing his mouth to the flat of my belly, teeth scraping lightly, and I realize he’s not going to let this be simple or brief.
He peels away the layers with brute efficiency—my jeans, socks, everything, until I’m naked except for the wool blanket still hanging off my shoulders. His own shirt goes next, then his undershirt. The sight of his chest, broad and mapped with scars and a light dusting of hair, has my heart thumpingagainst my ribcage. He is so raw, so real I want to touch every inch of him just to confirm it.
He pushes his pants down, no underwear in sight. Just pure, raw man. His cock is massive, hard and veiny and throbbing, and I can see a bead of precum leaking from the tip. But I have no more time to admire it with my eyes because he’s moving back to me.
He lifts me again, this time so our hips align, and there’s a moment—a heartbeat—where he looks at me, eyes blown wide and pupils huge in the half-light.
“I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you,” he says, like it’s a confession or a prayer.
I want to say it back, but my mouth is full of a moan when he enters me fully in one brutal thrust. It nearly knocks the air out of me.
Lane is enormous, and he’s not interested in being gentle at the outset. I brace my hands on his shoulders, nails digging in, and meet him thrust for thrust, refusing to be anything less than equal to his force. Or at least try to be. Lane is big. Strong. A force to be reckoned with.
The table rattles under us. The clock ticks madly on the wall. The stove coughs sparks, and the room flashes red.
Or maybe it’s just my vision.
Lane’s hands move everywhere—my back, my ass, my hips—pulling me in, grinding us together with a purpose that borders on the feral. He bites my shoulder, not enough to break the skin but enough to leave a mark.
I arch against him, the wool blanket has fallen at some point, and the cold air is exquisite, every nerve awake, every inch of me alive to the collision.
He changes the angle, hikes my legs around his waist, and the pressure inside me goes from good to unbearable. I moan, shameless, and Lane’s head snaps up, eyes wild.
“Fuck, Nora,” he says, barely more than a growl, and he starts to lose it, pace ragged, rhythm abandoning all pretense of control. “This cunt is so perfect,” he says with gritted teeth and rougher thrusts. It’s like he can’t get enough, can’t get far enough inside me.
I meet his gaze, daring him to break.
He does, spectacularly.
Lane pins me to the table, arms caging my head, and pounds into me with an abandon that’s reckless. It is exactly what I want—not careful, not measured, but wild and desperate and alive. The sweat on his back is slick under my palms. Every thrust stokes the heat in my core, each impact sending sparks up my spine, and soon the sensation is so big it blots out everything but the fire between us.
I come first, a whiteout behind the eyes, every muscle in my body locking down around him. Lane’s face contorts, and he shoves harder, chasing me through it, his hips slamming the edge of the table so hard I worry it might break in two.
He follows a second later, the release shuddering through him in a way that makes him seem suddenly, shockingly human. I feel his cock twitch with release, feel him fill me up, and a deep, primal need is fulfilled in me. I don’t understand it, but I have no time to question it.
He doesn’t collapse, though. He holds himself up, forehead pressed to mine, both of us gasping, the only sounds our uneven breaths and the dying yowl of the storm outside.
For a minute, neither of us moves. The cold creeps in again, wrapping my legs and arms, but Lane only pulls me tighter, tucks my head under his chin, and rocks us gently, as if he’s trying to memorize the shape of this moment.
Eventually, he sets me down, careful, and wraps the blanket around my shoulders. He finds a clean towel, wipes away the sweat and mess with hands thattremble just a little. He says nothing, and neither do I. There are no words for this, not in any language I know.
I climb onto the cot, Lane behind me, his chest pressed to my back, his arms a vise around my waist. The storm outside fades to a lull, the wind exhausted, the snow settling in heavy drifts.
For the first time in months, I am warm. Not just in my skin, but deep in the marrow, where the cold used to live.
I sleep, and when I wake, Lane is still there, still holding on.
I think, maybe, that I will never let him go.
10
Cold
After Lane got the East Wing roof covered in a thick tarp, I find him in the garden, at work with the branch lopper and a flat-bladed shovel, carving a path through the tangled aftermath of last night’s wind.
He moves through the drifts as if the snow were a stubborn animal, something to be coaxed or bullied into submission. The sun, pale as milk, does nothing to soften the world, reflecting off the snow and turning everything impossibly bright.
