Page 74 of The Front Runner
“More.”
He fucks me harder, his moans echoing my own.
“Harder,” I beg, feeling that telltale coiling sensation at the base of my spine. The one that swirls out around my hip bones and yanks on every nerve ending.
“Mira,” he pants. “How do we feel this good together?”
The tension crescendos under the weight of his words.
He turns my head back toward him to claim my mouth as he pounds into me. “Who fucks you better?”
I don’t even need to think about it. “You do. Always you.”
His hips slap hard against my ass as I push back at him, and I snap. I tumble. I fall hard. “Stefan!” I cry out.
I feel him twitch and throb, spilling his release inside me as my entire body shakes. Our lips clamp together, like an anchor holding us together as we set each other adrift on a stormy sea. We clutch at each other desperately, perspiration mixing, limbs tangling. Joined in every way imaginable.
And I am so far gone I barely recognize myself.
25
Stefan
“Tell me about your mom.”
Talk about a buzzkill. We just had the best sex of my life. The woman of my dreams is sprawled naked on my chest, and she wants to talk about my dead mom? The fingers I’ve been trailing down the indent of her spine stop in their tracks.
“If you want,” she adds. “I’m just curious. You don’t have to.”
“Mira, take a breath. It’s fine. You never need to feel like there’s something you can’t ask me or tell me. After what I’ve been through, honesty is important to me.”
She stiffens, so I keep rubbing her back, wanting to go back to that blissful state of relaxation we were in just a moment ago.
“Nora was…” I’m at a loss for what to say about my mother actually. “Naive. Quick to fall in love. Starved for attention and constantly looking for more. And sometimes in all the wrong places. She grew up in a small town but had a wanderer’s soul. I suppose that’s why she started traveling.” I try to imagine my mother living in Ruby Creek, and I can’t. She doesn’t fit here.
Mira drags a nail over the lines of my abs tenderly. My cock thickens, but I can take her again in a bit. I’m kind of enjoying the quiet solitude of talking with her, even about something I never say out loud. She has this way of making me feel safe, like she’s really listening, not just humoring me to achieve some end. She genuinely enjoys our conversations, and somehow that’s more flattering than anything else she’s said or done. Her attention is healing.
“She was also strong and driven. Curious. She would pack up and hit different countries for a few months at a time. Traveling on a budget. Hitchhiking. Working odd jobs to make ends meet. And then when she depleted her bank account, she’d come back here and work whatever jobs she could find to replenish her accounts before taking off on another adventure. Until she went to Romania and met Constantin. Then her travels stopped, and that’s when she was pregnant with me. He essentially locked her up and threw away the key. She should have hated him for it; instead she loved him to her dying day. Even against her better judgement.”
“It’s sad, you know?” Mira muses. “She sounds like a fascinating woman—a free spirit—the way you describe her. It seems a real shame to tie her down that way. I wonder what she could have done with her life under different circumstances?”
I take a deep swallow. I’ve been so angry at her for so long, so busy wallowing in my pity, that I haven’t let myself consider how truly sad her story is. “I’ve never quite thought of it that way. Mostly I think about how badly they fucked up Nadia and me.”
“I think your experiences have shaped you in ways you don’t even see.”
“Yeah, yeah. Morally gray. I know.” I roll my eyes up at the ceiling and sigh, feeling tired of always being labeled the bad guy. “And they’ve shaped a crooked nose.”
“I like your nose.”
My heart seizes in my chest. “You do?”
I’ve left my nose as a sort of reminder. I could have had it fixed by now, but then I wouldn’t be able to beat myself up over not keeping my mom and sister safe every time I look in the mirror.
Mira clambers her naked body on top of mine, looking straight down into my eyes. “I do,” she says before delicately kissing the bridge of my nose. Her finger trails down in its wake, making me feel more self-conscious than I have in years. “I’ve always thought you were devastatingly handsome. Alluring.” She kisses me again, more slowly this time. “The nose. The accent. The quick tongue. I’ve always been drawn to you. Even when I barely knew you.”
I bask in her attention, soaking up her sweet words like medicine. Loving that this attraction wasn’t one-sided.
She tips her head and presses a kiss to the center of my chest. “You’re not morally gray. You walk the line of being intensely supportive without being overbearing perfectly. Look at Nadia. Look at me. Life gave you some sour fucking lemons, and you added the sugar and made yourself some lemonade. You love so fiercely. I think she’d be proud of you. Just like I am.”
