I felt fulfillment, an answer to that other night when I felt hollow. As dumb as it might have seemed, I felt whole. I felt filled and fulfilled. I was not just a body, I was a heart.
He squeezed into me and our breaths became shorter, the sweat between us increasing. I felt no pain at all, just an expansion, like this was how it was supposed to be. My brain wanted to think about the last time and what happened then, it wanted to compare. But somehow I was able to push those thoughts to the very back and stripped them of their power. They had their power over me for too long and though that battle was far from being over, my body won.
Dex started driving in, his hands tight on the sides of my hips and he pushed forward, each pump harder than the last, a light sheen growing on his forehead, his eyes dark with determination and totally lost in a lust I rarely saw in him.
He came at me over and over again until I was certain he was trying to nail me to the ground, and then his fingers found their way inside me as well, circling around his shaft and tracing my edges.
I leaned back into the ground, raising my hips higher. He groaned in response, his breath getting caught in his throat. He leaned forward and held my arms still above my head, as if I would try and get away, like I was some prey of his. That said, I might as well have been. With his other hand he brought me to an orgasm that rocked me from the inside out. It snuck up on me and caught me blindsided, until I was panting for breath and wondering what the hell just happened, the world spinning deliciously.
I tried to raise my head but he tightened his grip on my arms.
“You’re not done yet, not by a longshot,” he murmured.
I couldn’t protest. He was still driving deep into me, his eyes searching mine and every now and then I felt like he found what he was looking for. Though I forbade my brain from comparisons, I couldn’t help but feel this Dex was all man compared to the last time. We weren’t the same people anymore. I know I wasn’t.
I definitely hadn’t been this woman, the Perry who dug her nails into his ass and begged him to take her home again. Dex did nothing but oblige. He pounded me harder, his fingers swirling until I came again, a multi-colored torrent of sensation that swept me along, tugging at my insides, making feel things I couldn’t dare feel. I was probably crying, probably crying out, probably screaming, and none of it mattered.
And then he finally let loose. His breath thickened, his chest heaved and every single muscle in his body clenched. He wasn’t shy either. His cries echoed from the forest floor to the tree tops and disappeared somewhere where the sun was threatening to make its decline. I’d never heard one man be so vocal before and it only added to the waves of pleasure that were still rolling through me.
When the last of him was milked dry, he fell forward, careful not to crush me on his descent. There was a small moment when I was sure he’d bolt up and walk away into the forest to “think” but that never happened. Instead, he brought both elbows on either side of my shoulders and leaned forward until his nose was flush against mine, back to the same way we’d started.
He kept himself inside me still as our breathing returned to normal. His eyes closed and he whispered, “I want to feel like this for the rest of my life.”
If there was anything left inside of me to melt, it would have. My emotions were drained but still there, simmering under the surface, waiting to surprise me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The longer Dex lied on top of me, his naked body held firm against mine, pressing me into the silver blankets, the more confused I became.
Because I began to think and have thoughts again. And my brain started to analyze. And I realized what the hell we had done and where we had done it. We had almost died, were chased by a creature, then swept by a wild river, almost succumbed to hypothermia, yet we found the time to have sex?
Sensing the change in me, Dex’s eyes flew open and he stared at me intently. “What’s wrong?”
I turned my head and looked away. Our clothes were scattered around us, drying in the sun. “Nothing’s wrong.”
A chill began to spread on my body and I tried to move out from underneath him.
His nostrils flared. “Where are you going?”
He pressed down on me hard but I was already rolling out of the way.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him, getting to my knees, painfully aware I was naked and in broad daylight. “There’s nowhere to go.”
I quickly snatched up one of the space blankets from the ground and wrapped myself in it before the chills had the chance to set in. I grabbed another loose one and handed it to Dex who was on his knees.
“Here,” I told him, placing it in his hands. I walked past him and examined our clothes. They were all still wet, though drying faster than I had thought. “This might take a while.”
“Perry,” he said, sounding confused.
I bit my lip and looked behind me. He was still holding the blanket and it was doing nothing to hide the erection that was barely fading.
“Cover up,” I told him quickly, looking away. “You’ll freeze. And I want to use the blankets underneath you. Maybe if we lay our clothes out on them, they’ll dry faster.”
“Perry, let’s talk about this…”
My mouth twisted. “Talk about what?”
Dex raised his brows and slowly got to his feet. Still naked.
“We just had sex.”
I tightened the blanket around my shoulders. “I am aware of that.”
His eyes grew soft. “That didn’t mean anything to you?”
I jerked my chin into my neck, blinking hard. “Um.”