Deep End

SOMETHING WAKES ME UP—NOT SURE WHAT, BUT IT MUST BE outside my own head, because the second I open my eyes, I feel Lukas stir behind me, and the slow glide of his warm body against mine under the covers.

I’m tucked into him, his heavy body wrapped around mine like I’m a pillow or a beloved stuffed animal, something for him to use, a means to a better rest. One of his legs is thrown over both of mine, and his chest is hot against my spine, pressing the right half of me into the mattress. Even in sleep, his arm is clinched around my waist, making deep breaths impossible. I can’t recall ever being this close to anyone. Objectively, I am uncomfortable, overheated, and held within an inch of my life.

I love it.

So much so that my first coherent thought is for Pen: When, how, why was she okay with giving Lukas up?

Lukas, who’s slowly coming awake. He kisses the curve of my neck, ticklish against my tender skin. Beard burns, I think. He left those behind last night, and I’m going to have to do something about that before anyone sees me in a swimsuit—but that’s not until twenty-four hours from now.

“You always smell so good.” It’s a low murmur that purrs through his chest, directly into my bones. He inhales deeply, doesn’t loosen his grip.

The opposite, really.

“I smell like you.” I’m boneless. Lazy, as though coming out from centuries of hibernation. “And the stuff we did.”

“Exactly my point.” Another soft nuzzle. His arms tighten around my torso, crossed, pulling me deeper even though there’s no air left to fill. “Do you always thrash around in your sleep?”

“I thrash around?”

I feel his nod against my nape, followed by a light kiss, followed by a scrape of teeth, followed by a mumbled “Had to restrain you.”

“I had no idea.” Josh never mentioned it. “It does explain the state of my bed every morning, though.” I attempt to turn. Lukas won’t allow it, but I feel how hard and warm he is against the lower curve of my ass. He doesn’t seem impatient about it—nothing about the way he’s holding me broadcasts anything but a hug, but . . . Are we going to have sex again? Do I want to have sex with him ag—

Yes.

Undisputedly, yes.

Before, though, I should clean up. “May I go to the restroom?” I ask jokingly.

He pretends to think it through. “If you must,” he says, a low, put-upon rumble that has me laughing, and him kissing my cheek again, and then, after a too-lingering moment, letting go. I sit up on the edge of the bed, facing away from him, and—

Ouch.

I twist my fists into the sheets, because it hurts. There’s a sharp ache right behind my belly button, and where my thighs meet my abdomen. Muscles worked too hard and too long.

I hide the flinch in my step and close the door behind me, cheeks burning. The thing is, I’d hate for Lukas to decide to hold back next time. I need him to spare me no quarter and never hesitate. But when I look at my naked body in the mirror, I nearly gasp. I trace the map of what we did last night on my skin like it’s a pilgrimage: the red abrasions of his stubble; the bluish bruises on the edge of my left breast; a purple coin blooming on my hip bone; chapped, swollen lips.

Wrecked.

I look absolutely wrecked. I look like I’m something that belongs to Lukas, something he handled with strength, something used in precisely the way I asked for in that damn list. No more, no less. Brought to the edge and no further.

Warm satisfaction blossoms in my stomach. This is it, the feeling I’ve been chasing. Not just the orgasms and the pleasure, but this sense of compatibility. My needs, met by Lukas’s. We match, I think. The relief of knowing that the things I want are complementary to someone else’s almost overwhelms me.

When I collect myself enough to go back, I find Lukas right outside, leaning against the wall. He put on a pair of gray joggers, and holds a glass of water in one hand, a gel capsule in the other.

I recognize it from decades of muscle soreness: Advil.

So much for hiding anything from him.

I make no comment and swallow it. He looks at my naked body, at what he’s done to me, like I’m some kind of Olympic medal. Hungry, proud, eager. Other things I can’t disentangle from the intensity of his focus.

His hand lifts to brush against the bruise on the side of my breast. “Is this the point where you look contrite and say that you’re sorry?” I ask neutrally. Truth is, I’m afraid. What if he regrets it? What if I’m too much?

He says nothing. His thumb presses into the mark at my waist—a perfect match. Lock and key. “Should I apologize about these, too?”

I huff a small laugh. “You don’t sound apologetic.”

“Because I’m not.” He shrugs, and it hits me like a freight train, how attractive he is—not because of the muscles and the bone structure, not in general, but to me. Because of who he is, and who I am. “You love to be hurt, Scarlett. Just enough pain that you won’t even think about not doing what I ask.” He leans down. His skin is rough against my cheek. “I love giving that to you, and I’m going to for as long as you’ll let me.”

I shiver. Not in fear.

“Drink all of that,” he orders, and after the glass is drained, he picks me up and sets me on the edge of the bed.

“I should leave before your roommates wake up.”

His lips tighten, displeased, but he nods and plucks my top from the floor. “Arms up,” he instructs. I obey, trying to remember the last time someone dressed me. It feels nice.

“Lukas?”

He glances at me.

“Am I doing it right? This whole . . . thing.”

He knows exactly what I’m asking, but he continues shaking out my skirt. His reply is unrushed. “I don’t know if it’s right, but this is . . .” His mouth flattens. “You are exactly what I wanted.” The skirt drops, forgotten. “I think . . .” He’s so rarely hesitant, or lost for words, I almost don’t recognize his confusion for what it is. “I’d imagined it a lot. Ever since I became aware of sex, before I had a name for it. And I’d hoped that it would feel good, but this . . . I just didn’t know it could be like this.” His jaw works, like there are words he wants to say that won’t come out.

“The stuff on the list.” My tongue is too thick in my mouth. “You can do it. All of it. You don’t have to hold back.”

He looks down at my body, amused. “Does it feel like I’m holding back?” It’s gentle but fast, the way he presses me down on the mattress, one wide palm warm against my sternum, hot through the thin cloth of my shirt.

“I just don’t want you to—”

“Does it?” His fingers stretch my legs open, find bruises I overlooked, press into them like pegs into holes. The pleasure of the pain licks up my spine and quickens my breath. “Am I taking it too easy on you, Scarlett?” Teeth scrape against my jaw. “Am I being too nice?” His bite tightens, and—oh my god.

The tentative Lukas of a minute ago is gone. I stare up at him and can only say, “Please.”

“Please, what? Please, stop?”

I shake my head.

“Please, make me come?”

I bite my lower lip, suddenly embarrassed.

“Please, fuck me? In your sore little cunt?”

The nod erupts out of me, urgent, unplanned. It surprises both of us.

He frowns. “Come on, Scarlett. You need a break—”

“Please.”

It wars on his face for a split second, the question of what to do, but he trusts me to know what I can take. He takes himself out of his joggers. Straddles me. Pulls up my shirt and sucks on my tender nipples till I’m squirming from wanting more and less at once. His knees press against the outsides of my thighs, knocking my legs together, and I whimper, about to protest that this is not . . . I really want him to . . . why is he—

But then he hushes me and I feel it. The fat head of his cock bumping against my clit, a forceful push, a hot, burning, immense stretch that makes me tense like a bowstring, and then he’s inside and—yes. The walls of my cunt start fluttering around him. The ache gives the pleasure a cruel, beautiful edge.

“Christ, you’re tight.” His face buries against my neck. “Like I didn’t spend last night fucking you.”

He moves slowly, like wading through water, teasing sharp breaths out of me. It hurts. It feels better than good. I can’t take it anymore. If he stops, I’ll die. It’s not enough.

“Deeper,” I plead, because his strokes are too shallow, just a couple of inches filling and then emptying me again. I try to angle myself to get what I need, stilted little rolls up against his cock, but his palms pin mine above my head, fingers twined together, and my thighs are crammed between his, pressed together by his knees. He controls every movement, every glance, every exit route.

“Lukas,” I sob. He ignores me. I try to open my legs, but he’s stronger. The display of force only revs me up higher. “Deeper,” I beg. “All the way.”

“Not this time.” His teeth close around my earlobe, a threat, a mean little warning. I moan. “Quiet. You’ll take what you’re given and thank me for it. Won’t you, baby?”

I nod. I’m so, so close—because of the things he says, the way he moves, his unyielding hold on me. I’m a wet mess of tears and slick and the tightrope of all my muscles.

“You know I’m going to fuck you whenever and however I want,” he says against my ear. “Just be patient. You can be patient, right?”

I nod, desperate.

“You can be good?” I clench around him, gripping the end of his cock. His response is a half-groaned laugh. He has to collect himself and pull back from the brink. “You’re going to come already, aren’t you?”

God, I hope not. I hope I can make this last. Who knows when the next time will be.

“That list, Scarlett?” His mouth slides against mine, messy, uncoordinated, sharing air that feels dangerously thin and hard to come by. “I’m going to do it all to you. All of it. And when I’m done, I’ll do it again. And if you don’t ask me to stop, I’ll do it again—”

I come with a soft warble, echoed by the deep rumble of his grunt, and it lasts a long time—me, trembling against him, the loud rhythm of his breathing, the slow, reverential kisses all over my face and shoulders once he slips out and arranges us more comfortably on the bed. The clock on his nightstand reads eight thirty-seven, the light glows yellow through the open shades, and his arms are warm around me.

“I should leave,” I force myself to say.

I wait for Lukas to let me go. All he does is dip his face in my neck and inhale me like I’m some kind of drug. “I’ll come with. Put some breakfast in you.”

Oh. That sounds . . . “Okay.” Nice. “I should shower first.”

He shakes his head before I’m done talking and then pulls back to meet my eyes. His hand cups my nape, holding my head still. “Scarlett, if I want you showered after we fuck, I’ll do it myself. Okay?”

I shiver. It’d be gross. Right? I don’t know. If it is, I’m not sure that I care. “Okay.”

His smile is small, but it makes my entire chest flutter with happiness.