Burn Me Once

‘What is it?’

His gravelly voice travels through me, finding every space inside me and warming it up. Superheating me from the inside out.

I shake my head, but a frown lingers on my lips. I kiss him to chase it away, losing myself once more in the sensual charge that besieges us both.

‘Are you okay?’

I nod, jerkily. ‘Fuck me.’

His laugh is without humour. ‘Alicia...?’

Oh, great. Now he goes and brings my real name into it.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, digging my fingers into his hips, dragging him down against me, lifting myself up in a wordless invitation.

But he breaks away from me and for a second I think he’s not going to give me what I need. I am empty and bereft. But he returns a short moment later, a condom in his hand and a smile on his lips.

‘You, Alicia Douglas, are a mystery.’

My heart twists. ‘A good mystery?’

‘A fantastic one.’

He winks and my throat is dry suddenly.

Keep it light. Keep it fun.

I reach up and lace my fingers behind his head, pulling him down, greedily seeking his mouth, taking everything he offers and still demanding more. There is nothing light about this, even while it is the most fun I’ve ever had.

My need for him—and I’m not blind or stupid enough to pretend I don’t need him—is all-consuming. If I’m not careful it is going to take over, and I will no longer have autonomy.

I have to fuck him and go.

I push him angrily, needily, desperately, and together we roll off the couch onto the carpeted floor. He laughs, but I’m ripping the condom out of his hands and tearing it open, sliding it from its packet and pushing it onto him. His eyes are watching me, and it makes my fingers shake. I remove my own underwear quickly, then straddle him, leaning forward to kiss him at the same time I take him deep inside me.

Passion tears through us and we are fast, we are hungry, we are desperate. I move my hips, but he makes a growl of frustration and rolls us so that he is on top of me, the weight of his body a heavenly pleasure. I wrap my legs around his waist but he catches my calves and lifts them higher. I can’t contain the furious pleasure that is taking over me. I lie back, my eyes squeezed shut as flames lick my nerves, making me tremble and sweat.

He stills and I groan, twisting my hips.

‘Look at me.’

The command is husky, and he accompanies it with fingers that press under my chin, pulling my face towards him, angling me so that I am facing him.

‘Look at me,’ he says again, and I realise my eyes are still squeezed shut.

I blink them open and regret it immediately. It is as though I have been stabbed. Something unpleasant and sharp thrusts into my chest—something I don’t recognise yet but know I don’t want. I look over his shoulder but he shakes his head.

‘I want to see you come.’

‘You will,’ I whisper, knowing that the wave is about to crash. Any minute.

He pushes deeper and I draw in an unsteady breath, digging my fingernails into my palms.

‘Let me see you.’

I don’t know what he means. I look to him for clarification and our eyes lock. He moves inside me, not looking away, and I don’t look away either because suddenly I can’t. There are invisible forces at work and they compel me to be brave even when I’m running from this feeling.

This perfect, perfect torment.

Inexplicably, tears threaten to moisten my eyes. I blink, but still I look at him. And I fall. I fall off the edge. There is nothing to hold, nothing to save my fall. I am weightless in the air—just me, my pleasure, no gravity, nothing.

I’m sure he sees this, because he’s watching me so closely, and because he kisses me differently as I tremble in his arms. A kiss of warmth rather than heat. Of understanding and acceptance. I kiss him back.

What else can I do?

He moves inside me slowly, letting muscles that are squeezing him frantically return to their normal state, and then he thrusts hard, so that I cry out, and we are falling together this time, holding hands, riding the same wave of pleasure at the same time. I cry his name into his mouth over and over again. Not Ethan Ash, because he is just Ethan again. Ethan who makes me feel as I never knew I could.

Ethan who is mine. Not the world’s.