Buckled (Trails of Sin 2)

We move at the same time, crashing together in a stumbling, uncoordinated leap and kiss. Our foreheads bump. He staggers backward, and our lips touch and glance off, clumsy and awkward, without the connection we crave.

I right my footing and rub my brow, squirming with nervousness. “Should I have swooped in differently? I feel like I came in too hard.”

“Hard is good.” He grips the back of my neck and drags me against him, chest to chest.

“I was too eager, though.” I clutch his wide shoulders, and wings flap in my stomach. “We angled the same way, and our teeth hit. Maybe I should’ve dipped when you dove? And there’s also the rain. We’re all slippery and—”

“Let’s not overthink it.” His gaze dips to my mouth.

“Okay. Yeah, kind of loses the magic.” I inhale deeply, savoring the warmth of his breaths. “Can we try again?”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

His eyes spark. “I fucking love you.”

“I love—”

He devours my words, kissing me like there’s no choice. His tongue swirls past my lips, tasting and plunging as the light shower runs down our faces to where our mouths meet.

Cold drops, sultry air, and the distant rumble of thunder—there’s something celestial about kissing this man in the rain. It’s a frenzied moment that refuses to wait. An outpour of love desperate for connection, uncaring about soaked clothes or chilled skin. It’s a rebellion against threatening winds and depressing conditions. Nature brings the rain, but we stand against it, united in mutual need.

He presses his lips firmly against mine, controlling the depth and asserting the rhythm. The heat of his mouth is my home, the clench of his fingers my sanctuary. He’s my greatest torment and constant salvation, my beginning, my end, and all the roads between. The whole damn world should stop on its axis and take note, because no man alive knows how to love a woman like he does.

He lifts me up his chest, and I cup his face, knocking off his hat and sinking into the hungry eyes that drive me crazy.

“God, I missed you.” My legs encircle his waist, and my hair falls around him, becoming one with his dark soaked strands.

He kisses droplets from my lips, and I smile against his.

“There it is.” He sweeps my hair aside and nibbles a path to my ear.

“What?” I sink into his arms.

“Your smile.” He palms my butt through the jeans and yanks me closer. “I haven’t seen it in eighteen months.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.” I bury my face in the curve of his shoulder.

“Hey.” He grips the back of my hair and captures my eyes. “I hurt you, too. No regrets, remember?”

“And no secrets.”

“No lies.”

“No more deals.” I bite my lip.

“No more waiting.” His expression tightens, his cheekbones like blades beneath the aggression in his gaze.

Does he know how hot he is when he looks at me like that? How it makes me want to smother his face in ravenous kisses?

“I can’t believe you’re here.” My head swims, my blood pumping with ecstasy as I take in his gorgeous features.

“I can’t believe you’re real.” He plants his mouth against mine, binding us in a kiss so unquenchable we claw at each other to dig deeper, closer, and it’s not enough.

He bends to grab his hat. His feet move beneath us, splashing through puddles and carrying us toward the entrance to my apartment. Rain falls down around us, washing away pain and intensifying the heat of our bodies.

The past ceases to exist, blurred and forgotten as I grab hold of the future with arms and legs. By the time he stumbles into the dimly lit stairwell, our need for each other has exploded into a raging fire.

My back hits the wall, and he grinds against me, torturing the throb between my legs. The chill that soaks through our jeans doesn’t matter. We’re a furnace of desire and urgency, ripping at clothes, biting lips, and scoring skin.

Our groans echo off concrete walls. Our bodies writhe, and his boots squeak across wet floors as he swings me toward the stairs.

We make it halfway up the first flight before he lowers me on the steps to deepen the kiss and rock between my legs.

“Need inside you.” He licks my tongue, panting against my lips.

I don’t know who needs who more as the roll and kick of my hips battles the grind and thrust of his.

“Three flights.” He cranes his neck and groans at the staircase high above us. “We’ll never make it.”

Good, because Raina’s in my bed, and I’m not going to kill the moment with that conversation.

“My neighbors go to work early.” I grip his hair, bringing his mouth back to mine. “They’re already asleep.”

He pulls back to look at me, his eyes like every fantasy I’ve ever had of him, every moment I longed for over the past eighteen months.