She shudders out a sigh. “You really don’t make this easy.”
“Nothing in life is easy, Tink. Least of all people. If it seems like it is, someone’s lying.”
Strangely enough, that makes her relax. “I don’t understand how you always know what to say.”
“I don’t.” Fuck, I definitely don’t. I’ve been in a tailspin for months, my people looking to me for answers that I don’t have. I’m doing the best I can, but I’m muddling through like everyone else. I smooth my hand over her hair. “We have a similar way of viewing things once you cut through the bullshit. That’s all.”
She runs her hand up my chest. A touch not meant to seduce; one simply done for the sake of doing it. “This might sound a little cliché, but I feel like I’m running out of time to say it.”
“Tink—”
She touches two fingers to my lips and lifts her head. I still can’t see her expression clearly. “I love you, Jameson. It makes me kind of cranky because I didn’t plan on this, but it’s the damned inconvenient truth.”
I don’t smile, but it’s a near thing. “Loving me is an inconvenient truth.”
“Stop being amused.”
“Only you would fall kicking and screaming into love and then pout about it.” I move her hand from my mouth and press it back to my chest. “We’re not running out of time.”
I don’t have to see her expression clearly to know her mouth has twisted into a frown. “Save your comforting lies for the people who believe it. I know what Peter is capable of better than anyone. Unless you’ve been hiding things from me, we don’t know where he’ll strike, only that he’s revving up for some kind of attack.” She takes a shuddering breath. “Actually, that’s a lie. We know exactly where he’ll strike. Me.”
I frame her face with my hands. Tink never feels fragile, not really. She’s too strong, fills a room with her energy too effectively just by walking into it. But at the end of the day, she’s only human and she’s about to come face-to-face with someone who’s done her immeasurable amounts of harm. “I won’t let him touch you. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you have no way of keeping.”
I start to argue, but she kisses me before I can get another word out. It would be the easiest thing in the world to break that kiss, to keep talking in circles until we’re both blue in the face. That’s not what we need right now. Tomorrow is coming, for better or worse, and neither of us is that good at masking our worry. It’s there, a lurking presence that drags its nails along the edges of my mind, a taunting whisper of all the things that can and will go wrong.
Touching her is the only thing that silences it.
I kiss her back with everything I have, taking the comfort she offers and giving it in return. I reach between our bodies, and she lifts herself just enough to give me access without breaking the kiss. Part of me wants to rush this, to lose myself in the feeling of fucking her again and again, until we have no energy left for fear. That can be comfort in its own way, but that’s not what I want right now. That’s not what she needs. Instead, I tease her, palming her pussy and exploring her with my fingers. Denying us both.
Or at least that’s the plan. Tink has other ideas. She grabs my hand and moves it away from her. “I need you.”
“Tink.”
“I don’t want to wait.” She presses my hands to either side of my head. Not so much holding me down as giving herself leverage. I could free myself without effort, but I can’t quite catch my breath. This isn’t domination and submission. This is something else. Something that goes even deeper.
She laces her fingers with mine as she grinds against me, each slide of her pussy against my cock teasing at the possibility of penetration. “You make me lose my mind.” Her voice weaves a spell as thoroughly as her slow, rolling movements. “This shouldn’t work. We shouldn’t work.”
It takes everything I have not to grab her hips and slide her onto my cock. To maintain stillness and let her guide us. “Who gives a fuck about ‘should,’ beautiful girl? We work. It’s enough.”
“It’s enough.” She does another of those hip rolls that has my cock notching at her entrance. I hold my breath, my body a single line of tension as she keeps us hovering on the precipice. Tink’s laugh is breathy and a little amazed. “I really do love you, Jameson. I really, really do.” She slams down onto me, taking my cock in a single stroke even as she takes my mouth in a kiss that leaves me dizzy.