Her hand is on my face, her fingers in my hair, tugging me to her, and when I draw back, there’s no going slow. Our mouths collide, and I’m cradling her to me.
“Adrian,” she pants, and I know what she wants, what I want.
I don’t even remember shoving my pants down, and then I’m sliding into the warm, snug heat of her body. I drive into her, and she gasps, arching into me. I catch her knee and drag it to my hip and thrust again and again. Low moans and pants fill the cavern until she’s shuddering into release, her body spasming around me, dragging me with her.
When our bodies are calm, I roll off Pri and fix my pants before I grab her a tissue. In silence, she dresses, and damn it, we’re awkward again. I don’t even know how it happened. And I never even fully undressed. Maybe she thinks that’s because I just couldn’t wait to be inside her, which is true. Or that I need to be ready if we’re attacked. Also true. Or maybe she thinks it’s because fucking her just wasn’t that important to me. Not true. Not even close to true. Right now, in this moment, it’s time to admit it: Pri matters to me.
Too.
Damn.
Much.
Offering her privacy, claiming some for myself, trying to shake off whatever the hell this spell is that she’s cast on me, I present her my back, legs cocked in front of me, wrists resting on my knees. Damn it to hell, what am I doing? I need a run. I need a shower. I need her. I need all those bad things I did to just go away.
But they won’t.
“Already you regret that,” she says, her voice a soft quake.
I rotate to face her to find her fully dressed and standing to the side of the mattress. Beautiful Pri. Smart Pri. Insightful Pri, but she’s wrong this time. I stand and face her, the mattress in front of me and beside her. “I don’t regret touching you, Pri. Never.”
“Right,” she says. “Just regret in general. I get it. I know all about regrets.”
She turns away from me and disappears behind the sheet. I don’t think. I just act. I follow her, rounding the barely existing barrier just as she pulls the T-shirt over her head. I catch her elbow and tug her around to face me, her breasts bare, and already I’m hot and hard again.
“What are you doing?” she demands, covering her chest with the tee still in her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Sometimes a girl feels more in control in a bra, even if it’s a wet bra. I’m trying to put it on.”
And I’d rather she not, I think, but what I say is, “I regret a lot of things, but you are not one of them.”
“You giving me your back says otherwise.”
“I was giving you privacy.”
“Because willingly getting naked on a cavern floor says I need privacy?”
“You’re back here, putting on a bra.”
“I’m right here, half-naked in your arms again, Adrian. But yes, I need and want to put on my clothes.”
“Let them dry.” I grab the T-shirt from her hand and pull it back over her head. “We need to get some rest. Tomorrow will come early.”
“And so will goodbye, right?”
A tic forms in my jaw. “You’re stuck with me at least until after the trial.”
“Stop it,” she snaps. “Stop now.”
“Stop what, Pri?”
“If you want to push me away, do it. If you believe that’s what’s right, do it. Because we both know that’s what you’re doing. Deleon convinced you our day of reckoning is coming, so you decided to rush it along.
“It is coming,” I say. “It’s already here.”
“You mean you’ve already decided what I will think of you, and where my mind, heart, and regrets will be when this is over. You don’t get to make my decision for me or think for me, for that matter. You don’t have that right. Now I’m putting on my bra and pants. Now you can give me that privacy.”
I feel that hard push away, and I don’t like it. My hands gently shackle her waist and I step into her, my forehead lowering to hers. “Don’t do this,” I plead softly. “I know I deserve it, but,” I ease back to look at her, “don’t do this. Don’t push me away.”
She grips the T-shirt a little tighter in front of her and between us. “I don’t know what you want from me, Adrian. And I don’t have the emotional capacity to be this confused while fighting a war.”
“I’m crazy about you,” I confess, “like I have never been for another woman. I just don’t fucking know how we end up together on the other side of this. And don’t read some kind of intent into that.”