004: One night

Avery's POV

The kiss started soft.

Then his hand slid into my hair and pulled me closer, and it stopped being soft entirely.

I pressed into him and he pulled me in tighter and the music from the ceiling speaker faded out completely because all I could hear was my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. When we finally pulled apart, both of us were breathing differently.

He looked at me. His eyes dropped to my mouth, then came back up.

I leaned in again and he met me halfway, this time hungrier, his hands sliding down my waist and pulling me full against him until there was no space left between us. I felt the low sound he made more than I heard it, and it went straight through me.

When I finally pulled back, my lips were feeling swollen and my heart was going absolutely insane.

"Come with me," he said. His voice had dropped to something rough and low.

It was not a question. Not quite.

Then I reached for my bag.

We got in his car and managed to keep our hands to ourselves until we got to our destination.

The front door to the motel room had barely swung shut before his hands were on me.

"God, you're incredible," he breathed against my neck, his lips finding a spot just below my ear that made my knees buckle. "I've been thinking about this since the moment I sat down with you at that bar."

My back found the wall and I gasped at the contact.

His shirt gave way under my fingers, as I pulled it over his head, and I ran my palms across his chest and felt the solid muscle beneath and thought, ‘this is real, this is actually happening.’

"Take off your mask," he murmured against my jaw. "I want to see your face."

I tilted my head and smiled. "A little mystery never hurt anyone, did it?"

He groaned into my neck. "You're going to be the death of me."

He lifted me like I weighed nothing and I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me to the bed and laid me down, and then he stood back and looked at me, his chest bare and heaving, his eyes completely dark. I could see the real colour now and they were a greenish blue.

"You are so beautiful," he said. Rough. Like it cost him something to hold it together. "You have no idea what you've been doing to me all night."

He reached for me slowly, giving me time, and I let him. His hands moved over me with a patience I hadn't expected, learning me, taking his time, and I felt myself melting into the mattress.

"I have to tell you something," I said breathlessly, as his lips moved down my throat.

He lifted his head and looked at me. "What?"

"I've never—" I stopped. His eyes were on my face and I suddenly felt every inch of how young and foolish and underprepared I was. "I've never done this before."

He went completely still.

"Are you a virgin?" he said.

I held his gaze and nodded.

Something shifted in his expression. The urgency softened into something more careful and more deliberate. He looked at me the way you look at something you suddenly understand the weight of.

"We don't have to," he said.

"I know," I said. "I want to."

He searched my face for a long moment. Then he brought his forehead down to rest against mine.

"I'll take care of you," he said quietly. "I promise."

He was as good as his word.

He was slow, and patient, and paid attention to every sound I made. His hands and his mouth moved over me like he had all night and nothing else mattered, and I stopped holding back. I said his name when I needed to. I told him when something felt good and he listened every single time, his voice low and warm against my skin.

"You're perfect," he murmured. "Absolutely perfect."

When I finally reached my orgasm, I held onto his shoulders and gasped and he stayed still and looked at me.

"Still okay?" he said, his voice strained.

"Don't stop," I said. "Please don't stop."

He moved and everything went bright.

"I want to hear you," he said against my ear. "Tell me how you feel."

And I did. I let myself get completely lost in him. I said his name over and over like I was afraid of forgetting it. I told him how good he made me feel, how he was making me feel things I had never come close to imagining.

"That's it," he said, his voice breaking at the edges. "Let go for me."

I let go.

The wave crashed through me so hard my eyes rolled back and my whole body shook from the inside out and I cried his name into the night.

"I've got you," he said, his own voice completely wrecked. "I've got you."

A moment later he followed me over the edge with a low, broken sound that I felt everywhere.

Afterward we lay tangled together, both of us breathing hard, the room perfectly quiet around us.

Something had changed inside me. Something had opened up that I didn't have a name for yet.

"That was..." I started, and completely ran out of words.

"I know," he said quietly. "It really was."

He pulled me closer and I curled into his chest, warm and heavy and more content than I had any right to be. His hand moved slowly up and down my back and I closed my eyes and let myself have it. Just for now. Just for tonight.

"Happy birthday, Scarlett," he said softly into my hair.

The warmth in his voice hit me somewhere deep and tender.

"Thank you, Liam," I whispered.

His arms tightened around me and I listened to his heartbeat slow down, and my eyes grew heavy, and somewhere between one breath and the next I stopped fighting the feeling.

‘Whoever you are,’ I thought, ‘I am never going to see you again.’