Chapter 12 The second I caved and let myself kiss her, it was over. There was no pretending now. No posturing. No performance. Her lips parted beneath mine as she spoke, and I stole it, delving into her mouth unabashedly. She only sank further into it, letting me lead her, letting me take like she'd been desperate for it. And I knew damn well she had been. That look she'd given me at the reception, the way her breathing had faltered before and after I'd given her the weakest kiss of my goddamn life, the way she'd practically begged me without words for more than that before giving up and letting it go - it told me far more than she thought it did. Maybe far more than she knew. I didn't touch her at first - at least not really, outside of the way I was cupping her cheeks and the way I was crowding her. I just kissed her like I couldn't help it, like if I stopped, I'd forget how to breathe. But then her hand curled into my shirt, her fingers fisting in the fabric and pulling at my tie, and I broke. My hand slid around her waist, fingers splaying across her back over that goddamn fabric that had been clinging to her all evening and driving me insane. The other two dresses she'd worn had been enough to make me spiral, but this one, this stupid fucking dress, had nearly made me throw her over my shoulder and take her somewhere private in the middle of the ceremony. But now I didn't need to. I pulled her flush against me until there wasn't a fraction of space left between us. Her body arched into mine, into me, warm and soft and too much, and I knew without a doubt in my mind that I was screwed. She was addictive in a way I wasn't used to. "You're beautiful," I murmured, pulling back just enough to look at her, to take her in like this. The words came out far more like a confession than I was used to - not just because she was beautiful, because dear God, she was, but because she was something I would never allow myself to keep. Her cheeks heated, her mouth opening to respond, but I cut her off with another kiss. She gasped as I finally pushed her that little bit backward, making her lose her balance against the edge of the bed, my knee coming up onto the mattress, my hands holding her up. I lowered both of us together, refusing to leave her mouth, until her body had sunk into the soft sheets and I was over her, my jacket halfway down my shoulders from her incessant pushing, lipstick smeared across her chin. I kissed her deeper, harder, hungrier than I had been in years. And she met me every step of the way. I didn't care. I didn't fucking care anymore. I wanted her. I wanted her more than I wanted to admit. I broke it, just barely, when my jacket hit the floor, my mouth hovering against her jaw. "This isn't part of the plan," I murmured, my voice low, too rough, too jagged. "Fuck, this isn't-this isn't the act, Sienna." Her breathing stuttered as she looked up at me, her fingers frozen around my tie. "I'm not pretending right now," I added, swallowing past the gravel in my throat, my hand sliding to the back of her neck and lifting just enough to make her throat extend. My blood rushed south the moment I let myself kiss her right in the center of it. "Don't know if I ever was, if I'm being honest." I could feel the whimper reverberate through her. "Matt⁠-" "You make me feel something," I interrupted, my voice barely above a whisper. My other hand moved, raking down her side, settling in the narrowest part of her waist. "You make me feel real. Human. You fucking get to me, like you've dug these claws in, and I can't pry them out. Don't even know if I'd want to if I could." I kissed lower, down along her collarbone, the exposed part of her chest. "I know you wanted that line to exist. But you already crossed it. We both did." Sienna was still for a second, nothing but the rapid rise and fall of her chest moving in short, shallow little bursts. But then her fingers closed around my tie and pulled with a desperation that bordered on frustration, dragging me back up her body and right to her mouth. She kissed me this time, and any lingering resolve I had was gone. She kissed me hard, hungry, like she didn't have words left to give me and this was all she could manage. But God, it was enough. My hand met hers at my tie, hooking into the knot and pulling until the short end slipped free and it fell to the wayside. "Zipper," I mumbled against her mouth, pushing the straps of her dress from her shoulders. I'd undressed enough women in my life to know damn well that I wasn't going to easily find the zipper on a dress like this. Her hand left my chest and fumbled along the side of her body, and I followed her, my fingers hooking on the tiny bit of metal hidden beneath a fold of fabric and pulling it down. I found the tiny hook-and-eye at the top and cursed, a half-laugh breaking from me as I shifted, kissing her jaw, her neck, clumsily pinching the metal together once, twice, three times until it released, the fabric around her loosening. She didn't waste a second. She shimmied, just enough, her hand slipping through the sides until the fabric was pooling uncomfortably around her waist and her upper half was bare, bits of boning sticking me in the stomach. I didn't even have a second to appreciate the view before I was sick of being stabbed. "Dear God, we need to get this off you," I huffed, pulling myself from her enough to actually move. "Lift up, sweetheart." She bit back a laugh and raised her hips, letting me tug the green nightmare that had almost made me fully hard the first time I'd laid eyes on it down over her ass and thighs. "Don't like my dress?" she murmured, her cheeks bright pink, her lipstick close to ruined. "Exact opposite," I rasped, shoving it off the bed before I took her face in my hand, my thumb rubbing over her lower lip, destroying the last of the color on her lips and dragging a line of red across her cheek. Fuck, she looked good with her makeup ruined. "You've no idea the thoughts that have been invading my head all goddamn night watching you move around in that." I didn't let her answer. My hand clamped over her mouth when I hooked my fingers on the black lace of her underwear. "Listen to me," I said, pulling the fabric down until she was bare, a sinful string of her arousal clinging to them and connecting the fabric to her core before it snapped. "My son is two walls over. You're going to be good for me and keep those pretty sounds nice and quiet like before, understood?" Her eyes widened as I let myself sink between her thighs again, my free hand pulling at my shirt buttons. "You don't have to be silent," I clarified, popping the first, then the second, the third. "Just quiet. No louder than we are right now." I moved my hand enough for her to speak and let my shirt fall away. "Okay," she breathed, her chest rising and falling faster the moment I moved to my belt. "Fuck, we shouldn't-Christ. Okay. Okay." "No use fighting yourself now." The clink of my belt buckle freeing seemed to echo between our breaths, and her fingers wrapped around the leather, pulling it out of my belt loops frantically. My lips met her neck, her collarbone, her chest, the swell of her breasts from sheer need alone, my control gone, my body acting on instinct. "Shit," she hissed as my teeth grazed a raised nipple. I hesitated, glaring up at her through my lashes. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you expecting me to just undress you and not touch you?" "I don't know," she huffed, her brown eyes narrowing and breath stuttering when I dragged my thumb over it instead. "I-fuck-figured you'd keep pretending to have self-control." I snorted and nipped at the skin of her breast before soothing it gently with my tongue. "No," I murmured, hooking my hands around the back of her thighs and lifting them up, up, up, and back, my bare chest dragging across her lower half and the sheets as I placed open-mouth kisses down the expanse of her stomach. "I'm well past pretending." She opened her mouth to speak, but I closed mine over her heat - and all coherent thought dissolved into thin air. Shit. The taste of her was fucking intoxicating, slick and sweet like overripe fruit, like something I wanted to ruin myself with. Her thighs quivered against my temples and cheeks as I dragged my tongue through her, slow and precise, savoring the whimper she let out before she bit down on the meat of her palm, that same noise muffled and broken when I flicked the tip over her clit. I shouldn't have let myself do this. I knew that, knew it in my bones. But I didn't stop. Her free hand sank into my hair, fingers twisting in the waxed strands, tugging hard enough to border on pain. I groaned quietly against her, pressing my mouth firmer, hungrier, licking into her like it could be my goddamn salvation. She pulled tighter. "Matt-" It was half a sob, half a whisper, her bite marks visible on the back of her hand. I gripped her hips hard in answer, pinning her in place when she tried to wriggle away from the intensity. No escape. Not when those soft, pretty noises were morphing into ragged gasps and making my cock throb where it was pinned between me, my slacks, and the sheets. Her body arched off the bed the moment I sucked her clit between my teeth, my tongue ravaging, one hand sliding around her thigh and through the outpouring of her dampness to press two fingers inside of her, curling them as the sunk to the hilt. She tightened around them. "Fuck," I groaned, the singular word muffled. My tongue circled her mercilessly, her heels digging into my shoulder blades, my own head spinning. I didn't want to stop. God, she sounded so good, tasted like sin, and knowing it was her - Sienna - the woman who had driven me mad with a fucking yellow sundress and bare feet in first class, who had tested my patience, who had played with my son like it was the most natural thing in the world, who had told me countless times up until now that she wasn't going to sleep with me again - it was too much. It was hell and it was heaven. And I wanted to break her as many times as I physically could. "Matt, please⁠-" Her broken whisper undid me more than any scream could have. Her voice was shattered as my tongue dragged over her clit with relentless precision, my fingers curling inside of her with every thrust, her muscles locking around me and her back arching like she was mid-exorcism. God. Her thighs trembled, not gently but violently, her fingers tightening so hard I was positive she was pulling strands out of my fucking head. And then she broke. I watched-fuck, I watched-as her muffled groan turned into a muffled shriek and then muffled sobs, as her back slammed down into the mattress, as her hips lifted helplessly against my tongue as wave after wave tore through her. The taste of her flooded my mouth, sweet and acidic and her, and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head. I was ruined. More than I'd been when she'd lost it so beautifully on the flight when she'd just been a stranger. Because now I knew. Now I knew the stubborn set of her chin when she was irritated, knew the way she grinned at my son like he was the brightest star in the sky, knew the way she held her ground even when it cost her, knew the way she looked at me when she was desperate but too scared to admit it. Worst of all, though, I knew those fingers digging into my scalp belonged to a woman who could absolutely be the death of me. But all I wanted was to watch her break again and again and again, until her brain was nothing but TV static and her body was wrung out, until I was out of stamina and then some, until I'd lost my mind in her. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused as they lowered to me, half-lidded and wrecked, makeup smeared and teeth marks in her hand. Beautiful. Wrecked. Mine. "Look at you," I rasped, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh, letting my stubble rake over the sensitive skin. "One fucking orgasm and you're already useless." She blinked dazedly at me, the words clearly taking a moment to process, before she laughed. Clear and bright as day, her lips pulling up in a genuine smile, not a smirk or a taunt, but a goddamn sunburst, cheeks swollen and pink and her hair half undone. "I hate you." The way she said it, the way she looked at me - it did things to me that I didn't dare admit to myself, made my chest feel tight in a way I actively fought. "No," I chuckled, nipping at her flesh before pushing myself up onto all fours, "you don't." The slacks around my thighs suddenly felt like a prison as I worked my way back up her body. I made quick work of them with absolutely no help from her clumsy fingers, despite her trying to get the fly down, and sighed in relief the moment my cock was free and pressing against her thigh before I was on her again. I kissed her deep enough to let her taste herself on my tongue, swallowing down the needy sound she made as I angled myself to drag my length through the mess I'd made of her. "Do you have any idea," I growled against her mouth, digging my fingers into her thigh to hitch it higher on my hip, "what you do to me?" Her hands cupped my cheeks, her nails raking against the sides of my neck, and I almost, almost, couldn't bite back the strangled noise desperate to spill from my throat. "I⁠-" "You don't," I interrupted. "You don't." I lined myself up, the tip of my cock catching on her opening, both of us shaking - her from the aftershocks, me from desperation. She was so goddamn wet, so warm, and I could feel her clamping down around nothing as I settled at the entrance. I gripped her by the chin. "Look at me, sweetheart," I ordered, waiting for her eyes to focus at least halfway. "I'm going to watch you come again. And again. And again." She swallowed, her throat working, words gone. "And I want to feel every goddamn second of it," I gritted out, holding her gaze unwaveringly as I shoved in with one relentless thrust, my vision blurring for half a second as I sank to the hilt. She whimpered, beautifully, brokenly, her body stretching to take me, her walls so impossibly tight around every inch. Her legs locked around me as her nails pressed in harder like she'd simply die if I pulled out, her mouth opening in a pretty little O. She didn't dare look away from me. I didn't give her the chance to. It started frantic. Our bodies crashed together with the same desperate hunger that had fueled us our first time on the flight, but this was different. There was no partition to lower, no flight attendants to hide from, no performance, no pretending. Just skin and sweat and the way her hands mapped every inch of me like she was memorizing the way we fit together. I kept my word. I watched it all. Every hitch of her breath, every desperate, fluttering squeeze of her thighs around my hips, every trembled and helpless noise she tried to swallow down for Zach's sake. I drank it all in like I'd never get enough, and when she came the third time, her whole body locking around me with a choked, "Matt," I nearly lost myself right then from the way she looked at me. Like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. Like there was far more behind those eyes than either of us would admit to. We slowed after that. Not because the hunger faded, but because I was desperate to savor this, savor her, wanted to feel the way she melted under my hands or the way her nails traced my shoulders between tremors, the way she whispered my name like it was something holy and blasphemous all at once. She came twice more before I finally let go - once with my fingers twisting in her hair when I'd flipped her onto her stomach, and once with my mouth sealed over hers to swallow her sounds as she rode me. And when I finally followed her over the edge, it wasn't the frantic release I'd found weeks ago on the flight. It was deeper, fuller, like every nerve in my body had been waiting for that exact moment, this exact woman, to finally fucking shatter. We didn't speak after. There were no cursed regrets or hesitant small talk. It was just tangled limbs and slowing breaths, her back pressed against my chest, my hand splayed possessively over her stomach. The silence stretched, comfortable in a way it had no right to be. The realization hit me like a fucking freight train - I wasn't ready for this to end. And God, that scared me more than anything else. I didn't do this. This wasn't me. But then she turned in my arms, her nose brushing against my collarbone, my fingers idly plucking the bobby pins from her hair, and for the first time in years, I wasn't sure I cared if it scared me. I didn't even remember falling asleep.