Page 69 of Retrograde

I roll off her to lie next to her, propped up on my elbow to be able to see her face. I nearly wrap her in my arms, but I stop myself, because what the fuck am I doing?

On second thought ... if I want to get under her skin and into her heart so that I can break her from the inside, it’s not enough to just fuck her and leave her lying in the dirt.

Torn between wanting to appear like I care whilst guarding myself not to start actually caring, I settle for laying my hand on her chest, teasing her nipples, drawing soft whimpers out of her.

“Can I ask you something?” She looks at me with so much vulnerability in her eyes it’s like a knife to the gut. “But can you please promise not to be an asshole about it?”

“When have I ever been an asshole?” I taunt her, leaving my hand flat on her chest, feeling her heartbeat underneath my fingertips.

“Aron, please ...”

“Just ask already,” I urge her, my curiosity soaring. “I won’t give you a hard time.”

She takes a deep breath, like she’s bracing herself. “Did it ... feel alright?” Her words are rushed but also punctuated by moments of hesitation. “I mean ... inside, did everything feel right? Isn’t there something ... wrong with me?”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. I stare at her with my mouth open, forgetting to breathe. And then, my reply rushes out of me before I even think about it. “Everything felt perfect. Like you were made for me.”

It is the truth. I’m easily twice her weight, and my cock is the length of her forearm. I worried she’d be too small to take all of me, too fragile. But instead, her body fit mine effortlessly and naturally, responding to me, singing under my touch, swallowing every inch of me like she could never get enough.

I’ve been nothing but a drifter ever since my country became a war zone and my home a pile of rubble. Unmoored in a reality that’s gotten so fractured I can no longer tell the cracks apart from the planes solid enough to stand on. That’s what being a Rifter is all about; carving your own corner in a world determined to drive you extinct.

But with her trapped underneath me—so deep in her that I could feel her heartbeat on the inside—that was the first time in an eternity that I felt like I didn’t have to fight for a place to belong.

“We should get going,” she says, and I’m glad for the interruption. “We need to find the road and go west. Your bike is parked by the Three Graces Crossroads.”

Fuck that. I’d much rather stay here with her, just the two of us, discovering all the ways I can make her body yield to mine. A dangerous thought. I know I should chase it right out of my head, but I don’t.

“Not so fast, Hotshot.” Her skin whispers underneath my fingertips as I trace her navel.

Her eyes stray to my hardening cock. “Aron ... we need to go. They may have already started looking for you.”

She says that, but her eyes are glued to my growing erection, and she’s biting her lip. I’d thought she’d be tired and sore, I thought she’d need some convincing, that she’d protest. But she’s a greedy, voracious little thing, more starved for intimacy than I’ve ever seen anyone. My chest tightens when I imagine all the ways I can cater to that hunger, make her think I’ve satisfied it ... only to then remind her who I am and who she is to me, to have the feast turn to dust inside of her and leave her hollow.

“We have time.”

“Not if they noticed you’re missing. Aron, please ...” she pleads insistently, but her nails scratch my abs lightly as she slides her hand down my stomach.

Fast as a predator pouncing, I slip my arm underneath her—needles and pebbles cutting into my skin—and I flip her so that she’s on top of me.

With my hands under her ass and her thighs around my hips, I stand up slowly. She weighs nothing.

“Aron ...”

I carry her like this to the huge, moss-covered tree stump nearby, plundering her mouth, swallowing her protests.

“But if they come⁠—”

I slap her ass, the blow sharp, the sting burning in my palm. Her words fall apart in a yelp.

“If they come, I’ll hear them long before they get here,” I growl. “I’m not done with you. That’s all you need to concern yourself with.”

I squeeze her flesh, the warning clear in my touch. She narrows her eyes, and her breathing grows erratic, her cheeks flushed. She obeys. Because she fucking loves this—the more control I want to usurp from her, the more eager she is to surrender it. It’s almost too easy.

“Cross your legs behind me,” I order her, lowering myself to sit down with her on top of me.

I drag my fingers through the wet heat between her legs, and then I line my cock with her entrance, angling it so that once I’m inside her, she’ll feel the piercing press against her front wall.

“It will go in a lot deeper this way,” I warn her. “You’ll be sore for days.”