Page 38 of The Voicemail

She gives me a look that might have been a glare if she weren’t shaking. I’d enjoy it more if I weren’t already half gone.

I take her apart slowly at first, then less slowly when her hips start moving against my mouth and her hand tightens in my hair. When she comes on my tongue, she says my name in a soft, broken voice, like it slipped out before she could stop it.

I crawl back over her and kiss her before she can feel exposed. She kisses me back, still trembling, her hands moving over my shoulders and my back.

“Elena,” I say against her mouth. “I don’t have protection.”

Her eyes open. For one second, reality returns.

Then she swallows. “I’m on birth control.”

“That’s not all protection is for.”

“I know. I’m clean. Are you?”

“Yes.”

I still hesitate.

She sees it and pulls me down by the back of my neck. “Alex.”

There are a hundred reasons to leave this room. I know every one of them. I kiss her anyway and push inside her slowly.

Her breath catches, and I pause.

“Okay?”

She wraps her legs around me. “Yes.”

That one word almost ends me.

I move carefully at first. She’s tight and hot around me, and every inch feels like punishment for every second I spent pretending this wouldn’t happen. Her hands grip my shoulders. Her mouth finds mine. She meets me like this is another argument and she’s determined not to lose.

The room narrows to her body under mine, her breath in my ear, the way she says my name when I change the angle and hit something that makes her nails dig into my back.

“Again,” she gasps.

I give it to her. I give her that and more, until her body tightens around mine and she comes apart with her face pressed to my neck. I follow her a few strokes later, holding myself deep while the last of my control burns out and I fill her with my seed.

For a while, neither of us moves. I shift my weight carefully so I’m not crushing her, but I don’t pull away completely. Not yet. Her fingers rest against my ribs, light enough that I’m not sure she knows she’s doing it.

I cover her hand with mine.

She looks up at me.

I brush my thumb over her knuckles and say the only thing I know is true. “You’re safe here.”

Her eyes search mine. Then she turns her hand under mine and laces our fingers together.

11

ELENA

Several weeks pass in pieces. Alex insists I work remotely while he hunts for my stalker, and I agree, reluctantly, and only because someone runs it past Mr. Bellamy without asking me. At least, I assume that’s what happened, because I can’t imagine he’d offer me remote work without a very rich donor pushing for it.

Two weeks in, Alex agrees to let me go back to work for half-days after he decides the risk is manageable. His men drive me there, walk me in, and wait nearby while I try to behave like a normal person.

He gives me space. He doesn’t crowd me. He doesn’t touch me unless I let him. He doesn’t come into my room without knocking, and he never mentions the night we ended up in my bed. Meanwhile, I can’t stop thinking about it.