Page 66 of Payback On The Ice

I pull off. My mouth's wet. My jaw aches.

"Tell me what you want," I say. "Truth."

He's breathing like he's skated a double shift.

"I want to be inside you," he says.

It comes out of him raw, no control, no stillness. Like it's been in his chest the whole time, waiting.

"Yes," I say. "Yes. Please."

He gets me out of my clothes like he's scared I'll disappear. He's not slow tonight. He's not careful. He pulls my hoodie over my head and gets my jeans down and kicks off his pants and pulls his shirt off without unbuttoning it, buttons popping onto the floor, and he puts me on his bed and he's on top of me, all heat and skin, kissing me like he's drowning.

He gets lube out of the nightstand. A condom. His hands are shaking so hard he can't get the foil open, and I take it from him and tear it with my teeth, and he laughs—actually laughs, breathless, against my neck.

"Truth," he says, against my throat. "Have you⁠—"

"Yes. Not a lot. Not in a long time."

"Okay." He kisses my jaw. "You say it, I stop."

"I know. Dane, I know. Please."

He opens me up slow. One finger, slick and cold, then warm. Then two. He watches my face the whole time. Every time I wince, he waits. Every time I breathe out, he goes deeper. When he crooks his fingers just right, I come off the bed and grab the headboard and say something that isn't a word, and he goes still and looks at me.

"There?"

"There. Oh my God. There."

He does it again. And again. Until I'm shaking, until I'm leaking all over my stomach, until I'm saying his name over and over.

"Now. Please. Now, Dane. I'm ready, I'm so ready, please⁠—"

He rolls the condom on. He slicks himself. He gets my knees up around his hips and lines himself up, and he stops, braced over me on his forearms, his face right over mine.

"Look at me," he says.

I look at him.

He pushes in.

It's a lot. It's so much. He's big, and it's been a long time, and I gasp and grab his shoulders and he stops, halfway, and holds there with his whole body trembling from the effort of holding still.

"Okay?" he says. "Theo. Talk to me."

"Okay. Okay. Just—give me⁠—"

"I've got you."

I breathe. He waits. The burn goes soft at the edges and turns into something else, something deep and full and aching, and I nod, and he pushes the rest of the way in, slow, until he's all the way inside me, and his hips are flush against me, and we're both breathing like we've run a mile.

He doesn't move. He drops his forehead against mine.

"Theo," he says. Like a prayer.

Then he moves.

It's slow at first. Long and deep, all the way out and all the way in, and every time he goes in he hits that spot and I see white. Then it's not slow. Then it's hard, his hips snapping into me, the headboard knocking against the wall, and I'm holding onto him with my arms and my legs and my fingers digging into his back, and he's got one hand under my head, cradling it, so it doesn't hit the headboard. Even now. Even now he's careful with me.