The Power
Page 97

I don’t know if it was the relief I saw in her eyes, even after what I’d done, or the way she reached for me and said my name, as if it was a benediction, but all restraint within me broke.
Common sense dived face-first out the window, and in under a second I was on her.
Rising fast, I clasped the sides of her cheeks and tilted her head back. I kissed her, and there was nothing soft or smooth about it. She jolted in surprise and then grabbed my shoulders, her little nails digging through my shirt and into my skin. I nipped at her bottom lip, and with a soft moan, her mouth opened. I tasted her, drew her in as I dragged my hands down her throat over her arms. I wasn’t thinking. There wasn’t a part of my damn brain that was catching up to what was happening. Everything was focused on the way she felt, the look in her eyes, and the way she said my name.
I was lost in her.
My fingers brushed the edge of her shirt and I tugged the material, lifting it up. We broke apart long enough to get the damn thing over her head, and then everything else came off in a rush. My shirt. Her shorts. Mine. Then everything else. Nothing was between our hands or our bodies.
Pressing her into the couch, I moved over her and against her. There was no hesitation in Josie. No questions. No putting on the brakes. One of her legs wrapped around mine. Her hands slid down my back, to my ass. She grabbed me, pulling me closer. Our chests crushed together. Her small, hard nipples pressed into me, driving me freaking insane. The room was filled with the breathy sounds of her moans and the rougher ones of mine.
I shouldn’t be doing this. It was too risky. My emotions were all over the damn place. No restraint. All it would take is a second to tap into her, to pull from her, to do exactly what the Titans planned to do to her.
But the way she moved, the arching of her hips and how she felt, wet and warm against my length, drove me forward, beyond the point of return. She curled her fingers through my hair as she gripped my arm with the other.
“I love you,” she whispered in my ear as I settled between her thighs. “I love you, Seth.”
Those words gutted me, cut me right open. I didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve this, but I had to get in her, feel her, one last time, and the memory of this joining was going to have to carry me until the gods laid down their punishment. Reaching down between us, I wrapped my hand around my dick. I groaned as I felt her readiness against the tip. There wasn’t a damn thing between us.
I didn’t stop.
Josie didn’t stop me.
It was foolish. Risky. Fucking idiotic. But as I slid into her, felt every inch with nothing between us, the sensation blew me apart, shot straight to the very core of my being.
Nothing. Nothing had ever felt like this before.
Stopping, I lifted my head and stared down at Josie. Her long neck was exposed, her lips red and swollen, eyes half-open. Her chest rose fast and deep. She smoothed a trembling hand down my chest.
Her touch. I couldn’t . . .
I caught her hand, pulling it away from me and pinning it above her head. Her eyes widened as I captured her other hand and drew it above her head, joining it with the other. I kept them there with one hand around her wrists and then gripped her rounded hip.
“Seth,” she breathed.
I slammed in to the hilt. Her head kicked back as she made this soft, keening sound that almost made me lose it right there.
Things were frantic.
My body moved against hers, in her, and her arms strained. She wanted to touch me. Gods, Josie loved to touch me, but I held her in place as I thrust into her. I felt her the second before she came. Her hips jerked up, her back arched, and those blue eyes were wide.
Josie’s cry was muffled as she bit down on her lip. She broke apart around me, her muscles clenching down, squeezing me, and I exhaled harshly, riding her until she fell back against the couch.
I wasn’t done with her.
Pulling out of her, I let go of her wrists and, using my grip on her waist, I flipped her onto her stomach. I moved over her, pressing my chest to her back as I slid my arm under her waist, lifting her hips. I entered her in one stroke, nearly undone by the tightness I felt.
There was no rhythm to how I moved then. My hips pounded into hers, and I kept going, almost as if I was trying to get myself in there so deep there would be no way of extracting me from her, so fucking deep that there was no her, no me, just us. She was so tight, so wet, and so perfect.
Sweat dampened and slicked our skin. The fleshy sounds our bodies made drove me to the brink. Shifting my hand under her, I found the tight bundle of nerves, worked her until she clamped down on me.
Release powered down my spine, raw and all-consuming, blowing my head right off me. Intense. Couldn’t breathe around it. Couldn’t feel anything else. Only at the very last second, I pulled out and folded my arms around Josie, sealing her body to mine as I came, cradled against her, my face buried in her neck. The world fell away for those precious moments, dropped off and stayed there as our hearts slowed and our bodies relaxed into each other.
“Seth,” she murmured, turning her head to the side. A couple of moments passed. “Are you . . . are you okay now?”
I closed my eyes. Everything would be. I spoke, my voice rough. Empty. “Yes.”
Josie tensed under me and then she looked over her shoulder. Concern pooled into her gaze. “Seth, we need to talk. They’re saying that you’re a—”
“Shh,” I murmured, shifted us onto our sides, until her back was to my front and my arm around her waist. “I just want to hold you right now. Please? We’ll . . . we’ll talk later.”