Lost, he was lost, no thought or plan, motivated only by instinct and need. Sensation drove him, the desperate hunger for more, and more, and more. The taste of her skin, the sound of her breathy moans, the heat of her thighs, the smell of her hair.
Another man had touched her tonight. Put his hands on her, sunk himself inside her, but the thought of it did not distress him. It encouraged him instead, goaded something primal and possessive in his chest; he was too caught up in the base need to claim her, to eradicate the traces of every man who had come before him and leave his mark in their place, too confident of the overwhelming strength of his claim and the utter irrelevance of that towering neanderthal to feel one ounce of insecurity. It did not matter, what Paul had done, what she had done; she belonged to Elliot, and always would.
She belonged to him, and in this moment nothing and no one existed beyond the veil of privacy they had drawn around themselves. With the table at her back she could retreat no farther, and instead let him crash into her there, widened the spread of her soft thighs and let his body surge between them, one of her legs hooking around one of his, holding him in place. One of her arms thrown out behind her to steady herself, the other wrapped tight around his shoulders, she held him to her, rocked her hips into him and let him have her. Let him kiss her, roughly, wetly, all tongue and scratchy beard, and her giving as good as she got, mouth open, teeth nipping at him every time he began to drift away from the perfect softness of her lips.
His hands groped at her, clutched at her, driving under her shirt to squeeze and grasp at the softness of her, the sharp ferocity of his need pulling desperate, whining little whimpers from the back of her throat, her body swaying into him, muscles tightening their grip around him, pulling him closer, and closer.
Mine, he thought, and mine, and mine, and mine. Slowly he dragged his lips from hers, left a trail of hungry kisses from the corner of her mouth across her cheek, along the slope of her jaw, down to the vulnerable softness of her neck. Planted his lips there, meaning only to kiss her, but as he did her body moved, her panting breaths sharp and needful, the pounding of her heart almost audible to him, and he opened his mouth, sucked the warmth of her flesh between his teeth, and when he did she keened an encouraging sort of sound while her nails bit into the back of his neck.
"Yeah," she gasped at him, knowing he was marking her and wanting him to. "Yeah," the pitch of her voice rising higher as he sucked her flesh harder, as he rocked his aching cock into the soft cradle of her thighs, "yeah," higher still, and at her insistence, with her blessing, his lips and teeth worried a deep red bruise into the elegant column of her neck, his whole body suffused with a smug sense of pride because that bastard Paul hadn't left a single mark on her, but Elliot had, now. Left behind the evidence of their coupling so that for days every person who saw her would know that she had been claimed, that she belonged to someone. So that Paul would see it, and know he had no right to the woman he had tried to take.
As he lingered there in the valley between her jaw and shoulder her hand slipped away from his back, dipped between their bodies to grope at his cock through his jeans. The bulge of him fit snugly in the warm curve of her palm and she cupped him without shame, ground the heel of her hand against the weight of him, like she liked it. Like she liked the way it felt. Maybe she did; he remembered every second of his hands on her in picture perfect detail, remembered exactly how it felt when she gave herself over to him, when she let him slide his hand between her legs, remembered how powerful he felt in that moment, when her body responded to his touch, and maybe she felt the same. Maybe she could feel the way his whole body shuddered at the touch of her hand, the way he rocked into her, eager and seeking; maybe when she felt the hardness of him she found the same satisfaction he'd discovered when he felt the wetness of her. Let her feel it, he thought, because in that moment she was powerful, godlike, his body bent to her will and relishing every second of it.
It was not enough, though, to be so close to her, and yet separated by all their layers of clothing. He fisted his hands in her t-shirt, ripped it off her, grinned bright and prideful when he saw the way her breasts bounced free beneath it, but she did not give him much opportunity to enjoy the view; instead she reached for him, wrangling with his clothes, their mouths meeting here and there in fevered kisses as they rushed to bare one another completely. Stripped each other down, until finally he could sink his mouth over her nipple with no barriers between them, could draw those breathy moans from her once more while her hand wrapped around his cock, unimpeded, now, skin on skin and driving him mad with need.
Last time they'd been interrupted; last time he'd been forced to stop before he had the chance to bury himself inside her; last time she'd had a chance to think better of their tryst, and put a stop to it. This time there would be no stopping; this time their coming together was damn near frantic as if they could both hear the ticking of the clock, could feel the seconds racing by, stealing away what little time they had together. This time he meant to have her, all of her, to finally know what it meant to hold the one his heart loved like no other, what it meant to join himself to the one who seemed to share his very soul.
"Need you," she gasped, hooking her leg higher up around his hip, pushing herself up, trying to line their bodies up, his cock rubbing fecklessly against the smooth skin of her belly.
In his dreams - all those dreams he tried to pretend he didn't have - he thought of taking her to bed. Thought of soft sheets and pillows and tender devotion. This was no dream; this was real, and sudden, and burning in its fury. There would be no bed for them - not tonight, anyway - they could not bear to be parted from one another long enough to mount the stairs and he feared what might become of them if they tried. Here, and now, this was all they had; this one moment to abandon all pretense and let the truth burn hotter than the sun between them.
"C'mere," he growled, catching her bare ass in his hands, squeezing her tight and lifting her up. She gasped when he did it, but moved easily with him, let him hoist her up so that she was sitting on the very edge of the table. Eye to eye they stared for a moment at one another in wonder, his hands smoothing along her thighs, raising her legs up to lock around his hips while the tip of his cock brushed tantalizingly against the wetness between her thighs.
"Liv," he breathed her name in wonder. How many years had he spent, caring for this woman, longing for her, and yet telling himself he could not have her? How many years had she haunted him, her voice in his head at times the only thing he could hear? How many years had she watched him with those brown eyes, believing he could not love her even as he did, love her, wretchedly, in silence?
"You gotta know -"
"I know," she said, reaching out to cradle his cheek in her hand. "I know."
Maybe she did know. Maybe she always had.
He kept one hand locked around her thigh and reached for his cock with the other, and slowly, slowly guided himself into her. Guided himself home.
The head of his cock slipped through her soaking folds, dipped just inside her, and he pulled back, thrusted back in, shallowly, testing the waters, letting the stretch of him electrify the nerves right around her entrance, listened to the sounds she made for him, breathless and encouraging, watched her body take him in. There was no time but he spent a few precious seconds on teasing her, on stoking the fires of her desire until she let forth an adorably disgruntled sort of sound and tightened her legs around his waist, drew him closer to her.
"Come on," she gasped, "come on, just -"
"Like this?"
He did not hear her answer, because as he spoke he caught hold of her ass and snapped his hips sharply forward even as he pulled her towards him, buried his cock in her to the hilt and any word she might have meant to speak was lost in her sudden, wild cry of ecstasy.
Christ, she felt good. He'd meant what he said; nothing, nothing he had ever known, felt the way she did. Nothing felt like this, her hot and wet and tight and smooth as silk around him, her body welcoming in, her skin on his and her cries in his ears. This was a fierce and fervent passion, a relief so sweet it was nearly enough to make him weep, and his body was powerless to resist it. Again and again he pounded into her, the table bouncing off the wall behind it, her ass slippery in his grip and her cunt locked tight as a vise around him. With each punishing thrust of his hips she called out for him, breasts bouncing and head thrown back in relief, her body so wild in her desire he could hardly hold her. Blindly she flung her hands out behind her, seeking for some purchase, some leverage to hold her steady beneath the onslaught of him; he heard the sound of shattering glass and a cry of pain from her lips and stuttered to a halt, alarmed.
"It's fine," she said, reaching for him with both hands. It didn't look fine; her right hand was bleeding and there was a busted picture frame behind her, her son's sweet face staring up at him from beneath the shattered panel of glass. "Don't stop," she said, sounding as if she were on the verge of tears, "please, please don't stop."
Who was he to deny her, when she was wrapping her arms around him, when she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life and he needed her more than his next breath?
He started again, buried himself inside her, and she sounded so relieved when he did that he gave no further thought to her wounded hand, and took her then, hard and fast, the wet smack of their bodies colliding and the creaking of the table trembling beneath them echoing through the room. He ducked his head to watch, spellbound by the sight of it, his cock shiny and wet with her, her pretty pink cunt taking him again, over and over, and she watched, too, kept one arm anchored around his shoulder to hold her in place and ducked her head. Watched, and reached for him, pressed her palm to his chest just above his beating heart, as if she wanted, needed to feel it, needed to remember that he was alive, and with her, that this was real.
The hand she'd pressed to his chest was the one she'd hurt, her blood smearing across his skin as their bodies shook and trembled together. He could see it, the streaks of red painting his chest beneath her hand, but it did not disgust him; it lit him on fire, instead, spoke to a wild, terrifying piece of his heart he had not previously known existed. He had claimed her already; let her claim him as well, let her leave the sweet iron scent of her blood on him, marking him long after it was washed away. Let them cover themselves in one another, tear themselves apart and welcome one another inside; let them be one, he thought, as they always should have been.
The moment of his release was roaring ever closer; he wanted to last longer, for her sake. Wanted to fuck her all night and into the morning; wanted to fuck her forever and let the world burn. Wanted for this moment to last the rest of his life, to never part from her. Wanted so many things, but the silken clutch of her would soon prove to be his undoing, and he knew it.
Without warning he took hold of her by the ass, raised her bodily from the table - still impaled on his cock - and caught her lip between his teeth as he carried her away. Three steps and he was in front of the sofa, and he lowered them down to it as quickly as he dared. Laid her out on her back, breasts spilling across her chest, dark hair fanned out behind her head, faint traces of blood smeared across her tits from where she'd pressed against his chest, one of his feet on the floor for leverage and the rest of his body caught in the cradle of her thighs. She reached for his neck with her bad hand, marked him there same as he had marked her own neck, and stared unblinking into his eyes as he began once more to fuck her.
It had never been like this, sex. Never been this base, this primal, this all consuming; he could not look away from her, and he could not stop. Could not stop touching her, could not stop rutting into her, and she must have seen it in his eyes, must have felt it in the trembling of his body, that he was close, so close to ruin, because while she held his gaze she reached between them and began to rub at her clit, and when she did her eyes rolled closed, sounds of pleasure such as he had never heard before falling from her lips, and he chased after her, desperate to see her fall apart for him.
"Come on," he grunted at her. "Come on, baby, come on, I wanna feel it, come on me -"
"Come in me," she panted back at him, "please, come in -"
It was the pleading sound of her voice - and the way her inner muscles fluttered around him as her own release took her - that proved his undoing. He pinned her hard to the sofa and thrusted deeply, madly within her, came with a roar, holding himself deep, deep inside her as at last he found his completion in the arms of the woman he was never supposed to love but did, anyway, with every piece of himself.