After hot coffee and a heartfelt conversation, my heart is bursting. But my body, well, my body is a greedy little bitch.
I tug on Axel’s hand and even though it’s only two in the afternoon, I lead him to my bedroom. When we cross the threshold, his eyes widen as he drinks in the mess of my usually immaculate space.
“I kinda gave up on life this week,” I admit, clearing piles of clothes from my bed.
He snorts. “And I thought I was the only one nursing a broken heart.”
“Not even close.” I spin around to face him. My hands settle on his arms, slide up to his shoulders, and meet behind his neck. “I felt lost without you.”
Axel’s hand settles in the small of my back, his palm flat, his fingers splayed. It’s as if he wants to touch as much of me as he can. “Let’s find it again.”
“What?”
“Me and you,” he replies, his lips brushing over mine.
I lift my face to his and arch into his chest. He deepens the kiss, dragging my body up his frame and slipping his tongue into my mouth.
Whimpering, I close my eyes and drop my head back, loving the onslaught of his kisses. Loving the way he devours me like he’ll never get enough. I know I’ll never have enough of him. Axel is all consuming. Powerful and intentional and larger than life.
My hands track his back as he hitches my body into his arms. My legs encircle his hips as his fingers dig into my ass.
“Missed this ass too,” he mutters, making me laugh.
In the next breath, I’m laying down on my bed, spread out underneath him. He smirks. “Love looking at you like this.” Then, Axel covers my body with his and gives just as much as he takes.
Our kissing turns greedy. His hands roam my skin with abandon, working me out of my clothes as quickly as I pull his off.
“Christ,” he mutters, his eyes drinking in my naked breasts. His hands slide up my sides. “Love these fucking curves,” he mutters, dropping his head to suck one pert nipple into his mouth. Before I can respond, his fingers delve between my thighs and, as needy as I am, my knees drop open and my hips tilt upward, egging him on.
Axel growls as he yanks my thong aside and presses against my clit. The sound alone is enough to make me come. It’s hot and desperate and possessive as hell.
I shiver, digging my nails into his back as he lays over me, raining kisses along my neck, his fingers working magic between my thighs. I reach for him, groaning as my palm closes around his hard length.
“Fuck, you’re wet,” he says as the sounds of my arousal, the sounds of him spreading it over my clit and working his fingers in and out of my core, meet my ears.
“For you.” I sound breathless.
“Better fucking be.” He grows even harder, like steel, in my palm.
I pump him slowly, both of us torturing each other, until it’s too damn much.
Axel pushes me back and hovers over me, lining up at my entrance. “You want me, gorgeous?”
“Badly.”
A vein on his neck jumps. “Never as much as I want you.” He pushes inside of me in one sharp thrust that has me crying out in pleasure.
Axel sets a furious pace, his hips thrusting, his fingers playing with my clit. I don’t tear my eyes away from his, getting lost in the depths of midnight, drowning in his need, soaring in his want.
“I’m close,” I pant, holding on to his forearm as he rocks into me.
“Come for me, Maisy,” he demands, looking down to where our bodies repeatedly join. “Let me see you come.”
I do. So fucking hard, I shake and quiver, crying out his name. Over and over as tremors of pure bliss wrack my body.
“Fuck.” Axel follows a moment later, spilling himself inside of me, and collapsing on top. He rolls to his side, taking me with him and nestling me against his chest. “That was…” He breathes out, at a loss for words.
“I love you.” I kiss his pec.
He laughs. One of those loud, boisterous, one-in-a-million laughs. “I fucking love you, Maisy Stratford.”
I snuggle closer and his palm settles in the middle of my back, anchoring me to him. Right where I belong.
“And this is for real for real.”
Axel and I must doze off after our epic reunion sex because the next thing I know, it’s dark outside and an incessant knocking is happening on my front door.
“Who is it?” Axel asks.
“I don’t know,” I reply, shifting in his arms.
“Mila?”
“No, she has a key.” Which, she used earlier today to pull my ass from these rumpled sheets.
Grumbling, Axel moves from my bed and tugs on a pair of sweats. Immediately, I feel the loss of his heat, of him, from my bed.
“Stay here,” he advises, moving toward the door. A moment later, I hear him swear. “What the fuck do you want?”
Panicked, I wrap myself in my sheet and stand from my bed, taking the whole damn sheet with me like a Bridgerton up to no good.
“I, uh, so, is Maisy home?” a male voice asks.
And it’s a male voice I recognize. “Josh?” I blurt out when he comes into view.
Josh’s eyes widen as he takes me in, sexed-up hair and a bedsheet.
Axel growls and Josh redirects his gaze. “I asked you a question,” Axel reminds him.
“I, um”—Josh’s eyes dart to me again—“I was hoping we could talk, Maisy.”
I wrap the sheet tighter, tucking it under my arms. Axel narrows his eyes at me, clearly hating the part where Josh is seeing me in a bedsheet. “I have nothing to say to you.”
Josh shuffles on the front porch. “Yeah, I just wanted to apologize.”
Silence. Josh glances between Axel and me.
“Where’s the fucking apology?” Axel spits out.
“Oh, right,” Josh stammers, his eyes finding mine again. “I’m sorry, Maisy.”
“Okay, thanks, Josh,” I say, turning back toward my bedroom. I thought his apology would mean something, but it doesn’t. One week without Axel showed me just how worthless my other relationships were. They didn’t add anything to my life, or I wouldn’t have been able to move on from them so quickly. Right now, Josh’s presence is an annoying interruption.
“We could get back together!” Josh calls after me, deluded.
Axel laughs. I turn to glance at him, drinking in the view as he stands in the doorway, dusk behind him, and howls at the moon with laughter. “She’s moved on.”
Josh frowns, his eyebrows dipping together. He points at me, then at Axel. “You think this is going to last? Look at you, Maisy. You’re not the right woman for—”
Axel growls, a warning and a threat.
I hold up my hand. “I’m not interested, Josh. You heard my boyfriend. I moved on. Take care of yourself.”
“Boyfriend?” Josh sputters, incredulous.
“For now.” Axel crosses his arms over his chest. “One day, she’ll call me husband. Now get the fuck out of here and don’t bother my woman again. Unless you have a real apology for the shit you pulled, don’t even talk to her.” With that, Axel slams the door and stalks toward me.
I frown. “Are you really mad?”
“Mad?” He shakes his head. Then, he picks me up and the sheet falls to the floor. I squeal. “Not mad.” Axel moves back to my bed. “Just want to remind you that you made the right fucking choice.” He pulls my duvet over our naked bodies and drops kisses down my stomach. When his mouth meets the sensitive space between my thighs, I drop my head back and laugh.
“It was never a choice. It was always you,” I say.
Axel drags his tongue up my core and I gasp. “Not taking any chances,” he says, before doing it again. “Not with you.”
Then, he gets to work on making me orgasm. And I close my eyes and enjoy every second of it. For real for real.