It was simply their chemistry that threatened to consume her. And she wanted it to. She was more than happy to drown in it.
He gripped her chin, and her hair, forcing her head back and taking the kiss impossibly deep. She moaned, writhing up against his body.
He picked her up from where they stood and carried her from the entryway, into a living area where there was a plush, wide couch.
It did not look as if it was especially made for sitting, but rather it was made for something like this. Black and round, with ample space for how athletic she knew the sex was between them.
She had never really considered herself an athlete. But he made her want to endeavor to be one.
At least, he made her happy enough to exert herself where typically she found that sort of thing overrated. There was nothing overrated about this.
She could honestly say, that for all the big deal people made out of sex... She could see why. Ten out of ten. Would recommend.
And then she couldn’t think anymore, because Gunnar was methodically stripping her clothes from her body, licking his way across all of her skin. Teasing her, tormenting her.
He turned her over onto her knees, and wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her up. Then she heard the sound of his belt buckle coming undone, and she came undone along with it.
She felt the blunt head of his arousal pressed against the entrance to her body, and she moaned. He slid into her slowly from behind, the new position making things unbearably tight. Making her feel so full.
The raw sound that came from her lips was animal. Foreign.
She loved it. She loved what he did to her. The way that he took her every expectation about herself and turned it inside out. The way that he changed her into something new.
And he had. That was the most extraordinary realization of all. The woman that had agreed to marry him, the woman that had decided to try something different. To try being someone different, to try and make a life that wasn’t in service to a dead man who had never loved her more than a corporation, that woman had been forged in the fires of passion with Gunnar. And yes, much of the heat and strength came from inside of her, it took two of them to create this alchemy after all.
He gripped her hips, a short curse on his lips as he began to thrust hard into her body.
She loved this. This animalistic passion that created in them something entirely new.
“Gunnar,” she moaned his name, and he growled.
“Olive,” he said.
And she knew that he was with her. She knew that he was as much enslaved by this as she was.
How she loved him.
And it made her cry out. Because it was a terrible thing to love him. A horrible thing. And yet it was the inevitable thing. It was fate. She couldn’t deny it.
He had always, and only ever, been the one man for her.
This moment had been written for her long before she had ever picked up a romance novel.
Except the problem was, she wasn’t sure she would get her happy ending. Oh, he would marry her. He was a man of integrity. He would keep his word. She knew that. And that was what scared her. He didn’t love her. He didn’t love her. And what was she supposed to do with the knowledge that he would not. Could not. Did she persevere. She had no choice. She knew that. She had no choice, because... Whatever was behind the wall. She wanted him.
The question was, would she ever be able to get behind it.
“Gunnar,” she moaned when the large head of him scraped up against something sensitive and glorious inside of her. And she began to tremble. Began to shake.
She wasn’t going to be able to hold out for much longer, her desire overwhelming her. A thunderstorm of need. He gripped her hips hard, and she hoped—she desperately hoped—that he would leave bruises behind. She wanted to be able to look at herself and see that she was as physically changed as she was emotionally.
This man.
She felt as if he had grabbed a loose thread of hers once long ago, and had been pulling it ever since, and now she was threadbare, worn, and desperately trying to cover herself up. And yet, it was the beauty of it. The utter beauty. Her brokenness. The places where she could no longer hide.
It allowed her to see herself for the first time.
And yes, it left her open to him as well. And she felt bright and scalded and new, shaking as she was, while he destroyed the version of all it that had existed before.