Chapter 440: Keeping This Place, Too
Chenghai opened his pants without taking his eyes off me.
The wet fabric fought him for a few seconds, which was probably what he deserved after throwing both of us into the creek. He pushed it down far enough to free himself, then settled between my legs again.
I looked down.
That seemed like a mistake.
Chenghai was bigger than I expected, which was stupid because the rest of him had never suggested he would be reasonable about anything. My body was still loose and sensitive from his mouth and fingers, but I wasn’t convinced that would be enough.
He followed my eyes and stopped moving.
His hand came up beside my face, thumb brushing slowly over my cheek while he waited. Chenghai didn’t ask a pile of questions or make me explain something he could already see. He only stayed there, giving me time to decide whether I wanted him closer.
I wrapped my legs around his hips.
His face changed.
It wasn’t much, only the way his jaw tightened and his breathing became deeper, but I had spent enough time watching him pretend nothing affected him to recognize it.
I pulled him down by the back of his neck.
Chenghai kissed me while he guided himself against me. The first push made my fingers tighten against his shoulders, and he stopped before the stretch became too much.
His forehead rested against mine.
I breathed through it and shifted my hips, taking a little more of him without waiting for permission.
The hand beside my head closed around the blanket.
"Slow," he murmured against my mouth.
"You’re the one who brought that."
His eyes closed for a second.
Apparently, that wasn’t helpful.
Chenghai kissed me again, keeping the pressure steady until my body relaxed around him. Then he pushed deeper, slow enough that I felt every inch and had enough time to regret encouraging him.
My nails dug into his back.
He stopped when he was fully inside me.
Neither of us moved.
The porch boards creaked beneath the blankets, insects screamed in the field, and the ruined farmhouse sat behind us doing its best not to collapse during an important moment.
Chenghai’s chest pressed against mine while he held himself still.
I shifted beneath him.
A rough breath left him.
That was better.
I moved again, and his hand came down hard around my hip.
"You keep doing that," he said, his mouth near my ear.
"You keep stopping."
Chenghai lifted his head and looked at me.
Then he pulled almost all the way out and drove back in.
The sudden movement shoved the breath from my lungs. My legs tightened around him, and his hand slid beneath my back to keep the porch from taking more of the impact than I did.
He moved again before I recovered.
There was nothing careful about the rhythm he found after that, but he never forgot where we were. One arm stayed beneath me, protecting my back from the boards, while his other hand controlled my hip and kept my injured leg from twisting.
Every hard push filled me enough that I felt it through my entire body.
I held on to him.
Chenghai kissed me whenever my breathing became too loud, swallowing the sounds while his hips kept moving. His body was heavy over mine, warm and solid, and there was nowhere for me to go except closer.
I didn’t want to go anywhere else.
His mouth moved from mine to my neck. The scrape of his teeth made my body tighten around him, and the effect stopped him for half a second.
I felt it.
Chenghai lifted his head.
I did it again on purpose.
His fingers dug into my hip.
"You like that," I said, although my voice came out less steady than I wanted.
Instead of answering, he changed the angle.
The next thrust hit somewhere that made my entire sentence disappear.
Chenghai noticed immediately.
Of course he did.
He held my thigh higher against his side and did it again, watching my face while the pleasure cut through me.
I tried to pull him down so he would stop looking so pleased, but he caught one of my wrists and pressed it into the blanket beside my head. His fingers threaded through mine as he kept the same deep rhythm.
The field beyond the porch disappeared.
I stopped hearing the insects, the creek, and the old boards moving beneath us. Everything narrowed to Chenghai’s hand holding mine, his body driving into me, and the heat building faster every time he hit the same place.
My free hand dragged down his back.
He groaned into my neck.
The sound made something inside me tighten harder.
Chenghai’s pace broke for a moment before becoming rougher. The calm mask he had worn through most of the date had finally disappeared, leaving his breathing ragged and his movements heavy enough to shake the blankets beneath us.
I liked seeing him lose it.
I lifted my hips to meet him.
His mouth closed over mine, and the hand on my thigh moved between us. His fingers found me already swollen and sensitive, rubbing in time with every thrust.
That was too much.
I broke the kiss and turned my face into his shoulder, but Chenghai caught my jaw and made me look at him.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
His eyes stayed on mine while the pressure inside me pulled tighter, giving me nowhere to hide when my body began shaking beneath him.
The release hit hard.
My legs locked around his hips, and my fingers squeezed his hand while every wave pulled him deeper. Chenghai kept moving through it, slower now, dragging the feeling out until I couldn’t tell whether I wanted him to stop or never stop again.
His control didn’t survive much longer.
He buried his face against my neck and drove into me twice more before his entire body tightened. The hand holding mine closed hard enough to hurt, and a low sound left him as he pushed deep and stayed there.
For several seconds, the only thing moving was his chest against mine.
Then Chenghai caught himself on one elbow before his weight crushed me into the porch.
I stared at the broken roof above us and tried to remember how breathing worked.
Chenghai’s mouth touched my shoulder.
"That was better than the creek," I said eventually.
His body moved with a quiet laugh.
He withdrew carefully and sat back long enough to pull his pants into place. Then he reached for the towels and cleaned me without turning the whole thing into another conversation.
I let him.
My legs still felt useless, and the blankets were warm beneath me. Chenghai wiped away the mess, checked the old bite on my calf out of habit, then pulled his shirt back over my head.
The fabric covered me to my knees again.
He gathered me into his lap and leaned against the porch post with both arms around my waist. I rested against his chest while the field went fully dark.
The little off-road vehicle sat where we had left it near the track.
I looked at it for a while before asking, "Are you driving home?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"You don’t trust yourself?"
"I trust myself. I don’t trust the trees."
Chenghai’s mouth brushed my hair.
We stayed on the porch until my legs stopped shaking enough that I could pretend they worked. Then he stood with me in his arms, picked up the cooler with one hand, and started toward the SUV.
I looked back at the broken farmhouse, the muddy field, and the porch where Chenghai had apparently decided a bed was optional.
We were definitely keeping this place too.