Chapter Nine
First Date Expectations
Kaleb
Addi looks so damn pretty when she’s angry—prettier than ever—so what the fuck does that say about me? But I’m not here to talk about me. It’s her I want, in every way. Her scent wrapped around me, her body tight beneath mine as I show her what love really is.
Yeah, I fall hard and fast, but I’ve kept this part of me locked away for so long, from so many breaches of trust that delved soul-deep that I wasn’t sure I could want someone this way again.
Mission achieved, asshole.
Her head rests on my shoulder as I pull her back onto the hood of my car, tipping her head back to stare up at the night’s early stars. Her eyes are half-closed, her body soft where she curves into my embrace. I love that look on her face, her lips soft, the tension of a moment before gone. Trust. The one thing I crave, and she gives it to me freely. This girl will break me, I know she will.
And I’m not running.
I trace my knuckles along the gentle slope of her jaw. Her lips part on a breath that’s sweet and heady and leaves me as hard as granite. I shift her onto my lap, wanting her to know the effect her proximity has on me and needing her closer all at once.
“You’re handsy, aren’t you?” she murmurs, the easy way we were before Lethe’s intrusion sliding back. It better fucking stay too, because if I get her in my arms for a few hours, she’s mine.
“I need to touch you.” I don’t hide the desire that leaves my voice ragged at the edges. Why shouldn’t I be honest if she can give me her trust that fast?
She frowns, her gaze refocusing on me as she tips her head back farther. “Is this a marking-your-territory thing after that asshole turned up? I mean, a pretty asshole, and a confused one, but still. I’m here with you .”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. You are.” Without any more thought about it, and as natural as can be, I dip my head and brush my mouth over hers.
Pleasure sings through my veins as if she is made for me, and I’m here for every goddamn drop of it. When she and that toxic-as-fuck sister of hers came into the asylum—let’s be real about where Mana keeps his secrets—I thought she was bait for him. Hell, maybe she still is. But she seemed untouchable and that made me want her more.
Addi freezes, the soft lines of her body stiffening as I suck in a controlled breath and go back for seconds. Because I’m a greedy mother, and I need to taste her, make sure she remembers the taste of me tonight when she lies in her bed and slips her hands between her thighs. Not Mana, and sure as fuck not Lethe, who she seemed to form an instant connection with. Just me.
Fuck, she’s right. I am claiming her because he looked at her that way, like he wanted to take her home. Or worse, like he wanted her to take him home.
My head swirls with too many thoughts as her lips part the slightest amount. It’s more than I need to drive my tongue into her mouth, cupping the back of her head. The softness disappears from us both, transforming into something raging and feral, a frenzy of unsated need.
I draw back on a gasp, barely able to break the connection, but I do it because I have to offer. In another life I was a private schoolboy with manners before I found my place in Portland’s underbelly. May as well make some use of that trust fund education.
“Tell me I’m not pushing you?” I graze her lips with mine on every damning word.
“I want you to push more,” she breathes, her forest green eyes open and locked onto me like she’s garnered the corner of my soul and refuses to let go.
Her tongue flicks gently at my bottom lip as she speaks, and my cock is ready to rampage. The quiet touch is intimate, sweet. Erotic. I know instinctively what she’ll look like on her knees with her mouth wrapped around my cock.
Addi is a sexy-as-fuck brat, and I want to make it my life’s work to tame her, knowing I’ll never win, but enjoy the battle nonetheless.
Her lips part as I kiss her slower this time, gliding my tongue along hers, finding how deep she likes it, and when she’ll push me away.
Spoiler: she doesn’t.
I groan as she climbs me, throwing a denim-clad thigh across my hips until her heat meets my erection. Her breath sharpens against my cheek, but I cup the back of her head, holding her in place so she had no choice but to keep kissing me as she grinds her sinfully hot body against mine.
She reaches between us but I catch her in a grip she can’t break. “No, Addi. Not just yet.”
She mewls at me and tips her head down to look at me through her lashes. Brat. Called it.
“What if I really want to? Or don’t you do girls on the first date, K?” She gives me a nickname and my heart pounds like I just scored a touchdown.
“I want to do you right now on the hood of my car.” I kiss her again, wanting her lips swollen and flushed as fuck when she has her little meeting with Mana. “And we will fuck. Soon, I promise. But not just now.”
She pouts, wiggling her hips in a figure eight pattern over my groin I swear is designed as an eternal punishment for men alone. “You’re turning me down?”
I laugh softly and kiss her hard for a second, only to break back and leave her panting. The pretty pink flush creeps up her cheeks and she stares at me with wild eyes.
“I said soon, Addi.” I kiss her hard again, then again, barely able to keep my control in check. “Fuck, you taste good. Add ictive.”
Her hands claw at my chest. “I want to be closer, Kaleb. Please. Pretty please?” She bats those damn eyelashes at me, linking her arms behind my neck to rub our bodies together. “I want to feel all of you.”
“You’re doing a damn fine job of that. If this is what burgers do for you, what the hell will it be like when I feed you bacon?”
Her eyes glow when I remember her favorite. “Try me, and find out.”
“ Fuckkkk. ”
I tip my head back, desperate for a breath before I do what she’s asking me for and fuck her on my car. Her mouth goes to town on my exposed throat, licking and sucking, while her hands pull free of my grip and enter a little downstairs tour below my belt.
She’s gentle, folding her small palm around the straining denim at my groin, and squeezing softly. “You do want me,” she purrs, while still managing to sound surprised.
“Yeah.” My brain is mush. “I want you. I also want to savor every kiss and taste you give me. Take it slow until we’re both bursting with need and then that first time together…” I blow out a hard breath as she strokes her fingertips over my cock. “That first time will be fucking unforgettable.”
“I want that,” she whispers, fitting her body against me and rubbing her breasts to my chest like a kitten in heat. “I want to drip for you.”
“Christ, the mouth on you.” I fist one hand in her hair, yanking her head back and bow her body so I’m leaning over her, getting right up in her space. My other hand grips over my cock and I fold my fingers around hers. “But if you want to kick-start us off, I like it hard, baby.” I squeeze our hands together roughly, crushing her fingers beneath mine.
Her soft “ oooh ,” and my labored breaths mingle as I show her how to work me. The combination has me ready to blow in seconds, but I’m determined to edge us both into insanity. Speaking of…
“When you touch yourself tonight, think of me, hell kitten.” I kiss her slowly, working her back up and twist our hands so my knuckles rub her denim-encased pussy. “And just as you get close…” I pull our hands away, leaving us both breathless, desperate, and panting. “Stop.”
“Huh?” Her eyes flare, wild for a moment, and I nearly come in my pants.
“That right there, kitten, is exactly what I want to see in your face when I fuck you the first time. That edge where you need it so bad, you can’t think. That we want each other so much, it’s all-consuming.”
Her breaths come short. “And if I do get myself off?” Her desperation turns wicked out of necessity.
Denial will be so much fucking fun with her. I smile darkly, reaching out to catch her chin and tap her swollen lips with my thumb. Perfect. “I’m not above a funishment date.”
“A, um, what?”
I lean closer, wrapping my hand around her throat and exerting the slightest amount of pressure to show her where we stand. “I can show you pleasure in denial, Addi. In the tiniest addition of pain. And I have a spanking fetish.” I smirk, and let her go.
More blood rushes to her lips as she pants for me.
Mission fucking achieved.
I end our date on that little note, easing her into my car with soft promises of more and kissing her gently until that softness resumes, swiping away the desperation I woke in her earlier. There will be time for that later, and later will be soon, because I’m barely in control of myself as it is.
“This was different,” Addi murmurs as I start the engine, the familiar purr almost doing as much for me as the girl who was writhing on my lap mere minutes ago.
Almost. But not quite. My obsession with this machine has waned to make room for a new sort that rips through my veins.
“You gonna let me take you out again, Addi?” I sling an arm across the seat back and her shoulders, squeezing her arm, and pull her a little closer.
“Only if there’s bacon. And coffee.”
I laugh, but beneath her bratty response lies the need awoken in us both that goes well beyond the physical. One date, and I’ve fallen for this girl like an angel tumbling from grace.
Except I am no angel, and she holds all the grace.
I peel away from our place of solitude, heading back to her house. I leave the window down just enough to flip the bird to the stalkering ass in the trees beyond who watched the whole fucking show from a front row seat.
“You know, I think I will take you out. At least a few more times. Then, you’re coming to my place for dinner.”
She swallows and leans into my arm slung across her back. “What happens then?”
Then I’ll fucking beg you to marry me before someone else does. I clear my throat and mind of the heady image of her in a white dress I get to peel from her body layer by layer and worship her for the next decade and more.
“Then we’ll find out if that mouth of yours is as good at kissing other things as it is at sucking my tongue.”
That pretty blush of hers lasts the whole trip home.
Am I proud of that last? Damn right I am.
I smirk at the road, and pull her an inch closer. I’ll do anything to make sure this girl is mine, and make sure she stays that way.