40. Ellie
CHAPTER FORTY
ellie
SHOCKED, SULLY STILLED FOR only a moment before his hands threaded through my hair and his lips moved against mine, kissing me back with a ferocity I’d missed so damn much.
I’d missed him so damn much.
He groaned into my mouth, and I felt it vibrate in my core.
This kiss, despite its hint of salt from endless tears and the slight clash of teeth because we were messy and desperate, was a homecoming. And God, I never wanted to leave again.
“Sawyer,” I gasped, and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth, tangling it with his. Stroking. Taking. Moaning. A whole-body shudder worked through me. Fire flooded my veins, and my nerve endings fizzled. “I love you, too. I have never stopped loving you.”
“Eleanor,” he groaned and then kissed me harder.
“Sawyer,” I repeated, no other words in my brain. Just his name and how much I loved him. How much I needed him. “Just—please.”
He nipped at the corner of my mouth, and my breath caught. “What?”
“Keep kissing me.”
His lips twitched before they found mine again.
“Never again,” Sully eventually muttered when our air began running out, and our mouths parted.
“Never again?”
My brain was hazy, confused by the conflicting messages.
“You told me I couldn’t kiss you in Boston, and I’ve been dying inside ever since.” His lips trailed to the side, kissing a path to my jawline. Meanwhile, his voice scraped against my senses. “Please don’t ever fucking do that to me again. Not kissing you has been the worst kind of torture.”
“Never again,” I promised, and then I was hoisted into his arms. With deliberate movements, he wrapped my legs around his waist while his strong arms hooked behind my back, and we were moving.
Sully’s strides were quick, his hands sliding up my spine to steady me as the creak of the porch steps sounded beneath us.
We crashed into the house as his lips descended on mine again, and another groan vibrated between our lips.
There was no way of knowing whether it came from him or me, but it didn’t fucking matter.
Sully kicked the door shut behind him, and it rattled the frame of the house.
“Good,” he said, but I’d forgotten what we were talking about. “Because I’m going to kiss you. I’m going to kiss you fucking everywhere.”
The next thing I knew, I was landing on the stairs, my ass perched on the edge of a step as I clung to Sully.
Hard to say whether this had been his intention or if he’d realized he couldn’t walk up the stairs without breaking the kiss and refused to stop.
But either way, one of his hands had traveled to my thigh, gripping it as his knee nudged its way between my legs so he could make room to position himself there.
And his lips were moving, too, trailing away from my mouth to nip at my jaw and cascade down my neck. I arched for him, desperate for more.
“Yes,” I breathed—pleading, begging. “Yes.”
“Yes?” he echoed, his gaze flicking to my face while his lips stayed on my skin, pressing a kiss to the curve of my collarbone. “Yes what, baby?”
“Kiss me everywhere. Please.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, pulling back slightly.
“Are you sure that’s what you want? Because I—” His tongue darted out, licking his lips, and then his voice dropped to a tone that made me delirious with desire.
“I want you in a very bad way, Eleanor. I want to—” A muscle rippled in his jawline as he tried to temper himself—for a reason I couldn’t quite understand at the moment.
“I want to put my mouth on every fucking inch of you.”
I held his bright blue gaze, wanting him to know I meant every word when I said, “I want that. I want that more than anything.”
His blond lashes fluttered as he lowered his attention back to my body, a hushed curse slipping through his lips.
It was gentle at first, the way his mouth brushed my collarbone and then my shoulder.
But then his teeth nipped at the strap of my top, and a low growl tore from his throat when I arched up into him, needy for more.
“Sawyer,” I whined, closing my eyes at the brush of his chest against mine. There was too much fabric between us, but I could feel how hard he was—his upper body, his hips, his cock. Holy—
“Goddamnit, El,” he cursed, and I shivered as his teeth grazed my skin.
“What?”
“I was trying to go slow,” he said, voice gritty as he abruptly ripped my top down, exposing one breast. My eyes flew open, a gasp slipping out of me. “But if you’re going to be a needy girl, then I’m fucked.”
My nipple puckered, caused by the intoxicating mix of cool air and Sully’s warm breath, but he quickly covered it with his mouth, sucking it between his lips, lavishing his tongue over the sensitive peak. Desire flared as I cried out, tangling my hands in his hair.
“Missed these tits,” he muttered but then moved from my breasts back up my body, slamming his lips back onto mine, licking into my mouth as his hands ran up and down my body.
“Missed this mouth, too,” he said before returning to kissing me.
One palm cupped my exposed breast, squeezing it between his talented fingers as his thumb brushed over my aching nipple.
I gasped into his mouth, feeling his lips curve against mine.
“Missed you making those noises for me.”
“Only for you,” I promised. “Only ever for you.”
“Good,” he growled into his kiss. “The idea of anyone else touching you makes me see fucking red.”
“Only you,” I repeated, voice shaking as a shudder worked its way through me from the vibrations of his kiss and the way his words echoed inside me. “Sawyer…please.”
“Hm?”
He was busy kissing a path to my ear and tugging the lobe between his teeth.
“Touch me,” I begged, wiggling beneath him. My body felt like a live wire ready to explode.
“Oh, baby.” He pulled back enough to ask, “Can I make you come?”
I nodded, looking him straight in the eye and hoping he could see how badly I needed it. “Please. Yes. I want you to turn my brain off until all that’s left is you.”
Sully gave a slow nod, bracing himself on the step on either side of me. “I can do that, but I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I breathed.
“I need a part of you to stay here with me.” His words were weighty, intentional. “I need to know you’re here, and I have you.”
“You have all of me. I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. “I just want everything else to leave. Everything and everyone but you.”
He leaned down, nodding and brushing a soft kiss over my lips. “It’s just me and you, baby. Just me and you.”
“I love you,” I reminded him, eyes fluttering shut as his lips began to roam again.
“Mmm,” he hummed, pressing his face into my neck, sucking on my pulse point. “Say it again, El.”
My breath hitched as he found a sensitive spot, and my eyes flew back open. On either side of us, I saw the walls we repainted, standing tall and proud.
“I love you,” I repeated, squirming and desperate for his lips to move elsewhere. Lower. Anywhere lower.
“Good girl,” he praised and rewarded me by dragging his mouth down, across my collarbone and then my chest, before he was unbuttoning my jean shorts and tearing them down my legs. “I love you, too, darling. I love you more than fucking anything. And God, am I going to love making you come for me.”
I whimpered—unapologetic. My whole body ached for him. Yes, we were together in Boston, but I didn’t have him. It wasn’t the same as this.
“No lace today?” he murmured, eyes heating me from the inside out as they swept over my plain cotton underwear.
“Disappointed?” I asked, voice breathy.
“They’ve grown on me,” he confessed before hooking his fingers into the sides of my underwear and working them down my legs, tossing them on the stairs.
“Wonder why that is.”
“Hmm,” he hummed, not giving me an answer. “But this is my favorite.”
“What?” I tilted my chin to get a better look at him and the way he was staring at me.
“You, bare for me.” His gaze was glued to my center, eyes filled with want. “So fucking wet for me, Eleanor.”
I tilted my hips, searching for more. I needed him to stop looking at me and start touching me. “Sawyer…”
“Don’t worry, baby,” he said, reading my mind. His hands drifted up my bare thighs, leaving goose bumps in their wake. “I’m going to make you come. But I have to be gentle with you—”
“Says who?”
“Your doctor.”
“It’s been weeks,” I argued.
His head jerked as he shook it. “Don’t care. Still need to be careful. But I want you so bad that I’m fucking shaking—”
“Sawyer, if you don’t do something soon, I’m going to take matters into my own hands again.”
“God, you say that like it’s a bad thing,” he groaned but dropped his head, pressing featherlight kisses to my inner thighs. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve replayed that night in my head? Watching you play with your pretty little clit was so fucking—”
He broke off as a growl sounded in his throat, one that never left his lips because within seconds, they were between my legs, sucking.
His tongue, licking. And then I couldn’t hear anything but my own cries.
My own cries and Sully when his gruff voice said, “You taste so good. So, so good. I want to live here between your legs.”
I couldn’t manage a response, too busy panting and whining from the assault on my senses. It was amazing what he could do with his tongue. The way he could make me feel. The sensations coursing through me—hot and heady and so very delicious.
Sully’s mouth worked over me relentlessly, though when his tongue licked over my clit, it was gentle, teasing.
He was being careful, like he’d promised.
But I didn’t mind; there was something about it that wound me up even higher, making my hips chase after him, after every light touch, needing more, more, more.
At some point in my delirium, Sully hoisted my legs over his shoulders, lifting me clean off the stairs as he continued to lick and suck and tease me on my way to heaven.
I had to reach up and grab hold of the railing, but not because I felt like I was going to fall—not really.
I felt an awful lot like I was going to float away, though.
By the time I could feel my orgasm rising, I was grinding against his face, desperately needing more of the tiny little flicks of his tongue. It was sending me into a spiral—a hot, beautiful spiral that I just knew was going to leave me destitute.
“Sawyer,” I gasped—because just like he promised, it was just me and him. “Oh my God.”
But he didn’t stop, and I didn’t stop, gyrating my hips to some invisible beat. His fingers dug into my thighs as he supported me, encouraged me, and then he moaned into my pussy, and I was gone.
My screams echoed in the hall, my body bowing higher as my climax flooded my senses.
My vision grew hazy in the thick of it, but when it started to clear as I came down, I found Sully’s heated gaze locked on me, even as his mouth still worked between my legs, pressing soft kisses to my clit and making me jolt from the overstimulation.
“Good job, baby,” he murmured. “Always such a good girl for me.”
Slowly, he lowered me back to the steps, letting my legs fall off his shoulders.
After one final kiss to my inner thigh, he worked his way back up my partially naked body, my tank top still covering half my chest while the other half remained exposed.
But it didn’t matter. Sully’s hands still found both my breasts, his large palms covering them as he leaned over me, decorating my bare skin with faint kisses until eventually he found my ear.
“Tell me you missed me being between your legs,” he demanded, sending a shiver through me from the heat of his words.
“I missed you—” I started and then choked on the rest.
Because I missed him. I missed him so much, and I felt such a relief at getting to admit that.
At telling him the truth, of apologizing for things that never should have happened.
And now he was here, kissing me and loving me and touching me.
Even though he’d once told me that he might never be able to forgive me.
Did he forgive me?
“I missed you,” I repeated through the emotion coating my throat. “I missed you.”
And then Sully was back to kissing my lips, but it was tender this time, a sweep of his mouth over mine, just enough to taste myself on his lips, before he pulled back, hovering over me, a picture of perfection. His messy blond hair hung over piercing blue-green eyes.
I knew other people sometimes saw Sully as chaotic and energized, but I had only ever known him as steady. Steady and sure and strong, and that was the way he was looking at me right now.
“I missed you endlessly. And I don’t intend on ever letting you slip through my fingers again,” he added.
“Does that mean you forgive me?” As much as I believed everything he was saying, and as good as it made me feel, I just really needed to make this one thing clear. I needed to know we could move past everything that happened five years ago. “You said you weren’t sure you ever could.”
“That was a fucking lie,” he said, blowing a breath through his lips. “I forgave you the moment you stood over here—” He pointed behind him. “—and told me you moved home for me and our child.”
I exhaled, my body melting with relief. A heavy weight lifted off my chest, and tears pricked my eyes as I stared up at him.
“There was never any doubt in my mind,” I said, my voice shaking, emotions running higher than a kite, “that I needed to come home. I spent years being scared of a little positive sign, but when I finally saw one, nothing mattered but you. God, I never expected it to feel so right. I—”
My voice broke, and Sully nodded, telling me he understood, that maybe it felt right for him, too, that it was okay to be confused, that nothing mattered more than the fact that I was here.
That everything might feel messy, but it would be okay.
“I’m so happy you’re home, Eleanor.” His lips twisted in a soft smile that seemed to reflect all the emotions knotted up inside me—from the joy of being here to the devastation of what we lost to the want and desire lingering in this moment. “Now, can I finally take you to bed?”
“Please,” I whispered.
And before I knew it, I was hauled into Sully’s arms again.
But the best part was, this time, I suspected I wouldn’t be leaving.