Chapter 11
D arkness. It was everywhere. Above her. Beside her. The world was so black that she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.
She blinked. Still darkness. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. Nothing changed.
Her heart thrashed against her ribs, so loud it competed with the thick silence around her.
Where was she? And why couldn’t she hear anything? No car engines. No footsteps. Not even wind in the trees.
She pressed her palms to the surface beneath her to push up, only to freeze.
What was that? It was soft but cold. It almost felt like…a chest? Or maybe a stomach?
Panic curled in her belly. She rolled to her side, but the shadowed world refused to let her see.
Slowly…so slowly that a few seconds passed before she’d fully moved…she touched another area.
Her world tilted and spun.
A face. She was touching a face.
Her lungs seized.
No. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
She scrunched her eyes again, and this time when she opened them there was light. And that’s when she saw them—eyes. Blank, lifeless eyes staring up at her.
A scream wrenched from her chest, but when she tried to sit up, she couldn’t. Her head hit a hard surface.
She was in a box. Just like the toy box she’d been locked inside as a child.
“No. No, please!” She started hitting the wood, hard, panicked thumps. “Help! Please, someone help!”
As the bloodcurdling scream left her lungs, the box began to rock. Or maybe that was just her shaking.
She punched the wood again and again, the surface solid but warm.
“Polly! Wake up.”
Her eyes flashed open and she shot upright.
Her chest heaved, air still barely making it into her lungs.
She wasn’t in a box. She was in Joel’s bedroom. In his bed. And he was sitting in front of her, shirtless, hair rumpled, wearing just briefs.
She studied his eyes. Worried eyes. “Joel?”
“I’m here, Sunshine.” He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
“It was a dream…”
His frown deepened. “Are you okay?”
“There was a body beneath me. For a moment, I thought I was in the basement, but then I wasn’t. I was in a box. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t even sit up. I couldn’t…I couldn’t breathe.”
“Hey.” He leaned closer. “You’re not there. You’re here. With me. You’re safe.”
She nodded hesitantly. Then she leaned into him, resting her cool cheek against his warm chest.
For a long minute neither of them spoke, and she just breathed him in, letting the strong beats of his heart thump beneath her cheek. Coax her back to reality.
She closed her eyes.
A dream. It was just a dream.
She repeated the words again and again, needing them to sink in.
But she was still shaking.
“When I was eight, I climbed into a toy box in my bedroom. Mom wasn’t home but her boyfriend Todd was.
We played hide-and-seek, and he thought it would be funny to lock me in.
” A shudder rolled down her spine. “But someone came to the door, and he forgot about me for almost an hour. I called out but it was a two-story house, and he couldn’t hear me.
Since then, I haven’t been able to stand small spaces. ”
Those strong arms tightened around her. “Please tell me your mother dropped that asshole.”
“She did. I cried when I told her, and she yelled at him and told him they were done.”
“Good.”
She sank deeper into his warmth, just letting him hold her. She didn’t care that she might regret this in the morning, or that it was a slippery slope letting the man comfort her…and potentially falling for him.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she breathed.
He’d given her the bed and taken the couch. Another sweet thing she was trying not to think too deeply about.
“I’m not.” His deep, gravelly voice whispered over her skin. “I’m glad I woke up, and I’m glad you’re not alone tonight.”
She lifted her head and studied him. “When you say things like that, I almost wonder…”
He ran his thumb over her chin. “You wonder what?”
“I wonder if it would be such a risk to fall for you.” They were not words this man was supposed to hear. And yet, she didn’t regret them.
“You’re safe with me.”
His response kicked at her heart. Usually, she’d have enough armor to protect herself. To keep sweet words like that from penetrating.
This time, she was defenseless and let them sink deep inside her.
She was going to regret this. She was going to fall deep into the depths of self-reproach the second she woke up.
Yet she still cupped the back of his head, tugged him down, and kissed him.
Somehow, those lips already felt familiar. Like they were hers to touch and taste.
He immediately took control of her lips, softening her. Coaxing them apart.
The nightmare evaporated. Everything slipped away but him. The closeness. The way he steadied and grounded her when her world was spiraling.
She climbed onto his lap and wrapped her legs around him, her sleep shirt bunching at her waist. She gasped at the way his cock pushed at the apex between her thighs, with only the thin fabric of her panties and his briefs separating them.
He slipped his tongue inside her mouth, and holy Jesus, he tasted good. Like whiskey and honey mixed into the most intoxicating combination.
She gripped the bottom of her shirt and tugged it over her head.
There was a single second of Joel’s eyes darkening as he took in her hard nipples. Then he leaned forward, cupped her breast, and took one bud between his lips.
Air hissed between her teeth, and she curled her fingers into his hair. If she had any sanity left, it was lost in that moment.
His tongue flicked her nipple back and forth. He sucked and played, causing blood to rush to her lower belly, almost making her lightheaded.
When he switched to her other breast, she began to grind against him, trying to soothe the ache in her core. It wasn’t enough though. He wore too much. They both did.
He released her nipple with a pop and she thought she’d cry. But then he looked at her, and those chocolate-green eyes held her captive.
“Should I stop?” he whispered.
She cupped his cheeks and kissed him. Once. Twice. On the third kiss, she tasted him before whispering, “Don’t you dare.”
Those beautiful eyes turned molten.
His next kiss lost the edge of softness, his tongue sliding straight in while he rolled her beneath him on the mattress with practiced ease. His fingers went to the waistband of her panties. One second she was wearing them, the next they were gone.
She separated her thighs and wrapped one leg around his waist, and he was right there, nudging into her even though the thin barrier of his briefs separated them.
He reached down and touched her clit. She jolted. A whole-body jolt. The felt-him-everywhere kind.
His lips moved to her neck, and he sucked as he stroked her, his thumb rolling and playing. Tormenting.
When he eased one finger inside her, she gasped, her entire body throbbing to life.
Torturously slowly, he drew out of her and then back in, his thumb still moving and stroking.
She writhed and ground against him, fire building in her belly.
Desperately, she reached between them and dipped her hand into his briefs. He was thick and long as she pulled him out.
His finger slipped out of her and stilled, his muscles bunching as she ran her palm over his cock.
“Jesus, Polly.” His head fell into the crook of her neck.
She pressed his tip to her entrance and stroked her hand up and down his length.
Exploring him. Increasing her pace, then slowing down again.
She learned what he liked, taking in every hitch in his breathing.
Every tensing of his biceps. Then she rubbed his tip up and down her clit, igniting a new need deep inside her.
Groans and masculine hums rippled into the air before he suddenly growled and rolled away.
She barely had time to register what he was doing before he’d covered his cock with a condom.
Her breath caught at the sight of him beside the bed. Big and powerful, every inch of him was hard.
He returned to her slowly, climbing over her still body, separating her thighs as he settled between them. Her chest hummed at the feel of him right there at her entrance.
He lowered his head. His mouth was so close to hers that she could feel his breath against her lips as he whispered, “You’re mine, Polly Mack.”
Then he sank deep inside her. Stretching her. Filling her. Chasing away the entire world.
Joel touched his forehead to hers, and for a moment it felt like Polly held his heart in the palm of her hand. He had to relearn how to breathe. How to move air in and out of his lungs.
Her leg tightened around his waist, tugging him that bit deeper.
He growled and kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth and licking it over hers as he lifted his hips and thrust back in.
Her whimper wove through him, creating one of those core memories that he knew would live inside him. He rocked back and forth again, and again, completely losing himself in her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, her gasps and moans so loud they shattered the otherwise quiet.
He cupped her breast and rolled her nipple between his fingers, loving the way she gripped his wrist, not to pull him away but to hold him there.
She didn’t need to. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He thrust harder, deeper. Her head lolled back, exposing that creamy neck, and he took advantage, dipping to taste her delicate skin.
Shit, she tasted good. Sweet like a drug that could hold him in the clutches of addiction. This woman was in his bones, his blood. She’d already buried herself so deep, he knew there was no getting her out.
He lowered his hand between her thighs and stroked her clit.
She arched and whimpered.
He did it again.
“Joel.”
His name was a breathy whisper that he replayed in his head again and again.
One more stroke of her clit and her walls clenched around his cock, and then he watched her break. He watched that tight scrunch of her eyes, the separation of her lips as she cried out and exploded.
Her body pulsed along his cock, and even though he didn’t want this to end, she made him fall right over the edge with her. He growled and tensed and lost himself in her.
Long seconds passed in stillness. Quietness. Then finally, he breathed again.
He looked at her—really looked—and suddenly, he knew there was no turning this off. There was no walking away or forgetting.
He slipped out of her, giving her one more kiss to the temple before pulling the sheets over her and going to the bathroom to clean himself up. When he returned, she was exactly where he’d left her, eyes closed, features so soft she almost looked angelic.
He crawled beneath the sheets and she nuzzled into his side. For a second he wondered if she felt it too. The incredible need for this to be more than one moment. The ache for this to be the start of something neither of them could walk away from.
“That was…amazing,” she breathed, voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “But it was also reckless. And dangerous. And should probably never happen again.”
It took a lot to make his stomach drop. But his stomach hit the fucking floor at that comment. “Why dangerous, Sunshine?”
“Because you would be far too easy to fall for.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes.” One quiet word. That was it.
He swiped his thumb over her hip. “Not all love hurts. Sometimes love heals. Sometimes love feels good.”
She looked up at him. “Have you ever loved a woman so intensely that it actually felt good?”
“Not yet.” But he had a feeling he was starting to fall.
“Do your parents have a love that heals?”
He could have laughed. “No.”
“Then how do you know?”
She wasn’t ready for the truth.
She wasn’t ready to hear that she was the reason. That he felt something for her he’d never felt before. “I just do.”
She sighed, clearly not believing him, before nuzzling back into his shoulder.
She didn’t believe him yet . Not tonight. But soon…soon, he’d convince her.