Chapter 24 #2
"Are you planning on hurting us, Thomas? Are you planning on hurting my boy and me? If so, just tell me. Tell me so I can stop wanting this."
She kissed me. Not like the firehouse kiss, which had been quick and startled and public. This one was slow. Her mouth opened against mine and I tasted tea and honey and cake and the warmth of her mouth.
She pulled back just enough to see my face. Her eyes searched mine.
"I'm not planning on hurting you or DJ," I whispered. "I don't know what this is between us. What I do know is that I won't run away from you the way your husband did. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm done running."
She took in my words, gauging the sincerity behind them. I held her gaze, hiding nothing, letting her see the truth behind it.
Something went out of her then. The wire-taut tension she'd carried in her shoulders for years, the readiness to absorb another blow...
all of it loosened and fell away. I was watching a woman set down a weight she'd been carrying since DJ was four years old, and she set it down by choosing to trust me.
Claire stepped into me and pressed her forehead to my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her and held her there between the rows her father had planted, the last rose light draining from the sky, Wendell settling in the warm dirt at our feet.
Neither of us spoke. She was deciding, and I let her, and when she finally lifted her face, the fear was gone from it.
"Back to the house, Thomas. My bedroom. We have time."
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
Claire nodded. Her fingers tightened on the back of my neck.
"I'm sure."
She took my hand and led me back through the tea rows toward the farmhouse. Wendell padded ahead of us, oblivious. Claire's fingers laced through mine and held on tightly.
We climbed the porch steps. She opened the screen door. We passed through the kitchen, through the hallway with its framed photographs and the smell of old wood, and up the narrow stairs.
She held my hand the entire way. She did not let go.
Claire's bedroom was small and spare. A queen bed with a white quilt, a nightstand stacked with paperbacks, a window that looked out over the tea rows we'd just walked through.
The walls were bare except for a single framed photo of DJ as a baby.
A reading lamp cast a warm circle of amber light across the pillow.
"I haven't had a man in here since..."
Claire's voice trailed off, her eyes wide. I pulled her close and kissed her again, my hands sliding up her back, and I felt the tremor running through her, a vibration just beneath the surface, like a wire pulled taut and plucked.
"Thomas." She broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against my collarbone. "Take it slow. It's been a really long time since I've done this."
"We don't have to."
"I want to. I'm just shaking and I can't make it stop."
I kissed her temple. Her cheek. The corner of her jaw. Slow. I found the hem of her tank top and lifted it over her head, and she raised her arms to let me. Her bra was plain white cotton and I unclasped it and let it fall. She stood still and let me look.
Freckles everywhere, scattered across her chest and shoulders and the tops of her breasts. Her breasts were full and heavy, tipped with dark red nipples that had already tightened in the cooling air.
I unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her hips with her underwear, and she stepped out of them, and there she was.
All of her revealed. The red hair between her thighs a shade darker than what fell across her shoulders.
Her body strong from farm work, soft where it should be soft.
The bedside lamp painted her with pale light.
"God, you're beautiful."
Her breath caught. Her eyes glistened.
"I've missed having a man look at me like that."
She stepped forward and pulled my shirt over my head. Her hands went to my belt, worked it open, pushed my jeans and boxers down. My cock bobbed between us, rigid and throbbing, and she wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed gently.
A grin broke across her face. "Is that for me?"
"Well, you're the only woman in the room."
"I guess I am."
She sank to her knees on the hardwood floor. Her mouth closed around me, wet and warm, and I groaned. Her tongue worked the underside of my shaft as she took me deeper, her lips stretched around my girth, and I buried my hands in her thick red hair.
She looked up at me with those green eyes and I watched my cock disappear between her full lips, and the sight of her sucking me was everything I'd imagined.
She sucked slow and deliberate, her hand stroking what her mouth couldn't reach, humming against my skin as her hand massaged my aching balls.
"That's enough." I eased her back, my cock slipping from her mouth with a wet plop. "Get on the bed."
She climbed onto the white quilt and I followed, settling between her thighs. I ran my fingers through her pubic hair, loving the way it gleamed like copper silk against her pale skin.
"Condom?" I asked.
"No need. I'm safe."
"God, you really are perfect."
Claire giggled as I ran a finger down her slit. She was soaking. I took my cock and pressed the head against her entrance and pushed in slowly, an inch at a time, loving the feel of her warm depths.
Claire's mouth fell open in a silent gasp. Her legs clamped around my waist and locked at the ankles. I thrust slow, deep, pulling almost all the way out and sinking back in. She was so wet I could hear it, the slick sound of my cock plunging in and out of her in the quiet room.
"Deeper," she whispered.
I fucked her harder, kissing her lips and sucking on her nipples. Her nails dug into my back, then gripped my ass, pulling me into her.
"I want it like this," she whispered. "All fours."
She unlocked her legs and pushed against my chest. I pulled out and she rolled over onto her hands and knees, arching her back, looking over her shoulder at me with her red hair spilling across her face.
"Like this," she repeated.
I gripped her ass and pulled her cheeks apart, enjoying the sight of her slick pussy before driving back into her from behind. She cried out, whimpering as her hand reached between her legs and her fingers found her clit, rubbing in fast circles as I fucked her.
The bed creaked. Her back bowed. Her free hand fisted the white quilt.
I watched the muscles in her shoulders flex and release as she worked herself closer and closer until her whole body seized, her pussy clenching around me in rhythmic pulses as she buried her face in the pillow and moaned loud and long and unashamed.
That finished me. I buried myself deep and came inside her with a groan, pumping my hot cum into her in pulsing spurts until I was emptied out.
We collapsed together, my chest against her back, both of us slick with sweat and panting into the fading light.