Chapter 26 Juniper
TWENTY-SIX
JUNIPER
The door shuts behind me, and I watch Liam hang his coat in the front closet. Then, he takes mine and hangs it while I slip off my heeled boots.
We drop our keys on the table as we pass by like it’s our new routine, then he follows me toward my bedroom. I guess at this point, it’s our bedroom.
My family’s annual holiday party had been the most fun I can remember, but this part is different.
It’s the first Christmas Eve that I’m not spending in my childhood home.
I’m not joking with Jasper as we clean up the kitchen or cuddling on the couch beneath my favorite throw until we can’t stop yawning and climb the stairs to our rooms.
I’m here in my own apartment now. With a man that has infiltrated my holiday traditions, for better or worse, and it makes me wonder where I’ll be next year.
If this moment with Liam will just be a snapshot in time, or will I forever associate the holiday season with Liam Hargrove and his alluring smile.
We stare at each other. Although it’s late, I’m too wired to sleep.
Liam’s dark eyes watch me closely.
I could get used to the way he looks at me. Like I’m something to discover and explore.
The thought is dangerous. Because even though Liam came back to make things right with me, we still haven’t talked about any kind of future. What things will look like when the holidays are over and he returns to New York.
But right now, the air between us is charged. We’ve been dancing around this all night—no, all week—and we both know how this ends.
I stand there, back against my bedroom door, my heartbeat so loud I’m sure he can hear it. He’s so close—big, warm Liam—and I know what’s about to happen. What I want to happen.
He cups my face like I’m the most breakable thing he’s ever held. Like he’s scared I’ll run if he pushes too far.
So I swallow, then force the words out before I lose my nerve. “I should tell you something.”
His thumb brushes my cheekbone. “Okay.”
I can’t look at him. “I haven’t…I mean, there hasn’t been…” I let out a tiny, mortified laugh. “I’m still a virgin.”
His hands still on my jaw, but his eyes flare—not with shock or judgment but something I can’t quite name. Something that makes my stomach flip.
He dips his head, pressing his forehead to mine. His voice is low, rough.
“Firefly, you have no idea how fucking lucky I feel right now.”
I try to pull back. “I didn’t tell you so you’d celebrate it—”
His mouth cuts me off with a soft, filthy kiss with just enough tongue to make me gasp.
Then, he pulls back to whisper against my lips, “I’m not celebrating that you haven’t been with anyone else.
I’m celebrating that I get to be the one.
The only one. That I get to make this so damn good you’ll never wish it was anyone else. ”
His words send a ripple of pleasure through me.
So damn good you’ll never wish it was anyone else.
I can’t imagine wanting anyone else the way I want Liam. Maybe that’s a problem. But one for future Juniper. Because, right now, I don’t want to think about what happens tomorrow, or next week when he slips from my day-to-day life again.
He tugs my sweater over my head and tosses it aside without looking. His palms find my bare waist, warm and steady, and my skin sparks under his touch.
I suck in a shaky breath, my heart thudding so hard I’m sure he can feel it through my ribs.
“You look so fucking pretty like this,” he murmurs against my neck. “So damn soft for me.”
“Bed?” I whisper, because my legs are already shaking.
He smiles against my collarbone, then lifts me—just like that, like I weigh nothing—and carries me the few steps to my bed. He sets me down with this gentle care that almost undoes me more than the filthy things he says.
I watch, breathless, as he straightens and peels off his shirt. His eyes never leave mine while he undoes his belt, fingers slow and deliberate, like he wants me to watch.
“You’re sure?” he asks again, voice lower now, rougher. He kneels onto the bed, crowding me back against the pillows.
My answer comes out on a whisper. “More than anything.”
“Good. Because once I start, Juniper…” He kisses my knee, then parts my thighs with big, confident hands. “I’m not stopping till you know you’re mine.”
The word mine curls hot in my belly.
I nod, my breath catching when he lowers himself over me, skin to skin now, heat and muscle and the rough scratch of his stubble. He kisses me again, slower this time, but deeper—and I feel him, every part of him, the weight of it, the promise.
My hands slip into his dark hair, pulling him closer, grounding myself in the press of his mouth, the slide of his palm up my thigh.
He pulls back just far enough to look at me, brushing my hair off my forehead with the backs of his knuckles. His eyes are soft but hungry, like he’s memorizing everything.
“This okay?” he asks, voice hoarse.
I nod. “Better than okay.”
He grins—that wicked, devastating grin—and dips his head, trailing his mouth down my throat. Lower. A soft laugh rumbles against my belly when I squirm under him, desperate for more.
“Patience, Firefly.” His voice is dark silk, brushing over my skin as he kisses a path lower, lips ghosting over my ribs, my stomach. “First, I’m going to taste you. Slow. Sweet. Until you’re begging to come on my cock.”
My hands fly to his hair just as he reaches the edge of my thigh. He nips at the skin there, then spreads me open with a deliberate press of his thumbs. I feel like I’m on fire—the air hitting where I’m soaked for him makes me gasp.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice thick. He blows a soft stream of air across my clit, and I jolt. “Dripping for me already.”
“Liam—” I choke out.
He hums, the sound vibrating against my thigh. Then his mouth is on me. A hot, slow lick that makes my hips buck off the bed.
“Hold still, baby,” he growls, pinning my hips with his strong hands. “I want to savor this.”
The first flick of his tongue over my clit is torture—slow, teasing—but when he does it again, harder, I nearly sob. He laughs, dark and satisfied, then drags his tongue down to where I’m dripping, fucking me open with slow, filthy strokes that make my vision spark white.
“You taste so fucking good,” he groans into me. “Could eat this sweet little cunt every damn day and never get enough.”
He flicks his eyes up, catching mine—blown wide and desperate—and the look in them nearly undoes me right there. Possessive. Hungry. Like he wants to crawl inside me and never leave.
His fingers slip inside me and curl against my most sensitive spot.
“Fuck—Liam—”
He pulls back just enough to speak, mouth slick, voice like sin. “Want you to come on my tongue first. Be good for me, Firefly. Let me feel it.”
He fucks me with his fingers, then seals his mouth over my clit, sucks hard—just once—and I break. My hips arch up into him, thighs trembling as I cry out, the world dissolving in a rush of heat and his name on my lips.
He keeps licking me through it, coaxing every last shudder, groaning like he’s the one being wrecked. When I finally collapse against the bed, boneless and trembling, he lifts his head. His mouth is slick, his grin pure sin.
“Perfect,” he rasps, kissing my thigh, my hip, my belly as he crawls up over me again. “So fucking perfect.”
I can taste myself on his mouth when he kisses me, and I moan into it, half-wrecked, fully his.
“Birth control?”
“I get the shot.”
His eyes flash, a dark heat mixed with something that knocks the breath out of me. He presses his forehead to mine, voice low and rough.
“Good. I want you bare. Nothing between us. Nothing keeping me from feeling every fucking inch of you.”
A shiver races down my spine, but there’s a flicker of worry. Not fear, just reality.
“But…have you—"
He cuts me off with a kiss that’s more of a promise than anything he could say. When he pulls back, his eyes are soft but searing.
His head shakes as he huffs a rough laugh, brushing his thumb over my lips. “I haven’t touched anyone since the night you kissed me. I couldn’t. No one’s you, Firefly.”
My heart does something reckless. “Oh.”
His grin is pure sin and sincerity all tangled up.
“Yeah. Oh.”
Then his mouth is on mine again, devouring, worshipping. And when he pulls back, his next words punch straight through my ribs.
“So, bare, baby. I want every bit of you. And I want you to feel every bit of me.”
I nod. I’m already in too deep with this man. At this point, all I can do is savor every moment. Enjoy the free fall because there’s no safety net. Dive in headfirst with reckless abandon and hope I’ll be able to pick up the pieces later.
Then I feel him, hot and hard, nudging at my entrance. He pauses, searching my face—eyes dark, voice ragged.
“You ready, Firefly?”
My whole body answers before my mouth can. I nod, breathless, drunk on him. “Please.”
His grin turns feral as he pushes forward, just enough to make me gasp—and then he leans down, lips brushing my ear.
“Good. Now you’re gonna take every inch.”
I feel the first push of him, careful but insistent, and I gasp into his mouth. My fingers clutch at his shoulders, nails digging in. He pauses, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, voice rougher than I’ve ever heard it.
“God, Juniper…so fucking tight for me. You feel that?” His hips roll forward, a fraction deeper this time. I gasp again, the stretch sharp and delicious.
“Relax for me, baby,” he growls, kissing the corner of my mouth, my jaw, my throat.
I do. Or at least I try.
“Fuck—look at you,” he whispers, pulling back just enough to watch my face as he sinks deeper. “So pretty when you’re split open for me. You know how long I’ve wanted this? Wanted to ruin you for every other man?”
My breath hitches at the words. Dirty. Raw. Him.
I shiver. The filth in his voice mixes with something possessive. It makes my thighs clamp tighter around his hips, drawing him closer, deeper.
“You okay?” he murmurs, but there’s that wicked grin, the one that says he knows damn well I am.
“Yes—please, Liam—”
He pulls out, just enough to make me whimper, then drives back in, harder, the sound obscene in the quiet room. “Begging already,” he huffs out, teeth grazing my ear. “Fuck, I love that. Love how you beg for my cock. Say it.”
Heat blooms across my chest, my cheeks. My mind races but my mouth betrays me. “Want your cock—want all of it—”
“Yeah?” He bites down, gentle but possessive, right where my neck meets my shoulder. “Good girl. You’re gonna take all of me. Gonna let me fill this tight little cunt so deep you’ll feel me tomorrow.”
I moan—I can’t help it—and he laughs, low and dark. His thumb finds my clit, slow circles that make my breath hitch and my hips stutter.
“That’s it, baby. Make those pretty noises. Want you so fucking loud for me.” His thrusts build, harder now, deeper, the stretch pushing me to the edge of too much, but then, his mouth is on mine, catching every gasp, every broken moan.
“You’re mine now,” he pants against my lips, his hips grinding deeper, claiming every inch. “Mine to fuck, mine to make come, mine to keep.”
My nails claw at his back, the heat coiling tight, ready to snap.
“Come for me, Firefly. Make a mess all over my cock. Let me feel how sweet this virgin pussy really is.”
My orgasm crashes over me, raw and blinding. My body clamps around him so hard I feel his rhythm stutter. He groans, deep and filthy, fucking me through it until he spills inside me, buried to the hilt, forehead pressed to mine as we come apart together.
He stays there, breathing hard, lips brushing my cheek, my jaw. I feel him smile against my skin. It’s a smug, satisfied curl of his mouth that makes me want to laugh and sob all at once.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice wrecked but so damn tender. “Took it so well. My perfect girl.”