Chapter 5 #2
I spread her thighs and settle between them.
The first drag of my tongue through her folds is slow, deliberate, and she cries out with a sharp, broken sound that makes my cock throb against the mattress.
She's wet. Soaking. Swollen and sensitive and responsive in a way that tells me she's been wanting this as long as I have.
I lick her again. Flat tongue, base to tip, lingering on her clit with a slow, circling pressure that makes her thighs tremble around my ears. Her hips buck up and I grip them, pulling her harder against my mouth, holding her exactly where I want her.
"Stephen." My name in her mouth, ragged and desperate. "Oh God."
I suck her clit between my lips and slide two fingers inside her.
Tight. Warm. Pulsing around me as her back bows off the mattress.
I curl my fingers forward, finding the spot that makes her whole body lock up, and I work it with a rhythm that matches my tongue, steady and relentless because I meant what I said.
She's going to come on my tongue before anything else happens.
Her hands yank my hair. Her thighs clamp around my head. She's grinding against my face, chasing it, and the sounds coming out of her are wrecked, raw, my name mixed with profanity mixed with please, please, please.
I give her one more firm press of my tongue against her clit and she shatters.
The orgasm rolls through her in waves. I feel every one of them around my fingers, feel her thighs shake, feel her body arch and hold and release. I don't stop until she pushes at my shoulders with trembling hands.
"Get up here," she breathes. "I need you inside me."
I reach for the nightstand drawer. Condom.
Roll it on with hands that are finally, for the first time all day, completely steady.
She watches me with heavy-lidded eyes and flushed cheeks and swollen lips, and when I settle between her thighs again she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me close.
I push into her in one slow, deep stroke.
Her mouth falls open. Her eyes lock on mine. And the sensation of being inside her, tight and hot and wet and perfect, knocks every coherent thought out of my head.
"Fuck." The word punches out of me. "Lydia."
"Move. Please."
I thrust. Deep and controlled, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, setting a pace that's slow enough to feel every inch of her gripping me and hard enough that the headboard knocks the wall with each stroke.
She meets me thrust for thrust. Her hips roll up into mine, her nails scoring my back, her mouth open against my shoulder making sounds that are going to live in my head for the rest of my life.
"You feel incredible." I brace one arm beside her head and use the other to hitch her leg higher on my hip, changing the angle, going deeper. She cries out and claws at my shoulders and I feel the shift in her body, the tightening, the climb.
"Right there." She's panting. "Right there, don't stop."
I don't stop. I drive into her with a rhythm that's as relentless as the rain on the roof, and I watch her face as the pleasure builds.
Her eyes go glassy. Her mouth shapes my name without sound.
I feel her pussy start to clench and I grind against her clit on every downstroke, giving her the pressure she needs.
"Come for me." I press my forehead to hers. "Let go. I've got you."
She comes with a scream she muffles against my neck, her whole body clamping around me, and the force of her orgasm triggers mine.
I drive into her one final time and bury myself as deep as I can go, my vision going white, my hips jerking against hers as I spill into the condom with a groan that feels like it's being ripped out of my chest.
We collapse.
I roll to the side so I don't crush her, but I keep her close. One arm around her waist. Our legs tangled. Her head on my chest. My hand in her hair, pulling the last of the braid loose, spreading it across my shoulder.
Our breathing slows. The rain eases to a steady patter. The fire in the other room has burned down to coals, casting the bedroom in amber and shadow.
"Stay tonight," I say into her hair.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Stay tomorrow too."
She lifts her head. Looks at me with those amber eyes, soft now, unguarded. Her lips are swollen. There's a red mark on her neck from my stubble that I should feel bad about and don't.
"Are we really doing this?" she asks. "You and me?"
I tuck her hair behind her ear. Trace my thumb along her jaw. The same gesture from the tailgate. The same gesture from the kiss in the rain. My gesture. Hers.
"I haven't wanted someone in a long time," I say.
"I haven't wanted anything in a long time.
I came to these mountains to disappear, and I was doing a fine job of it until you showed up with your dog and your calm voice and your ability to read everything about me that I've spent four years trying to hide. "
She presses her lips to my chest. Right over my heart. I feel the warmth of her mouth through my entire body.
"You're not hidden," she says. "You never were. You're right here."
I pull her closer. Press my face into her hair and breathe her in. Vanilla and sex and my sheets and something that's already starting to smell like home.
Scout scratches at the bedroom door. I reach out and crack it open without letting go of Lydia, and the Malinois trots in, circles once, and lies down at the foot of the bed like she's been sleeping here for years.
Duke pokes his head in a moment later. Looks at the bed. Looks at Scout. Looks at me with an expression of deep, personal betrayal.
"Come on," I tell him.
He jumps up and settles in the remaining gap between our feet and the footboard, and my bed has never been this full and my chest has never been this quiet.
Lydia's breathing slows against my skin. Her body softens. Her hand rests on my sternum, fingers spread, holding the heartbeat she's just changed the rhythm of.
I lie awake and listen to the rain and the dogs and the woman breathing in my arms.
Forty-seven people I pulled from the water. Every name. Every face.
This is the first time the count hasn't been the last thing I think about before I close my eyes.