Chapter Fourteen #3
She smiles at me softly, giving me a gentle, reassuring nod, and it is all the confirmation I need.
I reach over the edge of the bed to where my jeans are pooled on the floor, fish my wallet out of the back pocket, and pull out the foil packet, and she watches me with a grateful expression that I feel deep inside me.
I tear the foil with my teeth, and she watches with unabashed curiosity as I roll it over my cock, and when I settle back over her, she reaches up without hesitation and pulls me down to her mouth again.
I pull back, looking into her eyes, my cock pressing against her pussy, both of us panting, knowing that once we do this, there’s no going back. But she gives me a beautiful smile and another simple nod.
It’s all I need.
I find the right angle, my forearm braced beside her head, my free hand at her hip, tilting her gently, making sure. My eyes lock onto hers, and as I thrust forward, slow and careful, she exhales a long, shuddering breath against my jaw, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
Fuck! She feels so damn good.
“Okay?” I murmur against her temple.
“Yes,” she breathes. “God, yes!”
I give her a moment, staying still, letting her adjust, my lips moving against her hairline, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. I feel her body soften against mine, the last of the tension easing away, and when her hips shift in a clear, wordless invitation, I move.
The sound she makes is immediate and entirely too loud for her father’s house. I cover her mouth with mine and swallow it, feeling her laugh into the kiss even as her hips rise to meet me.
“Millie.” I pull back just enough to look at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Sorry,” she whispers, not looking remotely sorry. “I wasn’t expecting, um—” She stops, swallows a gulp. “You.”
Something very satisfying moves through me at that. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, Brightside.”
Her eyes go dark at the endearment, and she pulls me back down.
I set a slow, deep rhythm and she moves with me, her hands restless on my back, my shoulders, the back of my neck, like she doesn’t know where to put them and wants them everywhere at once.
I drop my mouth to her throat, her collarbone, the soft skin below her ear, and I feel her breathing change with each shift in angle, each deliberate press of my hips against hers.
I am paying attention to all of it, filing every reaction away and learning her.
“Right there,” she breathes suddenly, her fingers gripping my shoulder. “Will, right there, don’t—”
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, and I keep exactly where I am, and I do not stop.
She turns her face into my neck, and the sound she makes is muffled but unmistakable. Her hand comes up to press against her own mouth—her eyes are wide, desperate, and apologetic all at once, and I reach up and gently move her hand away.
“Don’t,” I say against her cheek. “I want to hear you.”
“Your dad,” she whispers frantically.
“Your dad,” I correct, and she dissolves into a breathless, helpless laugh that she buries against my collarbone, her whole body shaking with it. I laugh too, pressing my face into her hair, and then I move again, and the laugh breaks off.
She is gorgeous like this.
I need her to know that.
I pull back enough to look at her, flushed, undone, and bright-eyed, and I cup her face in my hand and make her hold my gaze.
“You have no idea…” I tell her, low and rough, “… how long I’ve wanted this.”
Her breath catches. “Tell me.”
“Two long fucking years.” I press forward and watch her eyes flutter. “Two years of watching you walk into a room and having to look somewhere else. Two years of talking myself out of every moment we had.” I lean down until my lips brush her ear. “I’m not doing that anymore.”
She makes a sound that definitely isn’t restrained anymore, her nails dragging lightly down my back hard enough to send heat ripping straight through my body. “Will.” My name in her mouth sounds different now. More.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
I shift my angle, and her entire body responds, her back arching, her head pressing back into the pillow, and I keep that angle, build the rhythm, and watch her fall apart underneath me with something that feels very close to adoration.
Her hand flies up to cover her mouth again, and this time I let her have it because the sounds she’s trapping behind her palm are the kind that would absolutely carry down the hall, and even I have limits.
Her thighs tighten around me, her whole body drawing in and then releasing, a long, shuddering wave that moves through her from the inside out.
Her free hand gripping the sheet, her heels pressing into my ass, her hips stuttering against mine as she rides it through.
I stay with her, pressing my mouth to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her jaw, easing her through every last tremor until her hand drops from her mouth and she sags back against the pillows with a wrecked, wondering exhale.
“That’s two,” I say, against her ear.
She turns her head and looks at me with eyes that are glassy and thoroughly satisfied, and says, “Are you keeping count?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I tell her.
She laughs and pulls me down to her mouth, and when I start to move again, she stops laughing.
The third time is slower to build, deeper, more.
I feel it gathering in the base of my spine long before I let myself go with it, holding off, keeping the rhythm, staying focused on Millie.
Her breathing is climbing again, hands moving up my back with more urgency, hips rising to meet every movement with an intention that makes it fucking difficult to think clearly.
She’s completely present, feeling every second of it, nothing held back, and that’s what undoes me more than anything else.
“Will.” My name, fractured and desperate. “I’m—”
“I know,” I tell her. “Come for me.”
Her breath breaks apart entirely. She turns her face into my throat, and the sound she makes against my skin is the best sound I have ever heard in my life, her body clenching around mine, her nails pressing half-moons into my back, her whole frame shaking with it.
My balls pull tight, my body flaming in heat as sweat tops my brow.
I clench my eyes tight as tingles shoot up my spine.
The explosion rocks through me when I follow her over, my face buried in her hair, my hand gripping the headboard, everything in me going very still for one suspended, perfect second, and then breaking open completely.
A rough sound leaves my throat that I don’t fully manage to contain, and her arms come around me and hold on.
I press my lips hard against her temple and breathe through it, through all of it, until the world settles back into place around us.
We stay tangled together, neither of us moving, both of us breathing hard. Her hand is tracing slow lines up and down my back. My face is in her hair.
Eventually, her voice breaks the silence. “Hi,” she says again, smaller this time, into my shoulder.
I let out a low chuckle, lifting my head enough to look at her. She’s flushed, her hair is a complete disaster, and she is genuinely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I press my lips to her forehead. “Hey.”
She tips her head back from my chest and stares up at the ceiling for a moment, and I watch the smile move across her face in slow motion, like it started somewhere deep and worked its way out.
“So,” she says.
“So,” I agree.
“That happened.”
“It did.”
She turns her head and looks up at me, and there is something in her expression that is equal parts wonder and mischief. “I have a question.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you wait so long?”
I exhale a short laugh through my nose, pulling out of her and rolling onto my back. “You want to have that conversation right now?”
“I really do,” she says, entirely unapologetically.
I look over at her, this woman who has been patient with me for so long and apparently intends to stop being patient the moment she’s gotten what she wanted. “Club rules. Your father. The business relationship. The patch.” I pause. “Pick one.”
She considers this with exaggerated seriousness, her finger tapping her chin. “Those all sound like excuses.”
“They were reasons at the time.”
“And now?”
“Now they sound like excuses,” I admit.
She makes a small, triumphant sound and settles her cheek against my chest, and I feel her smile even though I can’t see it. I run my hand slowly up her spine and back down, and she makes a contented sound that hums through my ribcage.
The quiet settles back over us, comfortable and warm. I stare at the ceiling and let my heartbeat slow the rest of the way down, let the room come back into focus properly.
Two days.
Two days until I’m a full brother. One more day of carrying that prospect patch on my back. And then whatever comes after—the Alliance, Jonas, all the weight of things that haven’t resolved yet—we face that as something more than two people dancing around each other.
Her hand stills on my chest. “Will,” she says eventually, her voice small and muffled against my skin.
“Mm…”
“I’ve been half in love with you since the day I met you.”
Something in my chest cracks wide open in the best possible way.
The words land softly and then spread, filling all the space I didn’t realize I’d been keeping carefully empty.
I don’t say anything for a second, and she lifts her head just enough for her eyes to lock onto mine, checking me automatically the way she always does when she thinks she might have let too much of herself slip out.
I hold her gaze. “Half?”
The laugh that comes out of her is pure and delighted. She drops her face back into my collarbone, and I feel her smile pressing warm against my skin. I wrap my arm around her more securely, press my lips to the top of her head, and stare back up at the ceiling.
“For the record…” I say into her hair.
She lifts her head again, waiting.
“Not half,” I tell her, subtly letting her know I love her without actually saying the words.
Her breath catches, she holds my gaze for a long moment, and I watch something settle in her eyes, something that looks a lot like the kind of peace that comes when it all finally makes sense.
The laugh that comes from her is pure and delighted, and she drops her face back into my collarbone, and I feel her smile against my skin.
Two days.
Two more days as a prospect.
This woman, warm, real, and finally in my arms.
Her father has a clock nobody is supposed to be counting except the two of them and me, but I know I should tell Sin.
And that fact is hanging heavy on my conscience.
But I don’t let myself feel all of it at once.
I’ve learned that discipline, while wanting something, I was supposed to be patient about.
You take the one thing that matters most right now, you hold onto that, and you let the rest wait its turn.
Right now, the thing that matters most is this.
“Millie.” She hums, the sound low and content against my chest. “Whatever’s coming…” I pause, making sure the words come out right and she can hear that I mean them completely. “We figure it out together.”
She goes still for a second, and I feel her let out a slow breath against me, tension finally easing out of her body piece by piece. “Okay,” she says.
“Okay,” I echo.
Outside, the neighborhood feels abandoned at this hour, empty streets stretching under the glow of porch lights and distant streetlamps.
Down the hall, Jonas’ fan spins.
And I hold Millie in the dark, and let myself have this one night of not carrying anything at all.
Two days.