Chapter 21 Duncan #2
“Love it when you beg.” I graze my teeth over the shell of her ear, making her shudder. “Say please again. Tell me what you need.”
“You. I need you.” She arches her back, letting a murderer have her. “I need to come again. I need you to fuck”—she whispers—“me. Please.”
“Good girl. Need you too.” I rub her clit while I thrust, thrust, thrust. “Just like that.”
We have our whole lives ahead of us, I’m aware, and yet, even now, everything feels fragile.
So though my cock strains for relief, I hold back. Don’t want this to end.
When Elowyn screams my name, as another orgasm takes over, I don’t lose myself. Don’t let up, keep stroking her clit while she begs me, “Stop, it’s too much. I can’t.”
“You can take it.” My hips work, my cock impaling her ass. She’s so fucking tight. So right. “You took me in your pretty mouth, your pussy and now your ass. And you’re going to give me another orgasm because you’re such. A. Good. Girl.”
My filthy words send her over to the strongest climax yet, destroying what’s left of my restraint. I come with a growl, releasing my cum while holding her close, filling her up until I’m empty.
Only then do I loosen my grip and fold her in my arms. Breathing heavily, my lips rest in the crook of her neck.
“You did so well,” I praise. Kiss her. Praise again with, “So fucking well.”
Her sweet hum thaws my cold heart. Makes it swell.
“Remember that morning when it was just the two of us? Everyone else was still asleep.” Elowyn’s fingertips are gentle as she covers my hand, caressing me. I groan at how right it feels. “A few months after you moved in.”
“Yeah.” I run my hand aimlessly up and down her stomach. Smiling as her hand moves with mine, never letting go. “Right before Christmas.”
“Yes,” she squeaks.
Her enthusiasm is adorable. I want to cup it in my hands. Better yet, to be the reason her eyes light up every single day of my life.
“It was the only time it happened, though.” The small, sad huff, it wounds harder than I expected. And it’s my fault. “I always wondered why you used to go jogging so early.”
As much as I want to lie and spare her more pain, I won’t.
I promised her honesty. Even when that truth will hurt her.
“I avoided you. Or rather, being alone with you while everyone else was asleep.” My throat tightens as regret floods me. “I wanted it badly, but I couldn’t have it.”
“Barclay,” she sighs, her fingers tracing the places her nails broke skin. Soft, tender, understanding Elowyn. “I remember him going on and on about how no one dates his sister before she’s eighteen.”
A dark, bitter resentment weighs heavily on me. After hearing he tried to set her up with wealthy, esteemed men—on top of what he hinted at ten years ago—I realize that boys were hardly the issue.
The need to control his sister and keep anyone away who didn’t fit his plans for her played a big part in it.
I shut the rising anger down, refusing to let it stain this moment we’re having.
There’s no Barclay here. No other men.
There never will be.
“You were younger too.” Her neck is like silk beneath my lips. “It wasn’t the right time to start something, a relationship. That’s why, over the weekends or when school was out, I spent my mornings outside, jogging.”
“But that morning?”
I peek at her and see she isn’t scowling or showing any sign of being offended by what I’m saying.
As always, she understands me.
“I was hurting because it would’ve been my first Christmas without my parents.”
She freezes, her breath hitching. “So you risked my brother catching us just so you could have breakfast with me? Alone?”
“Didn’t think twice about it. I was desperate to be near you.
So I waited to hear your soft steps padding down the hall.
Then I followed you down there, found you putting on the coffee.
” I shift us slowly, guiding her onto her back and settling over her, my arms caging her face.
“Just by being there, you had the power to heal me.”
“I didn’t do anything.” She scrunches her nose. “You told me to go sit at the kitchen island even before the coffee was done. Then you spoiled me by getting everything ready.”
“I wanted to do so much more for you. For my girl.” I kiss each red cheek.
“Yours,” she whispers.
“Yes. That’s what you were, are, and will be. Always.”
How her lips twist. I don’t like that.
“What’s wrong, little moon?”
“Could we…” She draws in a breath, gathering courage.
“I want to replay that morning. It’s the one memory I could never let go of.
Not that I managed to let the others fade, but this one stayed vivid.
I think it’s because it was so…domestic.
Because when I imagined our life together after you left, that was one of the things I wished for. Lazy mornings with you. Just you.”
I fucking melt right then and there.
“If that’s what you want, that’s what you’re having. As in this morning.”
“Seriously?” No smile has shone as bright. No pair of eyes has been as luminescent.
From something as simple as reenacting one of the mornings we shared.
How could I believe she chose money and status over me? How could I judge her when I knew exactly who she was? I fucking knew.
My chest caves in. The pressure on my lungs nearly crushes them.
“You know what?” A frown curves her beautiful lips down. And it’s my fault. For being quiet. For cursing myself over and over inwardly. “You don’t have to. It’s silly, right? I can make my own coffee.”
When she starts to slide out from under me, I don’t think twice. I lean most of my weight on top of hers, pressing our foreheads together.
“Elowyn.” I hate Barclay. I even hate your dead parents. Most of all, though, I hate myself. “I’m so sorry. For the years I hadn’t been around. Before I left too. They never treated you right, and I…”
Curiosity flashes in her eyes. “You what?”
“I could’ve protected you more. Could’ve done so much better.”
“Oh, please.” That watery laugh, I hate it too. Someone did owe her something, and from now on, I’m going to be that person. “You were my brother’s best friend, not mine.”
“I already told you, I was yours. And that’s why I tried.
Fuck, I really tried. I’d wait outside your room some nights,” I say what I never told anyone.
“I couldn’t take it, hearing you cry after Barclay was being a jerk.
Or how I’d see you spreading yourself thin or weeping over a dog no one wanted to adopt. ”
“You, uh…” Her heart pounds wildly. I feel it against my chest. “It was nothing, really. I was fine.”
There they are. The words she’d been trained to say. The ones she never should’ve uttered and never will.
“Stop lying to me, Elowyn.”
“I’m not.”
“Listen to me and listen to me carefully.” I force my raging pulse down.
Clear my throat. “You weren’t fine. You needed someone on your side.
And I…I should’ve spoken up. Been less of a goddamn coward, using the dogs as an excuse to visit your room.
Shouldn’t have slept in the hall at night while you thought no one cared. I failed you.”
“Duncan, between grieving your parents and school, you had a lot going on.” Her determination silences me. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“The hell I can’t.” Leaning forward, I take Elowyn’s lips in a searing kiss. “I fucked up. If I’d only tried harder…”
Though the rest of the sentence dies on my tongue, its meaning echoes loudly in the room.
You wouldn’t have been so alone. And me, I would’ve seen you for who you truly were. How you were always on my side.
“You needed me,” I repeat as we look deeper into each other’s eyes. “And I’d been a selfish prick for years. But those days are over. I swear to you.”
“No, you were right to stay away. To not risk everything. Then…then you were right to be angry.” A line forms between her eyebrows.
Her defiance is fucking hot. Even when she’s wrong.
“It was my fault. I should’ve called, should’ve told you there was no reason to be disgusted, that we’d done nothing wrong and—”
“Don’t repeat it. Ever,” I snap. “Nothing about you disgusts me.”
“That’s what I thought back then…” She huffs, sounding so fucking sad. “Stupid. I should’ve checked in on you. I should’ve texted. Should’ve fought for us.”
“You were a kid.” I roll us again, ending on my back with Elowyn straddling me, my arms closing around her. “And I was fine.”
She scoffs. “Who’s the liar now?”
God, she’s cute. I start laughing, and she joins me. The sounds of our joy light up the bedroom. The entire world, it seems like.
We laugh until the wind begins to blow outside and clouds gather in the sky.
Until lightning flashes and thunder cracks.
Until rain patters against the window.
Until there’s no her or I.
There’s only us.
“Let’s take a shower, then get you that coffee, little moon,” I whisper into her soft hair. “And your breakfast.”
Elowyn squeezes me in a tight hug. “Ours.”