Chapter 23
23
AURORA
I’m aware of all of the flaws in my character and have long since accepted them.
I know that I’m anti-social on most days, defensive without reason to be, and that I shut down when I’m upset. I’m picky when it comes to accomplishing daily tasks and would rather stay up all night finishing a project than risk falling a day behind. I’ve always been the girl who pulls away when she’s hurt instead of confronting the one responsible and risking that pain growing.
I never feared abandonment before finding my mother’s letters. Reading those broken-hearted words on tear-splotched paper damaged a part of me that was once perfectly functional. It broke me so terribly that I convinced myself carrying those letters around with me was normal. The worst of them sits in my nightstand. I force myself to read it every night, as if by going over it time and time again, I’ll become numb to the pain it brings me. Exposure therapy, they call it.
Torture, more like.
The ache in my chest only grew once I learned Lee had a family. One created after abandoning mine. The feeling of being unworthy grew and grew until it started eating away at my soul .
Its feasting halted when I met Johnny.
For small moments in my every day, whenever he appeared with his crooked grin and dimpled cheek, that feeling of unworthiness fell prey to something else. Something warm and soft.
Affection. Care. Happiness.
And as he kisses me in this moment, it’s like he’s transported us somewhere entirely outside of time and space to somewhere my brain doesn’t overthink and my chest doesn’t ache for anything more than another dose of him.
I curl my fingers in the soft material of his shirt and moan at the soft pressure of his lips on mine. It’s almost audible the way my chest cracks open at the patience he has with me as he waits, still not giving in completely to the kiss.
As if he’s scared I’m going to turn and run.
With a tug on his shirt, I prove to him that that’s the last thing I want right now. I’m the one to deepen the kiss and take my first real taste of him. The lingering flavour of the Twizzlers he ate on the drive out here and a longing so intense it’s almost a living thing. He pushes back instantly, taking the opening I’ve laid out in front of him with vigour.
His scent wraps around me, and I moan again, completely past the point of caring whether he thinks I’m being too loud or too weird. It’s not even the way he smells so damn sexy or how good it feels to kiss him that has me throbbing between my legs so fiercely, but the strength in which he holds me to him. With the confidence of a man who knows exactly what he wants and isn’t afraid to do everything in his power to get it.
He releases my cheeks to cup the back of my head and my waist, his thumb stroking the underside of my rib cage. My body lights up at his touch, a million missiles self-destructing beneath my skin.
Guiding my head back further, he glides his tongue along my lips, tracing it once before I part them, allowing him entrance. My brain melts, turning to mush at the first stroke of his tongue inside my mouth. Another moan fills the air, but this time, it doesn’t come from me.
“Do you believe me now, Rory?” he asks, the words slipping down my throat.
I swallow them before feeding him some of my own. “This counts as you claiming your betting win, by the way.”
He laughs gruffly before tugging my lip between his teeth and sucking on it. My stomach tightens, heat blazing low in my belly.
“Tell me something,” he starts while spinning us around and pressing me to the trailer. It’s hot against my back, so I use that as an excuse to arch into him. His gaze drops to my chest, the desire within it so palpable I have to bite my tongue to hide the whimper that follows. “Do you have a habit of getting jealous, Aurora?”
The use of my full name angers me as much as it did the first thousand times he’s said it today. “Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what?”
“Aurora. I’m not Aurora to you.”
He leans close enough to kiss me but doesn’t. “Why not?”
“Fuck you, Johnny,” I hiss before curling my hand around the back of his neck and kissing him. He tightens his grip on my waist before slipping it down to my ass. “Don’t call me what everyone else does. I’m not everyone else to you anymore.”
I lay it out there, peeling back every protective layer I have just to give him a glance at what I hide underneath it all. And he grins in answer. A wicked, dirty grin that has me curling my toes and two seconds away from begging him to take me right here in the middle of nowhere Alberta.
Johnny squeezes my ass and pins my hips with his. The long, thick bulge he presses to my belly has my eyes rolling back in ecstasy without so much as being touched between my legs.
“Was that so hard, darlin’?” he teases, his smile obvious as he buries his face in my throat and sucks my pulse. “Telling the truth has its benefits. ”
“Benefits?” I ask on a weak breath.
“Mm,” he hums. The stubble on his jaw scratches my throat in the best way. “If you told me I was just like everyone else, I wouldn’t touch you like this. Wouldn’t be hell-bent on bringing you pleasure as a reminder that you’re the one I want. Not Jill. Not anyone else.”
My head falls back against the trailer with a bang that echoes in my ears the moment he brings his fingers to the button of my jeans and then leaves them there, unmoving.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Something more.”
It’s hard to focus when he touches me. With a stroke of his fingernail along the waistband of my jeans, I shiver.
“Haven’t I told you enough already?” I ask, too close to resorting to begging for him to slide his hand inside my underwear and feel the mess I’ve made because of him.
“Not even close.”
“Touch me and I’ll tell you more.”
He pulls back, and our eyes meet again. I’ve never seen his so dark as they flick between mine, searching for the truth in the words I spoke.
I don’t get an answer before he’s popping open my jeans and working his hand inside of them. The first glide of his finger through my pussy has me crying out, my breath caught in my throat.
“Oh, fuck me,” he groans, eyes flashing as he strokes me again. “You’re soaked.”
I jerk my head in a nod and grip his shoulder, gasping like a fish out of water. His finger is thick enough that I have to stretch around the first press of it inside of me. My jeans are too tight, stifling his movements as he stalls and glances down both sides of the highway.
“Take them off,” I beg, already shoving the one side down my hip. “If you stop, I’m going to die, Johnny. I need?— ”
He cuts me off with a hard, possessive kiss. “I know what you need. You don’t have to beg me for anything. Ever .”
As soon as he tugs my jeans down my thighs, he’s pumping his finger the rest of the way inside my dripping pussy and sheltering me with his body. I want to spread my legs, but with the denim pooled at my knees, it isn’t possible. He doesn’t leave me wanting, though. One finger turns into two, and then he’s hooking them deep inside, seeking out the spot that turns my vision white.
“You feel incredible. So goddamn wet you’re making a mess of your thighs,” he says lowly, his voice sounding rougher than I’ve ever heard it.
I bury my teeth in my lip and jerk my hips forward, my clit throbbing. With my hand still gripping his shoulder, I reach down my body and pinch it between my fingers before applying hard pressure.
Johnny watches my movements with laser focus, not missing a thing. His attentiveness only makes me want him more, but I swallow the words down despite everything said just minutes ago.
I gape at him when his fingers grow still inside of me. I increase the pressure on my clit and rub it in quick circles, continuing to chase the pleasure he built and then abandoned.
He slaps my hand away and glares down at me. “Don’t turn into a liar, Rory. Tell me what it is you were just thinking about, and I’ll keep going. You want to come, don’t you?”
I could always make myself come. But is that what I want? Another mediocre orgasm brought on by myself?
“I like how attentive you are to me,” I tell him.
He bends down and kisses me firmly, as a reward, I think. When he pulls back, I lean forward and chase his lips, not ready to be done yet.
“Yes,” I whimper as he starts to slide his fingers inside me again. “It’s so good. I’m close already.”
“Tell me something else,” he demands, his kisses growing harder, like he’s losing his control with every squeeze of my walls around his fingers.
I reach up to grab his other shoulder, needing to know he’s not going to abandon me here once I speak.
“I wanted to throw mud at her head when she hugged you. It’s not fair, but I want to be the only one who gets to hug you like that.”
A deep noise rattles his chest as he drops his other hand between us and pinches my clit before rolling it in quick circles exactly how I was.
“Is that right, Rory? You want to have a claim on me, then?” he asks, his voice strained as he fucks his fingers into me harder.
Every curl of them has me jerking against him, my skin hot and sticky with sweat. I hold his shoulders and bite at his lips as we kiss, feral with the climax that’s building and building inside of me.
He pinches my clit again, and I go off like a fucking firework. Colours fill my vision as I cry, “Yes! Yes, I want to have a claim on you!”
“Christ, that’s it. You’ve already claimed me, gorgeous. Now it’s fuckin’ written in stone,” he murmurs.
I crash hard from the high while he slowly works his fingers deep, every aftershock rippling around them. Blowing out a puff of air, I close my eyes and go still, letting my hands fall to rest against his chest.
“Look at me, Rory,” he coaxes, slipping his fingers free from inside of me.
I’m too weak-willed not to deny him, and I’m glad about that once I see why he wanted me to look. My belly flutters at the sight of him sucking his fingers clean, my cum all over them.
It’s primitive and dirty, yet I love it and want him to do it every single time we do this.
“Next time, I’m going to taste you right from the source,” he promises.
And I believe him.