Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Lou
Water streams over Clay’s face, over mine, as the storm carries on around us, but none of it matters because he’s kissing me. It’s hard and a little mean, and I kiss him back just as roughly because my feelings are too big for words.
He pulls back suddenly, his desperate gaze searching my face. “You’re okay.”
I nod, too stunned to speak. My flashlight is gone—dropped when he grabbed me—but the lightning reveals every worried line of his face. I dig my nails into his forearms as I glance at the camper and shudder.
The alert on my phone woke me up before the storm hit.
I’d grabbed the important stuff and gone into the bar, planning to wait out the storm in a booth and keep an eye on the generator if the power went out.
Which it did, of course. The generator only provides power to the chiller and freezers, so I was in the kitchen, making sure the freezer was still going when Clay ran out into the storm, butt-ass naked and hollering my name.
He hadn’t heard me shout at him, so I threw on my raincoat and followed.
He’s still butt-ass naked. Any other time, I’d find it hilarious that he ran out into a storm naked. But not right now.
The noise that comes out of him sounds like a strangled sob, and he pulls me back into a kiss. It’s just as hungry, just as unrestrained as the last one. His body is cold and wet and hard, and I cling to him. My heart is racing.
“Gotta get you out of the storm,” he murmurs against my lips. He bends to grab the flashlight and then sweeps me into his arms.
“I can walk.”
“I’m not letting you go.” He says grimly. “Ever.”
I’m deliriously good with that. “Okay.”
He doesn’t let me go, not until he has to set me down to open the back door, but as soon as it closes behind us, I’m back in his arms, the flashlight rolling across the floor somewhere. It would be easier to walk if we weren’t kissing, but it would be easier to touch the sun than to stop.
“I thought I lost you,” he says between kisses, and there’s an anguish in his voice that I don’t think I could bear to see on his face. With the power out and the lights off, I don’t have to.
He slips his hands inside my raincoat, and I shiver. His hands aren’t as cold as they were, but they slide over my shoulders, dragging the jacket back. Goosebumps break out everywhere, and my nipples ache with how hard they’ve gone. His mouth is warm, though, greedy on my neck, my jaw, my lips.
My raincoat finally falls to the floor with a wet plop. Maybe it tangles around his foot because he swears, hopping, and we crash into a counter, but he doesn’t stop kissing me as he kicks it free, and soon we’re moving again.
I lose a flip-flop somewhere. The other one is gone by the time we break into the bar. It’s a struggle to get my shirt off, but he bends to put his hot mouth on my bared breast, and my back arches. The T-shirt drops to the ground.
I don’t know how he gets my underwear off. The last notice I take of them is when his hands slide over my ass in the hallway outside the office. By the time we make it up the stairs into the apartment, they’re gone, and I’m as naked as he is.
We’re still soaking wet, skin slick, as he tumbles me gently into bed. He climbs over me, and I’m already wrapping my legs around his hips, pulling him down. We’re both trembling as the weight of him settles over me. The length of his cock presses hard against my pussy as his lips move up my jaw.
“Need you,” he murmurs before he captures my mouth again. He rocks against me long and slow, his kiss stuttering as he all but whimpers.
I melt. I’m trembling, but it’s warm in the apartment, warm in this bed. We’re warming together, frantic hands and gasping lungs and red-hot need.
“Need you, too.” I’m breathless, my own hips rocking because it feels so damn good, and when the head of his cock notches at my entrance, it’s my turn to whimper. I want him inside me.
It’s quieter in the room now, like the storm outside has blown itself out. “Yes,” I whisper, even though he didn’t ask out loud. He pushes into me, filling me. So good I could cry. Not relief—not yet—but a step toward it.
He moans my name as I run my fingers down his back to clasp his ass and urge him on. I need hard and fast. I’m feeling too much, and not just the close call with the camper. It’s the way he looked at me in the rain, lightning illuminating everything he’d tried so hard to suppress.
Clay leans his weight to one side, pulling my leg higher up his hip on the other, fucking me in long, hard strokes, grinding into me at the end of each thrust until I’m out of my mind with it. It’s dark, but not so dark that I can’t look up into his eyes and see him looking right back into mine.
When I can’t take it anymore, I pull his head down so I can press a kiss on his lips, his cheek. His mouth is hot on my neck as my head tips back, and the wave I’ve been riding higher and higher crests. I gasp his name before I’m lost to the sensation.
Tears, hot and wet, roll over my cheeks at the relief of finally breaking.
He drops my thigh and then his arms are both under me, cupping my shoulders as he buries his face in my neck. “Lou.”
That’s it. Just my name, uttered on a breath, and a string of nonsense words I can barely decipher while he fucks me deep and slow until he comes with a gasp and a tremble.
In the afterglow, the night comes alive with noises. The sounds of his labored breathing, of mine. The drip of rain outside. The faraway rumble of the storm. A shaft of dim moonlight streaks through the window, and the air is fresh with the scent of leaves, rain, and sex.
Clay lifts his head and brushes a strand of wet hair from my forehead. His mouth opens, but then his hips push him a little deeper, and he freezes. He abruptly pulls out of me, scrambling back. “I—fuck. No condom.”
Shit. I was so caught up in the moment that it never crossed my mind. “But we’re okay, right?” I ask. “You’ve had the snip, I have an IUD, and we’re both up to date and negative with our testing.”
He runs a hand through his hair, then settles back in next to me with a long exhale before he presses a kiss to my forehead. “We’re okay. But we should’ve had the discussion before. If you want me to wear one next time—any time—I will.”
There’s going to be a next time. I know this isn’t going to be forever, but fuck, it leaves me giddy. “Can we be exclusive?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and in the silence, my heart sinks. I pushed for too much, too fast. But then he brushes my hair back and kisses my forehead. “You’re the only one I’ll ever want.”
There’s something so close to misery in his voice that it makes me laugh. “Then we don’t need condoms.”
His forehead touches mine. “Good. Because I want to feel you with nothing between us.” His lips are soft against mine, and he trails light kisses down my neck, over my collarbone, down to my breasts. I’m already arching when he takes my nipple in his mouth.
“How long until we can do that again?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, and I’ve nearly forgotten by the time he releases my nipple. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll keep you satisfied until I’m ready.”
“Good,” I murmur as he settles between my legs. The first touch of his tongue is soft, careful around my clit since I just came, and I melt back into the bed.
His tongue dips inside me, and he rumbles a satisfied, “Love how we taste together.”
Oh god. I reach down until I can slip my fingers into his hair to guide him to my clit.
It’s very nearly too much, but fuck, it feels good anyway.
He’s gentle, building me back up so painfully slow, but when my hips rock for more, he gives it, lavishing me with his tongue until my body bucks and I cry out.
He climbs up the bed. I roll onto my side as he slips behind me, pulling me tight against his chest. I wiggle my ass back against his hard-on, and he drags his hand down my body to my thigh, hooking my leg over his legs.
But he’s in no hurry; all his focus is on kissing the spot on my neck that makes my toes curl as he holds me to him.
When I’m wet and whimpering, he finally lifts his lips to my ear to ask, “Can I come inside you again?”
“I need you to,” I say, making a mess of his hair with my fingers.
“Put me in,” he says. I’m already reaching for him, bringing the tip to my entrance.
He doesn’t have to work for it. Two orgasms in, and I’m wet as hell and ready. He fills me easily, deeply. It feels just as good.
“Fuck, how do you get better and better?” he asks, nipping the lobe of my ear.
I twist my upper body to pull his face down. “Not bored yet?”
“I could never get bored of you.” His lips meet mine. For the longest time, we kiss while he fucks me slow and deep. It’s Sunday morning sex in the middle of the night, lazy and indulgent, softly explorative. He kisses my shoulder, my arm. My hand finds his, and he laces our fingers together.
I’ve had slow, deep sex before, but it’s never felt like this.
I’ve never felt this intensity. The crescendo builds, and he can read my body, knows I need more.
His hand drops between my legs, his fingers firm on my clit, drawing tight little circles that have me gasping as his hips move faster.
He unlaces our fingers, shifting so he can squeeze my breast, tease my nipples, and when I’m close, that hand moves up until he’s cupping my jaw, his thumb pressing on my bottom lip.
I take that thumb in my mouth and suck, and that’s it.
I’m done. Pleasure racks my body, almost more than I can handle, as he holds me tight, every thrust drawing the feeling out a little longer until it slowly fades.
“Beautiful, darling girl,” he whispers against my ear as I tremble in his arms.
Fuck, I’m high as a kite now. But his thumb is still in my mouth, so I still bite him lightly. He removes his thumb and gives me the gentlest swat to the ass. It spanks the moan right out of me.
His chuckle turns into a sharp intake of breath as I squeeze his cock with a Kegel.
“I’m going to put you on your stomach and fuck you hard,” he warns.
It’s a question, even if he doesn’t phrase it as one, and he waits for my response. When I nod, he moves my leg off his and rolls us. The side of my face presses against the pillow. He straddles my closed legs, but when I lift my hips, he presses me back down. “Stay like this for me.”
It won’t be very deep for him, but when he enters me with a hard thrust, the head of his cock hits something that lights up every nerve in my body.
“How’s that?” he asks, like that thrust was a test run.
I glance over my shoulder and smirk. “Make me feel it in the back of my throat or go home.”
“You want another spanking?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You barely tapped me before. Hardly a spanking.”
This time, it stings, the sound loud in the room. Oh god. I didn’t think I’d have a fourth orgasm in me, but between whatever he’s hitting inside me and the spanking? I might. “Mm. Better.”
He palms my ass, his fingers gently soothing. “I wasn’t sure you’d be into it.”
“I like variety.”
“So do I.”
He doesn’t start hard and fast. Instead, he builds up to it. He squeezes, palms, and jiggles my ass, now and then kissing it with the sharp slap of his palm. I don’t know if it’s the spankings or being pinned under him, but pleasure builds in my body again until I’m on the verge.
He shifts, the heat of his body scorching my skin as he leans over me, his lips grazing the nape of my neck, the curve of my shoulder. His breath is hot, ragged, like he’s struggling for control.
It sends me over the edge. This time, when I come, it’s the long and slow roll of pleasure through my body. He goes still inside me, his breath snatched from his lungs, and then he’s fucking me in shallow, quick thrusts as he comes.
After, he collapses on top of me, kissing my neck, my jaw, my cheek, finally withdrawing from me so he can roll me over and kiss me until the world melts away.
I could hold him to me forever, feeling his heart calm, his breathing returning to normal. This thing between us is big and deep, but I’m lighter than ever.
Eventually, he gets up, goes to the bathroom, and comes back with a damp cloth to clean me up. I don’t want to move, but he nags me about UTIs until I get up to empty my bladder.
It’s tempting to go right back to bed, but Gallo’s has needs too, so we check on the generator and pick up my wet clothes, then double-check that we’ve locked all the doors.
Clay changes the sheets—I wouldn’t have bothered, but then I’m exhausted—and we flop back into bed.
He wraps his arms tight around me, and I fall asleep to the feel of his fingers in my hair.