Chapter Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN
Phoebe
I’m on a high tonight from the real proposal, and nothing can bring me down. Not even a run-in with human garbage.
Trent Waterford exits Baubles & Bookends with a stream of book clubbers.
We’ve regrettably walked right toward him after leaving the movie theater.
So when we see him and he sees us—Rocky’s arm securely over my shoulders—it feels a little like a John Wayne film.
Glaring. Silence. Fuck you stare-downs of lethal proportions.
Only instead of Trent reaching for a pistol at his hip, he procures a cellphone.
He puts it to his ear. “Hey, Trevor, my boy.” He watches Rocky’s eyes darken.
“Whatever you’re up to, cancel it. Let’s grab a drink at the Gulp.
Whiskey on me.” He drops the phone down, just to say to Rocky, “Your baby brother says, ‘Fuck you.’ ”
Rocky takes one hot step forward.
Trent recoils a little. Ooh, he’s scared.
I smooth my lips as a smile forms.
“You hurt my brother,” Rocky sneers under his breath, “and I promise it will be the last thing you ever fucking do. I will end you, and you best fucking believe I have the means to get away with it.” He works for the CIA, after all.
“Great, Trevy,” Trent says into the phone, not responding to Rocky. “I’ll see you there.” He keeps the phone to his ear as he steps off the curb and jaywalks across the road.
I scowl out at his quick stride away. “Do we follow him?”
“No. Trev will be fine. It’s better I’m not in sight. It might provoke Trent into doing something worse. He’ll probably have a couple drinks with him and go home.”
Home. “You mean the home we’re all sharing?”
“Yeah.” He clasps my hand. “But at least that fuckbag won’t be there for a few more hours.”
I grin. Night definitely not ruined.
—
Once we’re inside the mansion, we can’t make it up to my bedroom fast enough. My lips sting from the forceful hallway kisses. My body hums like a bell being tolled over and over.
We’re all fire and engulfing passion when we push into my room. I tear myself off Rocky to capitalize the pursuit. “It’s not that easy,” I pant, backing up farther and farther. “Haven’t you heard? I’m impossible to catch.”
“Not that easy?” His hot gaze sears me. “Funny, considering I’ve caught you a thousand times already.” He flicks the lock closed.
I raise a brow. “One less time tonight.” My shoulders thump into the muraled wall. Breathless.
I’ve been staying in his late aunt’s bedroom.
Daphne Wolfe. She must’ve loved nature. Sweeping wildflowers, bees, butterflies, rabbits, foxes are painted all over her walls.
Field guides on birds and falconry stock her bookcases.
And the gilded leaves and twisting vines of a stunning chandelier hang above us.
It’s one of the lighter bedrooms at Stonehaven when most weigh heavy with moody greens and darker velvets.
Rocky sheds his black button-down, then he’s unbuckling his leather belt. “Fiancée. Wife.” He slides the leather out of his loops, and I feel myself clench, aching for him inside me. “Lover.”
“Enemy,” I taunt. “You. Can’t. Have. Me.”
He never breaks from my gaze while he unbuttons his black slacks, then unzips. He has them down his toned thighs. Soon, his pants are off completely. And so are his boxer briefs. He’s sculpted muscle and primed arousal. Ready to take me.
I can barely capture my breath. His unyielding dark confidence chokes out the room.
“Keep squeezing your thighs together, it’s not going to help you,” Rocky says in a deep threat. “I’m going to spread you wide fucking apart.”
I’d like to see you try. Words knot in my throat. I’m doing everything not to melt against this fucking wall. Just feeling the wedding ring on my finger quickens my heartbeat.
Several feet still separate us, and the tension is killer, especially as he says, “You keep staring at my cock.”
“I’m not,” I combat, a weak lie.
“No?” He hasn’t moved an inch since he undressed. He’s buck naked while my high heels and red sundress are still on, and I love this. I love how I can drink in all of Rocky and so clearly see how strongly he desires me.
I chew my bottom lip when I glance at his erection again. God, it’s actually infuriating how beautiful his cock is, especially hard.
Rocky takes another threatening step forward. “You’re not thinking about how I’m going to ram every inch in you?” He draws a finger across his long length to demonstrate just how many inches. My pulse skips.
“Nope.” I cage a breath and slip my hands up my dress, only to draw down my lacy pink panties. I pull them past my high heels and throw them aside.
His cock twitches. He’s standing at mouthwatering attention. I tell myself to move, to let him chase me, but I’m pulsing so much between my legs, I can’t pick up my feet.
“Yeah, keep staring, you little fucking liar,” Rocky growls out. “The only reason I’m this fucking hard”—he closes in on me, his voice deeper, rougher—“is so I can penetrate your tight, wet cunt and hear you scream.”
“Rocky,” I warn. It sounds like a moan.
“Like that, but louder.”
Fuck me.
I almost buckle at the knees. Somehow, I find the strength to push off the wall, and I circle Rocky like he’s my prey. His eyes track me like I’m his.
I suppose the truth is somewhere in between.
Biting my lip, feeling my smile, I walk backward toward the four-poster bed. He stalks forward.
“Wife,” he repeats with force.
“Husband.” My tone isn’t sweet either. Then I turn around to run, but he’s fast and seizes my hips.
I put up a feeble fight as he pushes my chest into the mattress, my heels scraping at the floorboards.
There is literally no time to sit up, no time to think.
Rocky pins me with his muscled build. He hikes my dress to my waist, and as he captures my wrists, stretching them above my head, he makes good on his threat. He thrusts so deep into me.
My lips break open with a gasp and slight moan. Fuck. “Fuck,” I cry out.
“What was that?” he taunts back with a heavy grunt. “Phoebe wants more?”
“Fuck. You.” My growly moan is smothered into the mattress.
He fills my pussy without a condom, and the heat of his cock is sending my mind on a dizzying voyage. I. Can’t. Think. Can barely move as he fucks me from behind and bears his warm chest against my back with greater force. Deeper—he drives so deep, deep in me.
I shut my eyes for a moment. That’s when shit gets bad. I open them, and I don’t see Rocky, just the headboard. I feel my body jostle as he rams into me, and I tighten as a flash of Carlsbad strikes my brain. I freeze more and scramble for the ability to speak. Tell him. “Miami,” I choke out.
He stops moving inside me.
I have a regret when I say the safe word. Regret because I don’t like acknowledging how screwed up I might still be from a situation that occurred a year ago, and this is basically signaling, I am not okay. When all I want to be is okay.
The regret instantly decays once Rocky tilts my head so my eyes crash against his. Only care in his gaze. He hasn’t pulled out. His body shelters mine, and he strokes my hair out of my face. “Breathe with me,” he whispers.
I inhale deep the same time he does. Exhale. Inhale. “Sor—”
“No,” he glares. “Don’t fucking apologize.”
His pissy tone actually makes me smile. “Fine, I won’t,” I snap back.
“Good.” He studies me.
Flush coats my cheeks again. He turns my head more to him and presses a kiss to my lips. It’s a sultry, deep kiss that summons more heat from me and loosens my body. I grow wetter around him.
“Fuck,” he curses against my mouth, then catches a breath to ask, “You need another minute?”
“Mm-hmm.” I want him so badly. “Face me?”
“Already plan on it.” That’s when he draws out, then flips me.
Our eyes stake each other with hostility and longing.
He picks me up. Tosses me higher on the bed.
While he retrieves a condom, I unstrap my heels.
He’s quick to rip the packet, sheathe himself, and return just as I toss the heels aside.
He captures my thighs, splitting me open.
“Rocky,” I cry, shoving his chest. “No.”
“Phoebe.” He confines my hands to the mattress. “Yes. You can keep being a brat all you fucking want.” He bows over me, his knees spreading me wider. “You’re still going to take all of me.” I love being trapped beneath him.
Don’t let go.
Never let me go.
He flexes into me. Oh God. My hips buck up on instinct. He grinds harder. Once again, I’m so full of Rocky. This time, our eyes stay fastened. He devours me inside out with his gaze. Even as his hand ravages me, wrenching my dress down. Teasing my nipples. Cupping, journeying.
Then he grips my face. Holding me so close to him with each thrust.
It’s deep, rough sex where I’m digging into his back for closer. More. He can’t go deep enough. He can’t be close enough. My body is alive beneath Rocky.
Every sensation blows me apart. We come together, and I moan into the pit of his hand. My body rattles. My eyes fucking roll. I can’t even hear his curses and groans. My ears are ringing.
Coming down from a climax is just as enjoyable. Where he brushes my sweaty hair out of my face. Then places a loving kiss on my lips. I can barely move. I’m still throbbing, but I manage to whisper the truth: “Thanks for being patient with me.”
“Thanks for recognizing I can’t read your mind all the time.”
“So you’re admitting you can sometimes.”
“I can read your body.” He stands off the bed. Condom trashed, he collects a pack of cigarettes, then lights one between his lips.
I like watching him mosey naked around the room after we fuck. Sometimes, I think he knows it, too.
“What’s my body saying now?” I ask while I lie on my stomach. I’m hugging a fluffy white pillow under my head.
The bed undulates with his return. “You want me to fuck you again.”
I snort. “Fail. Try again, buddy.”
He stares at my bare ass. My dress is bunched above my hips. Not really doing its job to cover my bottom or tits. He leans over to me, and I tense in anticipation. He pauses, staring right at my face.
I glare. “Shouldn’t you be looking at my body, not my eyes?”
“I am doing both,” he mumbles, cigarette between his lips. Then he squeezes my ass before slipping two fingers into my pussy.
Do not twitch.
I try to act like this is nothing, but feeling him inside me again is driving another need into me. I want more.
Rocky smokes with his right hand, fucks me with his left, and all the while, his eyes stay fixed on my glare.
He blows smoke away from me. “You know what your soaked cunt is saying now?”
“I hate Rocky.”
“You need my cock.”
“Oh, now I need you?” I swallow an aroused knot, because I am crumbling at a vicious rate. “Okay, yeah, Rocky.” I nearly whimper in impatience, and I catch his wrist, tearing his fingers out of me. I go to crawl on top of him, but he pushes me back down.
“Let me get a condom first, Phebs.”
I groan like he’s torturing me. “You did this to me.”
He nearly smiles. “Thank God you’re also as patient as me.”
“Don’t kid yourself, we are the same.”
“Not in every way. Clearly.” He lets the cigarette burn between his lips while he sifts through the condom box. He picks one out, and right before he rips the foil, he pauses. His brows crinkle. His abs contract into more defined ridges.
I frown. “Rocky?”
He runs his fingers over the foil packet, then he snuffs out the cigarette and returns to the box. He dumps out all the condoms on the dresser. He’s examining each one.
I slip the straps to my dress on my shoulders. “What’s wrong?” My pulse is skidding. He’s very particular about his condoms. A fun fact I learned when we had sex for the first time. He only uses a specific brand, an ultrathin kind.
I slide off the bed and walk toward him. “Are they not the ones you like?”
He bought that box himself. He always buys the condoms.
Rocky raises a hand at me to stop for a second.
I stand in the middle of the room. “Rocky…” Fear steals my breath. Because his silent rage is so lethal and he’s doing his best not to aim it at me. I can only think, This isn’t just bad.
Whatever he sees is devastating.