27. Skylar
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SKYLAR
I wanted to tell myself I didn’t know why I asked Tucker if he wanted to come in. Yet I knew exactly why.
I was feeling sharp along all my edges and soft as if my underbelly had been torn open and needed someone to make me feel better.
This was my fallback when I was younger.
Back when I was desperate for love and falling in love with every guy who came along.
I had enough sense now to understand it wasn’t really love.
You could fall in love with the idea of love and feel like you were in love.
That was what it was for me. That was how fiercely I craved the feeling.
For now, Tucker offered an escape I couldn’t find alone. I missed Emily so much every day that it felt like a hole in my heart. I kept trying to patch it up. Some days, the hole felt stitched together, and other days, it was gaping open.
I was scared. I wasn’t ready for something to happen to Ludie. Not yet. Because then I would be even more alone than I already was.
I didn’t let out a sigh of relief when Tucker nodded.
We walked up the stairs together. As hard as it was for me to make friends or let myself be emotionally vulnerable, the one place where I could be confident was sex.
I threw myself into it. It was like a free ticket, a shortcut to intimacy, even if it wasn’t the same.
When the door clicked shut behind us, I was already shimmying out of my jacket and kicking my boots off. Tucker watched me for a moment. He moved at a much slower pace. He shrugged out of his jacket, hung it, then carefully toed off one battered leather boot and then the other.
He was wearing a button-down over a T-shirt. As soon as he had that jacket off, I started pushing the shirt over his shoulders. It was flannel and soft to the touch. He caught my hands, saying, “Slow down.”
I looked up at him, locked in his sky-blue gaze. “I don’t want to go slow.” My voice came out raspy with an edge.
For a moment, I thought he was going to insist. That would make me feel more vulnerable than I already did. Even worse, though, he didn’t insist. He whispered, “Okay.”
Feeling exposed and split open, I pressed my hand to his chest, gratified to feel the thump of his heartbeat colliding with my palm. I leaned up to kiss him, pushing back.
Seconds later, his hips bumped into the couch. I tugged at the buttons on his fly. He was kissing the side of my neck, and everything felt rushed. I was caught in a tornado of sensation and need.
Tucker murmured, “Easy, Skylar.”
But there was no easy. I needed this. I needed to lose myself in him. In us.
His palm skimmed down my side, trying to capture my hands, but I swatted them away. I shoved his jeans and boxers down just enough for his cock to spring free. I curled my palm around it, feeling it pulse under my touch, the skin hot and velvety soft.
Leaning down, I took his cock in my mouth, swirling my tongue around the tip and sucking lightly on the thick crown.
Pre-cum danced across my tongue, the salty tang sliding down my throat.
I sucked him in deeply, and his hand tangled in my hair.
His touch was a little rough and just how I needed it right then.
He let out a growl, followed by a groan. I gripped his length with my palm, letting it slide up and down. I wanted him to feel like he couldn’t control himself because I couldn’t control myself. But his control was the only thing he didn’t give me.
Just when I thought I might push him over the edge, he tugged on my hair, murmuring, “Skylar.”
I drew back, peering up at him. My lips parted as my breath came in deep gulps.
“Come ‘ere.”
To my surprise, I did. I straightened, and he brushed my hair back from my face, cupping my cheeks as he stared into my eyes.
Emotion rose inside me, like the rush of a storm coming in off the ocean. The rhythmic push and pull, the land and the sea trading the power. I breathed in deeply.
Tucker took my mouth in a devouring kiss before spinning me around, his hands sliding down my sides.
He reached around to the front of my waist, deftly unzipping my jeans.
Fiery seconds burned by as he shoved them down around my hips and bent me over the back of the couch.
The friction of my jeans banded around my knees heightened the sensations ricocheting through me.
I could feel my arousal, the dampness between my thighs.
I didn’t even know when that had happened.
Whenever I spent time alone with Tucker, or at least of late, my arousal was always right on the edge, chafing me, something I couldn’t shake free.
I didn’t want to shake it free. It frightened me with its ease and its power.
His fingers delved into my core, and I felt his palm slide up my back in a sure, soothing pass. “Easy,” he murmured again.
Being with him was easy, so very easy. Somehow, his touch was comforting because I felt so out of control.
His fingers disappeared. Seconds later, I felt the press of his arousal at my entrance.
He took a breath as if adjusting himself, drawing back slightly and then pressing in slowly, inch by inch.
The slow, thick glide of him filling me elicited a plea from me.