Chapter Thirty-Seven
Phoebe
Late-morning light filters into my bedroom. I haven’t heard from Rocky since our texts last night, but running a sweepstakes scam on Boyd wouldn’t be a fast task. I don’t have work until this evening, so I’m in no hurry to completely self-eject from the comfort and luxuries of a foam mattress.
I’m not against a sloth-like lounge day, even if I’ve already showered and jumped into jeans, a T-shirt, and a bra—and you know what, maybe I deserve this time to myself. My swollen eyes would agree.
Just me, my bed, and sinister deeds on my TV.
Leaning on the fluffed pillows against my headboard, I scroll through Netflix on the mounted TV, looking for another horror movie to dive into. For some reason, I keep going back to A Nightmare on Elm Street. I didn’t finish it last night.
I’m about to press play, but I glance at my shut door. Is Rocky going to stop by before I leave for work? Or will he just show up later at the country club?
Rocky.
His name causes an onslaught of vivid memories from last night to gush forth, but one thought overtakes every mental image.
He loves me.
My heart swells, but then I remember... he won’t ever be with me. Won’t ever sleep with me.
Has anything really changed?
It stings a little, and I try to accept the agreement we’ve had in place for two years. Pining after him—not my favorite hobby. At least speaking about Carlsbad—sharing that night with him—has removed the heaviest weight from my body; this morning, I feel lighter than I have in a while.
I always thought the truth was my ten-ton burden, and I didn’t want anyone else to carry it. Hailey was enough. But I realize that I wasn’t passing weight to Rocky.
He helped throw it off me, catapulting that night into the clouds. Shrouded and out of sight. Floating further and further away. Maybe one day it’ll even begin to fade.
There is no rewinding and altering the bad course of events. Only moving on. Sometimes I believe my job makes it easier to deal with what happened. Pretending to be someone else gives me nice little cupboards to fit horrible nights into. Then again, I wouldn’t have been in that position if it weren’t for my job.
A conundrum of epic proportions.
I raise the volume a little and then sink against the pillows. Settling in to watching the horror movie, I try to focus, but my mind keeps drifting to Rocky.
The strong cut of his jaw. How his masculine hands encased my cheekbones. The way he stared into me like I belonged to him. Like he would rip through every circle of hell just to reach me.
I picture his lips dipping toward mine, the warmth of his breath ghosting over me. A rush of heat pricks my body, and a long-built need throbs my pussy.
“Fuck,” I murmur in a frustrated breath. Shifting my legs and arching my back, I’m wrestling with an escalating desire. Honestly, satiating this craving sounds too good to kick away.
I begin to rewrite my reality into a fantasy. I imagine Rocky didn’t run out of the room last night.
Instead, he stayed.
He pushed me down on the mattress where I currently rest. Oxygen jettisoned out of me, and his hands—he planted them on either side of my face. His gaze dripped with deep longing and carnal, filthy need.
Yes.
While I paint this hot visual, pretending he was on top of me, I unzip my jeans and slip my hand below my pink panties. With my other hand, I pat the bed and find the remote. Muting the movie, I tangle up in my thoughts and close my eyes.
Reigniting the picture of Rocky. He’s not completely naked yet, but I fast-forward to him being shirtless.
His hard, bare chest presses against me, the length of his erection digging between my legs but confined behind his slacks. I’m going to do what I dreamed of doing a thousand times, he tells me in a husky breath. His lips hovering over my ear. I’m going to fuck you, my little nightmare.
Little nightmare.
When he said that to me, it unfastened every chain around my heart. Now, it’s lighting every nerve ending in the best way.
I’m baking in arousal on the bed, and I kick down my large white comforter. I’m panting, and my fingers slip against wet heat, my clit swelling as I circle the bundle of nerves.
“Rocky,” I whisper in an aching moan. “Please.”
My legs twitch and hamstrings flex, sweat beading up on my skin. I imagine his teasing hardness, the almost-there, drawn-out tension, and dying thirst that has never, ever been fully quenched.
He pins me. He pins me so hard, I can’t escape. I chew on my bottom lip. Oh God. I don’t want to escape. I want him to always have me, and I need him. Deeper, inside...
“I need you,” I whisper out loud.
You have me, I imagine him saying.
“Phoebe?”
My eyes shoot open.
Oh... fuck.
Rocky is here.
Rocky is here?! It fully jars my brain into total alertness. I go absolutely still.
He’s standing an inch inside my room with narrowed eyes, piecing everything together. Quickly, he slips farther in and shuts the door. It’s not hard to figure out what I’m doing with my hand stuffed down my jeans and panties. Should’ve locked the door. But it’s not like I intended to masturbate.
We lock eyes, not breaking.
Not moving.
He won’t come over here and satiate me. He’s made it clear we’ll never be together, and maybe all I’ll ever have is this. My hand. My imagination.
Maybe he deserves to watch and see what he’s missing.
I return to rubbing myself, keeping my eyes fixed on Rocky.
“Phoebe,” he breathes out, a frustrated groan clinging to his throat. “Christ.”
“Tell me to stop,” I say through a ragged breath. Wetness slips between my fingers as I quicken my pace.
He watches my moving hand, and his nose flares. “I can’t.”
“Then leave,” I snap coldly, thinking he’s mad I’m pleasuring myself in front of him. “Because I’m not stopping. I’m going to come whether you’re here or not.”
He runs a stressed hand through his hair.
I knead around the sensitive bud, and my breath hitches into a short moan.
“Phoebe,” he says my name like he’s scolding me, but he’s striding over to me.
He’s coming to the bed with a scorching, powerful gait, and I’d think this was another fantasy. Another dream. But when he grabs my ankle and yanks me flat on my back, I know this is real.
Holy fuck. My lips are parted as oxygen flees, and I start to pant, “You’re just going to tease me—”
He grips the denim of my jeans and rips them down my hips. Off my legs. Watching him throw my pants to the side, I’m breathless.
The hunger in his eyes devours me. “I’m going to do so much more than just tease you,” he says in a throaty, husky breath. “And by the end, you’ll be begging me to never pull out.” He sheds his leather jacket.
Does this mean...? My mouth keeps falling open. “I don’t believe you,” I say, almost in challenge.
“You’d be the first not to.” He unzips his slacks, our eyes glued to one another.
The anticipation of what he could do, what he wants to do, is a fiercer thumping need between my legs. Once his pants are gone, I fixate like a starved animal on his hard length that bears against his charcoal boxer briefs. I’ve seen his cock before. He has been very blessed. Almost too blessed.
I’ve imagined him nestled deep inside of me. But I’ve never felt him go that far.
Rocky moves the ottoman away from the foot of the bed. More in the middle of the room. What’s he doing? I prop myself on my elbows, my heart beating out of control, and I like it. I really fucking like it.
Is he actually going to do anything to me, though?
There’s just no way... Ohhh, God. He’s hot. After he undoes the buttons of his shirt, he grabs the fabric by the back collar and sheds it over his head.
I hate that he’s this hot. That I’m so attracted to him, I can’t help but wedge my hand back down my panties.
“Impatient?” he says, like I’m too needy.
“You’re too slow,” I taunt, and we share a flicker of a smile.
He climbs back on the bed, kneeling between my legs. Swiftly, he catches my wrist and pries my fingers out from the lacy band of my panties. And then Rocky pulls my white T-shirt over my head, my hair falling back down on my bare shoulders.
I thought I’d be gawking more at his sculpted muscles. I thought he’d be so obsessed with my tits, he wouldn’t stare elsewhere.
But we’re looking more into one another—like our souls are the most beautiful things we’ve ever shown.
His knees spread me wider and wider, and the stretch and his musky scent and closeness causes a strange, aching noise to leave me.
Rocky pauses.
How he’s feasting on my arousal is so, so sexy.
I’m really wet, and my cheeks flush as he brings my wrist up and over my head. His abs flex as he bends over my body. Bearing his weight down on me. Our eyes never break apart. As if one glance away will disrupt this. A caustic tension spindles between us.
All these years, we’ve fought against this. Giving in to it should be easy, but it’s anything but.
His lips skate above mine, the warmth tingling me. My toes curl in anticipation, and I clutch his carved bicep with my free hand, holding on to the moment. We’ve never kissed for real.
And once this happens... there’s no going back.
His forehead presses to mine, emotion tangling with our breaths, and as his lips descend to my lips, we are a crack of lightning. A tsunami crashing into buildings. A cyclone touching ground. Destruction bursting together. His kiss is vicious and loving, and I taste his hunger against my mouth. His tongue melds with mine, and I claw at his back while he pins my other wrist overhead.
“More—” My raspy voice is cut short with his kisses, and fuck, fuck, his hand slides down my panties. I’m throbbing, swelling around his fingers that slip and tease inside me. His electric touch, his penetrating eyes, his building warmth—it’s making me feel so alive. “Rocky.” I roll my hips against his palm.
“Fuck. Phoebe.” He grunts into a deeper groan. “Stay still.”
I want him all over me. To overwhelm every inch of my body. To make me stay very fucking still himself. In protest, I arch my back and spread my legs wider.
Rocky reads my eyes, my body. He lets go of my wrist to clasp my face. Forcing my head still, I look right at him while his fingers pump inside me.
The intensity of us staring at one another is shooting pure adrenaline in my veins.
He finds my G-spot, and spots dance in my vision the more he teases. My lips break apart, breath shallow. “R-Roc...” I struggle against him, pushing at his biceps and chest, my legs writhing into the bed, and he bears more of his weight into me. Pinning me with his build.
Yes, yes, yes.
As soon as his fingers curl into my hair and he yanks, I moan and my eyes flutter. “Oh my God.”
He suddenly releases.
What? “No, no.”
Rocky stops finger-fucking me. “Safe word. Pick one. Now.”
I blink, my mind whirling. “Is that...?”
“Yeah. It is necessary.” He dips his head down, his lips against the pit of my ear as he whispers, “I’m going to fuck you exactly how you’ve dreamed of being fucked.”
I try to layer on a glare. “You don’t know what I like.” I sit up on my elbows. “You’ve never been inside me.” There’s still a part of me that believes this will end before we have sex. It will stop short.
It will all fall apart.
Rocky shoves me down, and when he comes down on my lips in a sweltering, clawing kiss, my whole being melts beneath him.
Ohh, yes. I whimper against his mouth, and he combs my hair back, his fingers scraping my head in a melodic, intense rhythm. His touch is power, and the vulnerable bits of me yearn to relinquish to the way I come undone in his hands.
He breaks the kiss with a graveled noise. “I’m starting to figure it out.” What I like, he means.
“Does it turn you on?” I pant.
Rocky lifts off me and tugs the elastic band of his boxer briefs. Slowly, he frees his erection. Holy... I pulsate. I’ve never seen him that hard or swollen. He looks bigger. Erect. He is very... erect. His cock stands at mind-altering attention, and all I can do is imagine him filling me.
He speaks the minute our eyes crash together. “It turns me on.” As he leans over me again, his scorching closeness is welcomed and protective and everything to me. His whisper hits my ear. “The thought of railing your pussy from the front and behind and on the bed, against the wall, until you only see stars—that also turns me on.”
Yes, God. I’m soaked.
He unclips my bra and rips it off. His thumb circles my perked nipple.
I moan and arch my hips, grinding against his length.
“Fuck,” he grits out, his arousal flaring his nose. I reach out to touch his cock, but Rocky catches my wrist and pins it again.
He rests his forehead on mine, his free hand diving back between our pelvises, and he toys with my clit. I squirm beneath him, and he breathes against my lips, “Pick a safe word, Phoebe.”
“Ahh, fuckfuck.”
“Not that one.”
“Rocky.”
“Or that one.”
I hold on to his bicep and feel for his large hand that’s between my legs. “I’mgonnacome. I’mgonnacome. Please, please. I need...” More. Him.
He stops.
Again.
Ughhh. “Rocky.” I glare.
He climbs off me. Off the bed. My heart just drops. Until he says, “Where do you keep your condoms?”
My heart floats higher than before. “My dresser.”
He goes to my dresser, buck naked, and his ass—God, he has such a perfect ass. As he angles toward me to open a drawer, I see the muscles of his waist that tease my eyes toward his cock. So much heat bathes my face and body, and I think about taking off my panties.
But I kinda just want him to.
Rocky checks a couple drawers before finding the right one. He inspects the two boxes. “This is it?” he asks.
“Yeah.” There’s plenty. I’m really confused. “Do you plan on coming twenty-four times in one night?”
He shoots me a look. “I’m not talking about the fucking quantity.” He reads a black box, his brows pinching.
“The size?” I ask. He’s holding a box with XL on the front.
“I don’t like this brand.” He examines the other box without the XL. “This one is too small. And I hate the feeling of thicker condoms. Or any of this warming shit.”
Who knew Rocky was particular about condoms? Definitely not me. We’re both learning new things about each other.
He’s unconcerned when he deserts both boxes. No condom?
“I’ve been off birth control since the move here,” I warn him.
He picks up his crumpled slacks and looks right at me. “I’m not raw-dogging you.” A breath catches in my lungs, lit up with one single deep-throated phrase, and he eyes my split legs, my ragged breath, and he grins.
“Fuck. You.” I groan and throw a pillow at him.
He dodges the pillow and fishes out a wallet from his slacks. “I already knew you like dirty talk, Phoebe.”
“You did not,” I refute in a huff, but now I am wondering when and where and how he figured that out.
Rocky procures a couple condoms from his wallet. He keeps condoms in his pocket?
I arch my brows. “Who were those waiting for?”
“You, apparently.” He gestures to the boxes on the dresser. “Who were those waiting for? Because clearly not me.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know your condom preferences.”
“You’re not sorry.” He goes and locks the door.
I like watching him strut around the room naked. Usually I’m in those positions, and the role reversal is swelling a greater affection in me. “No, I’m not...”
He reaches across the bed and grabs the remote. “Trevor is already awake in the living room.” Again, I’m confused at what he’s doing and why he mentions his brother until he unmutes A Nightmare on Elm Street and raises the volume to an obnoxiously loud level.
I, also, do not want his little brother to hear us. So I’m not protesting.
“What condoms do you prefer?” I ask over the movie as Rocky rips the packet. He’s still standing beside the bed, and I can’t see the tiny words on the foil.
“Ultra-thin or extra-thin.”
Hmm. “Should I take notes?” I quip, but honestly, I’m still nervous this might not happen once. I can’t even think about next time.
Rocky rolls the condom on his shaft with ease. “No.”
No?
Before hurt punctures me, he adds, “I buy the condoms.” He’s on the bed. Kneeling again, he has my hips in his strong clutch. “I’m the rich bitch. Remember?” He yanks my panties straight down my legs, off my ankles and feet. Ohhh wow.
I’m completely bare.
Pleasure sizzles beneath his hands as they return to my hips and ass. I murmur, “It’s... ringing a bell.” His gaze is diving so deep inside me. I already feel like Rocky has entered me.
Bracing his forearm beside my face, he lowers down on me. The thump of his heartbeat pounds against my body, and his erection bears between my legs. He hasn’t slipped in me.
Instead, he cups the inside of my thighs and splits them wider. I hook one leg around his shoulder, and he grabs my calf in the air. “Safe word,” he demands.
“Fuck me.”
“Cute fake safe word. Pick a real one.”
I wet my lips to keep from smiling. “Why don’t you pick?”
“Because I’ll choose a word you won’t want desecrated in bed.”
“Strawberry?” I’m guessing.
He raises his brows.
I’m right. “Yeah, no, don’t ruin my wholesome love of strawberries.” If I have to use a safe word, then it means I’m scared and I want to feel protected. I look at him as it hits me. “Miami.”
He’s not perplexed, but he stares into me for a solid moment. Likely recalling our time in Miami. We’ve lived in so many cities, it’d take me hours to name them all, but my time in Miami with Rocky was adrenaline-fueled, messy, and a vivid, fond memory.
“Miami,” he repeats, the word rough in his throat. “That’ll work.”
And this is the magic green light. Rocky holds my face, his hand diving into the sweaty tendrils of my hair, and as he descends on my lips with a crushing, aching kiss, he grinds against my pussy. Teasing. Still just teasing.
Until he’s not. Our kisses leave my lips swollen, and he fastens his eyes onto mine as he thrusts into me. His guttural noise and my sharp breath electrify my senses, and he holds my face steady while he flexes deeper into me, pumping. I take more of his length little by little, the pace tantalizing and hypnotic, and the feeling of Rocky filling me carefully and completely is shaking my limbs.
“I...” I moan, not even sure what I planned to say. “Oh... my God.” He’s in me. He’s in me. I cling on to his biceps, unable to even arch my hips and reciprocate the movement. His deep penetrating thrusts take total control of me, and I bask in the essence of being this close and intimate with Rocky.
His jaw muscles tic, gritting down on a groan, and he pries my hands off his biceps. Pulling my arms overhead and nailing my wrists to the mattress, he clutches my face with his other hand, and my legs are helpless, just a quaking, shuddering mess on either side of his waist.
His firm, glistening chest welds with my soft skin, and I’m so lost inside this moment. To the way he traps me beneath him, like no one else will ever reach me or touch me but him. To the way he pounds my swollen pussy, jostling my body upward with each plunge inside me, and we’re bound together, rocking to the stormy waves of our love.
Our grunts and moans and throaty approvals of pleasure are all I hear. The horror movie, though loud, is shot so far out of my brain.
“Rocky,” I whimper, tears wetting the creases of my eyes. I’m going to come. Holy... I shudder again beneath him.
His hot, agonizing breath ghosts my lips, and he stares into me. “You think your cunt can keep taking me? Because I’m not stopping. I’m never fucking stopping.”
True to his word, Rocky does not stop.
I’m sent over the cliff as soon as he thrusts and whispers exactly what he’s doing to me in graphic detail.
I cry out, my fingers curling while his grip tightens on my wrists, and my hips buck in an explosive, earth-shattering climax. An orgasm ripples out of me in pulsing waves, and my entire body trembles like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
Rocky sits up on his knees and clasps my hips. Pulling me against his groin, he continues the eternal fucking, and I see him slide in and out of me. Holy fuck. My lips split apart, and I’m unable to catch my breath as he begins to build me up again.
When he slips fully out, he’s still so hard, and though I’m breathless, my energy isn’t near depleted. We’re steam engines. I should’ve known our first time would be as inexhaustible as we are.
I climb off the bed, locked into his hunger as he stalks after me, but I walk backward and pretend like I’m finished. “Thanks for the climax. It was good. Middle-of-the-road. Like a soft handshake.”
“Is that what it was, you little liar?” He reaches me, his palm on the small of my back. He’s guiding me to the wall, but I jerk away from him. Rocky catches me around the hips and pushes my front so hard against the wall with his build seared to my back.
Holy shit. I ache between my legs. The feeling of being pressed so forcefully against the wall by him is doing a number on me. I can almost sense Rocky drinking in the way I’m melting.
Turning my head to try and see him, I rasp, “I’m done.” I don’t really mean it. If I did, I would’ve used the safe word.
He pauses, gauging my expression. “You’re not done.” He draws my hips a little backward into him, his cock brushing against my ass, and when I try to reach around for his arm, he confines my wrists above my head. And then, he pushes inside my pussy again.
I’m in love with this. I’m in love with him, bleeds deeper like indelible ink on my heart.
Rocky bites back a groan. “Fuck,” he curses hotly, and keeping me trapped against the wall, he fists a handful of my hair. Yes, yes, God, yes.
I’m dizzy. The heady rush weakens my knees, but Rocky slams into me with the vigor of a celestial demon. I guess he’s always been more of a fallen angel.
“Is this middle-of-the-road?” he breathes against my ear.
Not at all.
“Yes,” I taunt in a slight moan. “I want it... rough.” With my cheek on the wall, I meet the longing in his eyes. “Do I have to... spell it out for you?”
He thrusts deeper.
Ohhh fuck.
“Please do,” he whispers and bites my lip before kissing me with loving aggression.
When he lets up, I start, “R.”
His hand curves around my sweaty hip. I jerk as he touches my sensitive clit. Fuck.
“O,” I cry out.
He’s fucking me senseless. I’m unable to finish spelling; the friction of him lights up my core. I’ve never felt anyone go this deep in this position, and pleasure shoots through each nerve ending.
“C,” he tells me in a ragged breath. His muscled arms flex as he braces one near my face. He’s taking me harder. “K.” He lets out a grunt. “Y.”
That fucker spelled his own name.
The name I gave him.
Arousal swims through me like a riptide. And when I come again, he hasn’t met his finish line. Before I descend off a peak, he spins me around and cups my thighs, hoisting me up against his chest. I barely have the strength left to hook my legs around him.
We kiss like we’re fighting for oxygen, and Rocky brings me to the ottoman. Lying my back across the long, tufted bench, he fits right between my legs.
Once he pushes back into me, I clutch the back of his neck, and he slows his thrusts to a sensual, hypnotic pace. So deep.
Our eyes are latched, and he whispers against my lips, “I’m inside you.” It wells up in me. “I’m making love to you.” Tears leak, and he brushes the corners of my eyes. “I’m never letting go of you, Phoebe. Never.”
I hang on to him.
He holds on to me.
We’re both overwhelmed. Overcome, and with three more deep flexes inside me, Rocky grunts out a curse, his muscles contracting, and my legs shake and toes curl again, just seeing him come. He rakes a cool hand through his sweaty hair.
He doesn’t pull out yet. I love him right there. I always want him this tormentingly close, and I clutch on to his biceps to keep him still.
Rocky places a sweet kiss on my lips, and as he inches back, his smile rises. “Believe me now?”
“Yes.” I really, really do.