19. Nova
“So, here are the linens.” I thrust a fresh set of the expensive Egyptian cotton sheets into Mom’s arms and search for the pillowcases. “Oh, and they’re infused with lavender to help you fall asleep easier. I know Dad can’t sleep away from home.”
Mom nods, her eyes scanning the house and looking everywhere but at me. There’s a new tension in the air, now that we’re alone, that threatens to steal my breath away. Mom is rarely quiet and when she is . . . let’s just say, it’s never good.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” I ask after the silence becomes unbearable. I can’t escape the feeling she didn’t pull me into the house for over-priced sheets.
“I like Reid.”
Here we go.
I turn from her before the anxiety that’s been bubbling in my stomach all day at having Reid around my family can spew over. Stepping into my bedroom to put some distance between us, I squint against the pale light illuminating from the bedside lamp.
It’s just today and tomorrow. How bad can it be?
Unfortunately, when I turn back to Mom and see her chewing on her lip, I realize there’s no escaping this conversation.
“He’s just a friend, Mom.”
She shoots me a bored look. One that says she doesn’t believe me. “So is your father.”
Of course, I know I’m lying. I spent the night wrapped in the man’s arms, just last night. He . . . touched me.
Mom doesn’t need to know that, though.
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Sure looked serious. To him, anyway.”
Now I know she’s making stuff up.
She shrugs, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “He’s handsome. Got real strong shoulders.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to ignore the fact that my mother just essentially told me she thinks Reid’s hot. Of course, I knew already, but there’s something about hearing her say it.
“And he’ll be gone in a couple weeks.”
“Why Alaska?”
“He got offered some big fishing job.”
“And he took it?”
“Well, yeah,” I muse, busying myself with tidying up just so I don’t have to meet her gaze. “It’s a great job.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“All fishing jobs are dangerous, Mom. Water is dangerous.”
She’s quiet for so long I have to look up from the paints I’m rearranging for absolutely no reason.
“I’m just saying, perhaps he’d be interested in staying, if you give him a reason to.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Nova.”
“Did you ask me in here so you can try to convince me to beg Reid to stay?”
“Nova Leigh,” she scolds, though there’s a blush creeping up her cheeks. Busted.
“He won’t stay, Mom. He’s said it himself already. Besides . . . I don’t want him to stay.”
“Why, Nova?” she presses, still not picking up on the hint that I don’t want to talk about this.
I slam the metal tray of paints down so hard my entire easel rattles beside me. “Because I promised Jack!”
Finally, the emotions bubble over and everything I’ve wanted to say to literally everyone since Reid showed up in town come flooding to the surface. Everything screaming in my head since that night Jack and I went into the Mississippi and only I resurfaced.
Silence falls over the room and neither of us move or make a sound save for my heavy breathing.
“Oh . . . honey . . .” Mom’s voice breaks and I know she’s crying. I just . . . I can’t look at her or I’ll cry, too. My emotions aren’t something I can handle right now. Not when they’ve been so caged for four years that they’re wild. Angry.
I want to hit something for the first time in my life.
“Nova.”
I force my gaze to hers and it’s a mistake because I can see the tears shining in her eyes and before I know it, my own are burning.
“You don’t need to punish yourself, sweetheart.”
Is that what I’m doing? Punishing myself because Jack saved me and I couldn’t save him? Is it because I filed for divorce the day he died? Is it my own guilt—survivors guilt crashing down on me?
If I had to guess, all three.
“I’m not.”
“Nova, come sit down.”
“No, I’m fine,” I mutter angrily, hastily wiping the traitorous tear slipping down my cheek.
“Nova Leigh Fischer,” Mom’s voice cracks like a whip. I freeze. Mom never scolds me. “Sit.”
Swallowing my pride, I suck up my tears and perch on the edge of the bed beside Mom, though I would rather do anything but have this conversation right now.
“Talk to me.” Mom takes my hand, her gentle demeanor slipping back into place.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Mom.”
“There is. You miss Jack.”
“He was . . .” I start, unable to finish the sentence. “Of course, I miss him.”
“He would want you to move on and be happy.”
I shake my head, silently begging her to stop before I end up a crying, sobbing mess on the floor, but she doesn’t. Instead, she reaches up and brushes a curl out of my face and then, consequently, a tear off my cheek.
“You were together for so long. I know it’s hard, but . . . he’d want you to keep living life, for him.”
My voice breaks when I speak because it feels like a hole has been opened up in my chest. “It’s been so long since anyone else has talked about him.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom coos, squeezing my hand tighter. “No one forgot about him. Part of surviving is remembering him and celebrating him. Refusing to love again is only ruining what you have left of him.”
“How?”
She smiles softly, taking my other hand and pressing a kiss to my knuckles.
“Jack loved you. He did. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t love you just as much.” She presses a palm to the spot on my chest over my heart. “That doesn’t mean you can’t love someone that much again.”
I shake my head, tugging my hand from her. She doesn’t know what I did to him. She doesn’t know what I forced on him.
Reid would be easy to love. Under that rough exterior, he’s shown me things I’ve never seen. He’s like fireworks on the Fourth of July or hot chocolate on a cold winter night. Comfort. Warmth.
But he’s not the man I said I would love for the rest of my life. He’s not Jack.
“Am I a bad person?”
She chuckles softly, though it doesn’t hold any humor.
“No. You aren’t a bad person. You’re a human who lost someone and now you’re holding yourself hostage with their memory.”
Allowing myself to be free of the guilt I’ve always associated with Jack’s death feels like I’m not holding myself accountable. It would be freeing to be able to live a life without this dark cloud over my shoulders, but how can I do it? How can I allow myself the possibility of moving on with someone who might be leaving in a couple weeks, anyway?
“And,” Mom adds, looking at the bright blue nail polish on my fingers. “If Reid turns out to not be the one, then at least he’s hot.”
It catches me so off-guard that I snort and Mom laughs. She places her hand on my leg, patting my knee.
“You’re a good girl, Nova. I love you. I know someone in this world is going to fall head over heels with you. You’ve just got to let them.”
“Girls, are you decent?” Dad calls up the stairs, his cheerful laugh following soon after.
“Well, there’s your father,” Mom rolls her eyes and we both chuckle. “Ever the patient one. Give me a hug.”
She pulls me into one of her warm, Mom-hugs and I wipe the wetness off my cheeks.
“I love you, sweetie.”
Footsteps shuffle up the stairs and Mom pulls back from me, gathering the sheets in her arms. “Alright, alright, we’re coming.”
Dad pauses at the doorway, his gaze flicking between us.
“Reid?”
“He’s waiting for you out by the fire. Told me to go on ahead while he hung out with the dog.”
“Everything’s all set for tonight,” I tell him, descending the stairs. “I even put special pillow cases in there that should help you sleep better.”
“Drugged pillow cases?” he asks Mom, who just shrugs. “Well, this wasn’t on the brochure.”
Once we’ve said goodnight, I watch their tail lights as they make their way back to the inn.
They’re good people. I don’t give them enough credit. They have always went above and beyond for me. Especially after Jack. If it weren’t for them, I don’t know what I would have done.
Mom’s right. It’s time to lay Jack to rest. I can’t keep letting the ghost of him back me into a corner, chase me in my dreams. I need to face what happened.
Unfortunately, it starts with the man at the fire.
I pause when I step out of the back door. Reid’s watching the fire, his gaze wary. Guarded, just like he was that first day I met him. I don’t like it. I can’t escape the sinking feeling that he and my dad talked about a little more than they were supposed to.
Was I set up by my parents? Did Mom and Dad separate us to talk to each of us individually? I wouldn’t put it past them. My stomach twists in knots, thinking about what all Dad could have said, but I don’t get time to think about it because the walk from the back door to the fire pit just isn’t long enough for long-winded worries.
“Hey,” I greet, voice every bit as choked with anxiety as I was hoping it wouldn’t sound. There’s something different about him than before I went inside and I can’t fight the sinkhole opening up in my stomach. I mean, he’s always quiet. Only now, he won’t look at me.
“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat.
Shit.
“Want another beer, or something?”
Jesus, I sound pathetic, even to myself.
“No,” he replies, his voice cooler than I’ve ever heard it.
“Whatever my dad said, I’m sorry. He’s just trying to be a dad.”
“Nova, who’s Jack?”
I pause, the air getting stuck in my lungs, my heart freezing in my chest and ice filling every one of my veins. I just stare at him, locked in place and of course, he chooses this moment to grace me with his gaze.
That dark gaze, swimming with emotions and thoughts I can’t pick up on.
“What?”
“Nova. Who is Jack?”
So this is it, then? This is how I tell him what an utter failure I am. This is how both shoes drop at the same time and this is how this little tryst between us comes to an end.
With Jack.
“Jack is . . . was my husband.”
Reid doesn’t say anything. He looks back at the fire, his gaze unreadable. Is he disgusted with me? Does he think I’m a horrible person?
“He died. When we crashed into the Mississippi.”
“You didn’t tell me before.”
“I didn’t want to.”
His gaze darkens and he almost looks angry.
“Nova, I can’t replace him.”
Ouch.
“No,” I snap, my eyes burning with fresh tears I refuse to cry. “You can’t. And no one asked you to.”
“I can’t give you what you need, Nova.”
“I don’t need you to give me anything.” And then, just because I feel like it has to be said. “If you’re worried I’ll fall in love with you, I can handle myself, Reid. I’m not a child.”
“This has gone too far.”
Too far.
“Fine, then go.” I hate the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. I also hate the cavity opening in my chest when I think about the days after he’s gone. He stands from the chair by the fire and I take a step back, needing to put some space between us.
Bitter resentment burns in my chest. For Reid. For Jack. For me, most of all, because I swore to myself I wouldn’t get attached. If I wasn’t, maybe it wouldn’t feel like my heart’s getting stomped into the dirt.
Stupid, stupid, girl.
“I don’t want to hurt you when I leave.”
His one-line sentences are pissing me off. Like he’s trying them on to see which one makes everything better. As if when he lands on the right one, it’ll erase the last two weeks and we can go back to our lives.
“You’re hurting me right now.”
Both of us fall silent, neither daring to break the silence that stretches further and further between us.
Maybe in another life, things could have been different. Maybe he wouldn’t be dead-set on following his dream out in Alaska and maybe I would be the kind of girl that could make him stay. Maybe we’d fall in love. Have babies.
Maybe he’s right. This has gone too far.
I shake my head, tears burning in my eyes, and I know I can’t stand here and let him see me cry. Tears are a weakness. I learned the hard way that people you care about the most can use them against you until you’re a beaten-down version of yourself. A husk of who you used to be. When someone can make you cry, they hold your heart in their hands.
“Have a good night, Reid.”
I turn for the house, but he catches my hand before I get even a step away, spinning me around to face him.
“Nova—” he grits, something flashing in those eyes. Something like panic.
“No,” I bite, jerking my hand out of his grasp. “I lost someone, yes, but I’m old enough to understand it and I can damn sure make my own decisions. I’m so sick and tired of everyone thinking they know what’s best for me when no one has stopped to consider that I have a fucking brain in my head and I don’t need to be controlled. I dealt with that for four years and I’m done.”
My chest heaves with my anger, and my vision grows spotty from the adrenaline rushing through me. It feels good to finally say that out loud.
Maybe he was right. I need to start standing up for myself where it counts. Right now seems like the perfect opportunity to start.
Reid’s eyes flare with a heat that sends a chill up my spine. Like he’ll devour me whole if I’m locked in a room with him.
He once warned me he’s a monster, ready to take, and right now . . . I believe him.
“What do you want?”
What do I want?
My heart beats rapidly in my chest, body warm from the tension and that look in his eyes.
He hates this. He doesn’t want to give this up, but he’s forcing himself to.
Screw that.
“I want you to fuck me.”
I’m just as surprised as he is when it leaves my mouth.
A deadly silence makes my ears ring. The darkness in his eyes makes my pulse flutter.
So, I repeat myself.
“I want you to fuck me, Reid,” I murmur, taking a step toward him. He doesn’t move—doesn’t step back even as I stop just an inch away from him.
“Don’t say shit like that,” he rumbles, voice so quiet I can barely hear him. He stares down at me as if he hates me. Like I am the single worst thing that’s ever happened to him.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Seeing love, acceptance . . . devotion, would make this something we’ve both decided it’s not.
At this proximity, I can feel the heat radiating off him, warming me in the chill of the night air. Heat gathers at the base of my spine, slipping down my stomach until it pools at my core.
Gingerly, I press a hand to the muscles of his abdomen and raise up on my tiptoes until my lips are inches from him. I’m playing with fire right now, but I’ve never wanted to be burned more.
“Nova,” he mutters, voice laced with venom and fire and everything that makes my body hum with danger I’m not accustomed to. “Last chance.”
“I want you to fuck me, Reid,” I whisper, lips brushing his. “I don’t want your love. I want your body.”
My words hang in the air between us, lost in the wind, and I’m just about to give up when abruptly, he reaches up, gripping my chin roughly and jerking me to him until his lips meet mine. The subtle bite of pain from his grip on my skin is nothing if it’s not an aphrodisiac.
Who am I?
Gripping me around the waist, he hoists me up until I can straddle him before he breaks the kiss with a deep feral groan.
“You have no idea what you just asked for, sweetheart.”
Maybe this is what I’ve been missing. The raw, animalistic feel of another person desperate to touch me. Desperate for me to touch them.
Perhaps that’s where the real line in the sand between Jack and Reid is. Where Jack was soft and gentle, loving and sweet, Reid is strong and fierce, pushing me past my limits and making me question my sanity because it’s not enough.
It’s never enough.
“Fuck, Nova,” Reid rasps, pressing me back into the wall of the dark kitchen. His hands are everywhere. Cupping my ass, running up my back, over my shoulders. “You better tell me right fucking now if this is what you really want, because once I get you in bed we aren’t stopping until your legs are shaking and you can’t take anymore.”
Holy shit.
“I want you,” I whisper against his lips, sliding my hands up under his shirt and over the hard ridges of his stomach. “I want you,” I repeat, waiting for the guilt to show it’s ugly head, but it doesn’t. Remarkably, I don’t feel it at all.
Reid chuckles darkly, letting me slide down his body to land on my feet. “Bed.”
My stomach bottoms out at the command. Tonight is either going to break me or glue me back together. Which, I’m not quite sure yet.
I move toward the stairs, Reid hot on my tail, before I reach the bedroom and pause, unsure what to do. So, this is where the nerves sink in? This is how cold feet cock block even the bravest of all of us.
Reid shuts the door, kicking Toast and Creamsicle out, while I start straightening the pillows on the bed like a madwoman. Cleaning seems to have become a nervous habit of mine in the last twenty-four hours.
When I asked Reid to fuck me, I wasn’t thinking about the build up to the act. Now that we’re here, I’m on edge, waiting for those sickening feelings to trickle in and make me back out.
“Nova.”
I peek back at him and he’s watching me, his eyes burning into my skin.
“Come here.”
I suck in a deep breath through my nose and slowly step toward him, toeing off my sneakers as I go. His eyes zero in on the red nail polish, then rake up my body, leaving a burning path in their wake.
I stop in front of him, looking up at him through my lashes.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, almost like it hurts him. It’s hard to believe he’s a monster when he says things like that.
He places a finger under my chin and raises my face to his, pressing his lips gently against mine, tasting me. Drinking me in, he groans, capturing my bottom lip between his teeth and nipping at it like it personally wronged him.
I wrap my arms around him, sinking into the feel of him, but my mind is running rampant with every possible thought a person shouldn’t be having at a time like this. What’s the value of the U.S. dollar? What is bioscience? What is the meaning of fucking life?
“Talk to me, little bird,” he rasps against my lips.
As soon as his lips leave mine, that embarrassment is back.
“I’m sorry.”
I wish I could turn my brain off. Maybe take it out and put it in a glass of water like the elderly do with their dentures. Maybe then, I could get some fucking peace.
“You can still stop this, Nova.” Reid looks like he would burn a small village down if I did, but I can see the honesty in his eyes. If I wanted to stop, we’d stop.
“No. I’m just . . .”
“Nervous?”
“No . . .” I lie. “Yes.”
He chuckles, brushing the curls back from my face with a deep breath.
“Tell me what you need. And don’t say me.”
Damn.
“Can you . . . take away my ability to think?” I joke, though I feel like doing anything but joking, right now. Anticipation curls low in my stomach, heat winds through my core and my skin is pebbled with goosebumps. All because of the man in front of me.
“I can do that.”
“Are you magic?”
“Something like that,” he smirks. He places a finger under my chin, pulling my lips back to his. “Let me take over, little bird. You’re demons are nothing compared to me.”
I don’t have time to think before his lips press back to mine, demanding my attention and leaving no room for me to protest the burning heat gathering between my thighs. He’s doing this. He’s making me feel the desire over my nerves. Over the thoughts battering the inside of my head.
“It’s just you and me,” he rasps, barely above a whisper. My stomach dips when he brings his lips back to mine like a man starved. Like I’m the only woman left in the world.
Like he might die if he doesn’t kiss me.
His hands slide down my back to cup my ass, pulling me flush against his front so I can feel his erection digging into my stomach. After the other night, I want my hands on him, my mouth, anything I can, so I can make him feel some semblance of what I did.
Holding me in place, he rolls his hips forward, grinding his erection into me and brushing his leg against the center of my thighs.
“Do you feel me, Nova?” His teeth nip at the lobe of my ear and I don’t even realize he’s walking me back to the bed until the backs of my knees brush the comforter.
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Do you want me?” he asks, spinning me until I’m standing in front of him and he’s sitting down on the end of the bed.
“Yes.”
“You have me.” With him looking up at me though those dark wavy locks, and the domineering way his hands roam my body, it’s hard to think otherwise. “Spin around,” he grunts, gripping my hips and turning me to face the door. “Let me see you. Unbutton your shorts.”
I swallow hard over the lump in my throat and do as he says, unbuttoning my shorts so he can slide them down my legs, exposing me to him.
“Fuck, little bird,” he rasps. “You don’t even know how sexy you are, do you?”
His hands glide up the swell of my ass, then over my hips, then up to my panties where he hooks his fingers in the waistband and pulls those down next. I’m so focused on the trail of fire his fingers make over my bare skin that I don’t register he’s spoken.
“Answer me, Nova.”
Shit.
“Um . . . What was the question?”
He doesn’t repeat it, spinning me around instead so his hands can slide under the hem of my tank top. “Take this off.”
I let him push the fabric up until I’m in nothing but my bra and just because I know he’s going to say it, I reach back and unclasp that, too. I watch it fall to a puddle on the floor. He watches me.
Something primal and possessive shifts in his eyes while he watches me, his gaze traveling over the plains of my stomach, up to my breasts before landing on my eyes and the blush on my cheeks.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, taking my hand in his. “Lay on the bed.”
I step around him when he pulls me down and I take his place. He raises up on his knees between my legs, slipping his shirt over his head and it’s all I can do not to stare. He’s built—I mean, I already knew that—but his muscles have muscles and I want to lick every one of them.
“Nova,” he rasps, his jaw tightening when he tosses the shirt to the floor. He falls forward, caging me in on either side with his arms. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
That was the question I missed earlier.
“Really hot. Out of breath. Um . . .”
He leans in, his nose traveling up the outside of my neck to nip at my earlobe. A soft whimper leaves me and then a shiver at the feel of his stubble against my skin. He moves lower, sucking the skin beneath my jaw and I can’t do anything but let my body take over.
I spread my legs, wrapping them around his hips when he captures my lips with his kiss. A soft moan falls from my lips when the hardness in his jeans rubs the center of my thighs, giving me the friction my body so desperately craves.
Reid growls, a low menacing noise in his throat, before grabbing my hands and raising them over my head.
“Fucking beautiful,” he grits, his accent thick and pronounced where it wasn’t before. Rougher. Sexier. I can’t tear my eyes away from him when he dips his head, sucking the hardened peak of my nipple into his mouth.
It’s fucking everything.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, arching into him when he hollows out his cheeks and sucks.
I can feel the blush running through my body as he takes the other and repeats the movement, sucking it in and hollowing his cheeks.
“Like fucking candy, baby,” he grits as he kisses down my naked stomach before hovering over me. He grips my hips and tugs me down so my ass rests at the edge of the bed. Then he does possibly the hottest thing I’ve ever seen and flips his hat backwards so the brim is out of the way.
“Reid,” I pant, unable to form a coherent thought. He must really be a magic man.
“I know,” he murmurs, raising my leg to his mouth and nipping the flesh of my calf.
“You don’t have to do that,” I squirm beneath him when he kisses lower, down to my inner thigh. “I haven’t had a shower.”
He chuckles, a wicked gleam in his eye. “Do you think I want you any less?”
I swallow and he waits for an answer.
“Nova,” he says, liquefying me with a single look. “Who’s in charge?”
Fuck.
“You.”
He nods. “Good girl. Spread your legs. Let me taste you.”
My cheeks burn, but I do just what he asks. His eyes zero in on my most intimate place and fill with a dangerous heat. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been years, or if it’s just Reid, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a man look at me like he wants to eat me alive.
Lowering his head, he presses his lips to my mound, then bites my inner thigh. I surge off the bed and he places a hand on my stomach to hold me still when he moves back for my center.
The first lap of his tongue against my clit sends me into orbit and I swear I almost come from a single touch. I’ve always had a problem orgasming. I could never get my head out of what my body was trying to do.
Right now, it doesn’t look like I have a choice.
Reid groans in satisfaction, laving his tongue over my entrance like he’s drinking me in. His head between my thighs, his dark waves coiling over my legs is a sight I would love to paint, so I can remember it for the rest of my life. I would hang it above my mantel and point it out to everyone that visited, reminding them that this man, this impossibly hot, deliciously crafted man, was on his knees for me.
His tongue is all I feel, invading me with each thrust and bringing on a bout of liquid fire in my veins. I lose the ability to be embarrassed, mostly because what he’s doing to me feels so good, that my mind can’t even reach me now.
Using his thumbs, he spreads me open with a deep growl and flutters his tongue over my clit impatiently. My back arches off the bed as a gush of air leaves me, ending on a choked sob. My hips start to move, meeting the movement of his tongue without shame.
“Not yet,” he orders, fixing me with his dark stare. “You’ll come when I tell you to.”
A shudder moves through me and desperation fills my stomach.
“Please, Reid.”
“Not yet,” he reminds me, placing his hands on the backs of my thighs and pushing my legs up, almost to my ears. It spreads me wide and renders me useless to fight back against the pleasure he’s enacting on my core.
I’m completely at his mercy. Unable to fight, to grind, to do anything that would allow me to orgasm until he allows it.
“I’ve been dreaming of tasting you,” he grunts, his voice muffled against my skin. He slips his hand between us and inserts a finger inside me, curling up to rub a deep-rooted spot that I didn’t know existed.
“Me too,” I pant, my eyes screwed shut from the intense pleasure coursing through me from what his tongue and hands are doing.
“Tell me what’s in your dreams, sweetheart,” he grunts, slipping his finger in and out of my body while he circles my clit with his tongue.
“You,” I gasp as he inserts a second finger.
We’ll have to work you up to take me, he’d said.
“More,” he rasps, twisting his fingers inside me. “Tell me more.”
I suck in a shallow breath, willing my voice to work, my mind to stave off the orgasm that threatens to erupt against his wishes.
“I’ve dreamed about you between my legs, like you are right now.”
“And?” he prompts, his eyes dark and half-lidded as he watches me unravel.
“You’d say these dirty things to me. I dream about tasting you, you fucking me.”
I’m not used to talking like this. The words sound foreign coming out of my mouth. Juvenile. They must be what Reid wants to hear, though, because he smiles wickedly.
“Fucking you how?”
I bite my lip to hold back the groan that rests there, forcing the words out. “Hard and rough.”
“Soon,” he says in between laps of his tongue. “I’ll be coming down your throat, in your ass. In this tight little pussy. There won’t be any part of you that’s not marked by me.”
I’ve never tried anal before. I’ve never wanted to after hearing stories of pain from other women. But with Reid, I believe he would do whatever it took to make it enjoyable.
Part of me is jealous of the women that Reid gained all this experience with. The other part is happy that he can now spend that experience on me, teach me about pleasure, and deliver mind-numbing orgasms, one after the other.
“Reid,” I pant, my body right on the edge. “I’m going to come.”
He chuckles, kissing the skin over my clit with a groan. “Come, sweetheart. Let me hear you.”
Sealing his lips over my clit, he flutters his tongue rapidly. As he takes me there, my hand winds in the soft strands of his hair, tugging at the roots until I’m sure I’m going to rip some out.
Reid doesn’t seem to care, fucking me with his tongue until my orgasm crashes through me and I let out a desperate plea, a sound I’ve never made in my entire life.
“Fuck, that was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he rasps after he’s licked me through another orgasm. My body shakes violently, coming down from the pleasure with little zaps of electricity.
“I want to taste you,” I murmur as he climbs over me, spreading kisses up my stomach and to each of my breasts. I reach for him, gripping the hardness at the front of his jeans and he hisses out a breath through clenched teeth.
“If I get your mouth on me, right now, I’ll come, and I want to be buried inside your sweet little cunt for that.”
Standing from the bed, he watches me as he undoes his belt, tugging it through the belt loops like it’s a bullwhip and he’s a cowboy. I swallow at the exact moment he undoes the button of his jeans and slides the denim—and his boxers—down his legs.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I say, my throat closing in fear.
He looks at me like he might go insane. “What?”
I shake my head, raising onto my elbows. “That is a device of torture.”
He chuckles, a dark sound that fills me with anticipation and climbs towards me. A little foil packet glistens in the dim lighting. Something about it gives me pause. I guess I’m not used to condoms. Jack and I never used one after we got married and I’ve been abstinent for so long that condoms never occurred to me.
Watching Reid tear the package open and slide the condom down his cock, though? That’s something I would pay money, real money, to see again.
“Scared?” he taunts, fisting himself in his palm and kneeling between my legs.
“A little,” I lie and he just chuckles under his breath. Rubbing the head of his cock through my folds to coat it with my juices, he lets out a groan.
“You’re fucking soaked, little bird.”
He hits my sensitive clit and I let out a small gasp, the intensity almost too much to bear.
“You just made me come,” I pant, my body quickly heating for a third. “Twice.”
“And I can’t wait to do it again.” He notches himself at my entrance, pushing in the slightest bit with a wince.
“Fucking hell, Nova,” he grits, pushing inside me further as my body expands to let him in. I gasp at the sensation, the pain and pleasure mixing as he fills me. “That’s fucking tight.”
He pushes until he’s fully seated inside me and it feels like he’s tearing me in half.
“Reid,” I whimper, biting my lip so hard I worry I’ll see blood. “So full . . .”
“You can take it,” he rasps, bottoming out, balls-deep inside me.
“Ahh. . .” I cry out and he slips back, before sliding back in, over and over until the strokes of his cock inside me start to grow longer, take me deeper. “Holy shit, Reid.”
“Does it hurt, baby?” he asks, a bead of sweat gathered above his brow.
“Yes,” I breathe, though the mix of pleasure and pain from having him so deep after four years of abstinence is everything I’ve been craving. “I want more.”
He gradually picks up speed, taking my hands in his and locking them above my head to really stretch me out. Something sinister lurks in the corners of my mind, something that likes being dominated by this man and relishes in the shudder that rolls through him when I lock my ankles behind his back.
“Can you take it harder?” he asks, his eyes zeroed in on mine from above me.
“Yes . . . please . . . harder.”
“Fuck,” he curses, rolling his hips against me. It brushes my clit, the friction making me wetter and allowing him to slip further inside. “Such a fucking good girl, little bird.”
Something about his praising me turns me from deeply aroused to full-on feral. As if he created the heavens, seas, and everything in between.
I want to please him.
I also want him to call me a good girl again.
Reid captures my lips with his and I can taste myself on his tongue. “You like my cock fucking you, Nova?” He enunciates the words with each thrust of his hips until the sounds of skin slapping skin fill the room.
“Yes,” I breathe, the heat in my core building until I think I might explode.
I can feel my walls quivering around him already, and I buck against him, fucking him back. He kisses a line from my mouth, down to the column of my throat where he sucks on the spot below my ear that he’s the only one who seems to be able to find. Finally, he moves lower, bending himself to take my nipple between his lips and heat explodes through me as the rush of another orgasm catches me off guard.
“Fuck,” I gasp, clutching his hands that hold mine until I’m sure I break skin. “Reid.”
“That’s it, baby,” he groans, stroking me deeper. Longer. “Come on my cock, Nova.”
He draws out my orgasm until I can’t form a coherent thought and then he’s lifting me into his arms.
“Whoa,” I gasp, but it’s quickly cut off when he uses the angle to take me in a new, deeper way.
“Hold onto me.”
I thought we were already fucking rough and hard, but Reid quickly proves me wrong by moving me over his cock so fast I can barely keep up. His hand grips my ass while his other presses into the mattress for balance. I cling to him, my legs wrapped around his hips and my arms around his neck, all forms of unintelligible speech flying from my mouth.
“Fuck, Nova,” he curses, laying my shoulders on the bed, while keeping my hips suspended around his. “I’m so close. Touch yourself, little bird. Come with me.”
I do just as he says, sliding my hand between us to rub my clit while he fucks me hard and fast.
“Just like that, Nova,” he grits. “Show me how you touch yourself.”
“Reid, please,” I groan, right there on the edge of losing myself in him for the fourth time. “I’m so close.”
“Come, Nova. Come for me.”
So, I do. This orgasm is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s so strong my ears ring, my vision goes blurry, and I worry I might black out. Reid roars as he comes, his voice breaking through my senses and drawing out my own orgasm.
“Fuck,” he shudders, his breathing ragged and his heartbeat racing against mine. Or maybe it’s my own.
He falls to the bed beside me, running a hand over his face. I allow myself to catch my breath, staring up at the ceiling and running through everything that just happened in my head.
So that’s it, then? That’s romance. In hindsight, I don’t know what I expected after sex, but the silence from Reid sets an iciness in my chest that wasn’t there before.
Carefully, I stand from the bed, but his hand snatches mine, before I can step away.
“Where are you going?”
He looks pissed off, but why would he be? We both got what we wanted . . . right? Suddenly, I can’t look at him.
He told me no romance. Don’t let my expectations get too high. I can say I didn’t all day, but the crushing reality is that my hands are shaking. My legs are sore. My heart is beating way too fast and like an idiot, I can’t stave off the disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong. The sex was next level.
The silence after? I’d really rather do without.
“I’m tired and I need a shower,” I mumble, tugging at his hand around my wrist. Reid slips from the bed, his gaze hot on my face. To my horror, a tear slips down my cheek.
I knew I couldn’t do casual sex.
I wait for him to reprimand me for the tears. Only . . . I keep waiting until silently, his thumb comes up, catching one as it slips down my face. Then, those fingers move to cup my cheek and he pulls my lips up to his.
It’s both gentle and haunted. As if maybe, something about tonight didn’t feel quite as casual as he would have liked, either.
Pulling back, he slips his hand in mine and pulls me towards the bathroom where he doesn’t say a word as he cleans me up. Nor when he washes my hair in the shower like I’m made of glass.
Nor when he slips between the sheets with me and pulls me back against his chest.
“Sleep, little bird,” he murmurs, voice rough and low against my ear.
So, I do, closing my eyes and drifting off in the arms of the man who claims he doesn’t do romance. Who claims this is nothing more than a quick fuck to him.
And who claims he doesn’t want me.