Chapter Thirty
Mila
There’s light in the room, but I can’t see.
There’s probably enough oxygen, but I can’t breathe.
And surely I have one or two brain cells left knocking around in my head, but I can’t think.
Where am I? What just happened? Why does my body feel like I’m floating among the stars?
I mumble something unintelligible.
From the foot of the bed, a deep, gravelly laugh. “What was that?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit, lifting myself onto my elbows.
He jumps to his feet and swipes his forearm across the lower half of his face. “I’m a messy eater.”
My face burns, but my toes tingle. “I don’t mind.”
Lord have mercy, he’s scorching hot. I haven’t seen him shirtless since he was a teenager, and I thought he was muscular then, but adult Everett is something else. His shoulders are so wide, his arms so thick. He has pecs and deltoids and abs—my God, the abs.
He starts unbuttoning his jeans, and I scramble onto my knees. “Wait. Let me.” I slip the button through the hole and lower the zipper. Grabbing his jeans at the hips, I pull them down enough for his erection to spring free.
He finishes kicking them off and stands before me again. I lick my lips. Stare like a fiend. Wrap my fingers around his hot, hard cock.
My God, the cock.
It’s thick and long and solid, and I love the way his eyes close as I stroke it root to tip. The way his breath hitches when I caress the crown. The way he puts his hands in my hair as I kiss his chest.
His skin is warm beneath my lips, and he smells good—like woodsy soap and sex. As I work my hand up and down his length, I think about that chest hovering over me as he pushes inside my body. My insides contract again, like an aftershock.
As I skim my mouth over his upper body, lust continues to gather force at my center like a hurricane.
He has some hair on his chest, which was never a turn-on for me before, but which is suddenly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
He has the brawny, rough-hewn, sun-bronzed body of a grown man, and suddenly I realize that I’ve only been with immature, self-centered, twenty-something boys.
I brush my lips over one hard nipple. Lick it.
Take it between my teeth and lightly bite.
A low growl resonates in his chest as I kiss my way down the center of his body, over sculpted ridges and smooth valleys, his abdominal muscles flexing as he thrusts into my hand.
Scooting back a little on the bed, I lean forward and take the tip of his cock in my mouth.
“Oh fuck.” His fingers tighten in my hair.
With one hand wrapped around his shaft, I lick the velvety crown with long, decadent strokes. I circle it with sensual swirls. I slip it between my lips and suck. A bead of silky, salty liquid spreads over my tongue, and his cock grows thicker in my hand.
I take him deeper, sliding my lips past the head about an inch and then dragging them up again. He groans as I repeat the motion a few times, taking him in farther with every dip of my head until, finally, he hits the back of my throat.
Above me, Everett’s breaths become more ragged. I peek up at him, and he’s looking down at me like an angry god. “You’re killing me,” he says. A muscle in his jaw twitches.
I remove my mouth from him just enough to smile.
“Good.” Then I lower my head again, working my hand harder and faster while I do everything I can with my mouth to make his legs give out.
He curses and growls, his fists clenched in my hair, his hips flexing in long, hard strokes. For a moment, I struggle to breathe.
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He pulls his hands out of my hair and backs off. “Told you I was an animal.”
“You’re not.” I take a second, glancing up at him. A smile creeps onto my lips. “I don’t want respect right now, Everett. I want ruin.”
It’s like I flipped a switch. Everett tosses me onto my back and kneels between my thighs, stroking his cock. “Should I get a condom?”
Breathless—oh God, this is really going to happen—I shake my head. “I have an IUD. I was tested after my marriage ended, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
“I’ve gone longer than you have. I’m afraid I might go off like a rocket.” He centers himself, teasing me with the tip. “But I have to get inside you.”
I hold my breath as he eases inside me, inch by hot, hard inch. He’s big. He’s thick. He’s long. And just when I think I can’t take more, he goes deeper. I gasp, and he checks in.
“Yes?”
I nod, remembering to breathe. When he reaches my limits, he lowers his lips to mine and kisses me the way he did on the bridge, the kind of kiss I feel within muscle and bone, along every vein, inside each beat of my heart. Our tastes mingle on our tongues.
He begins to move with long, unhurried strokes. Once my body adjusts to the size and strength of him, I melt into the way he fills me. The warmth of his skin. The muscles in his back, moving beneath my hands.
The slow, sensuous undulations of his body over mine make me feel like I’m being slowly coiled.
I feel it low in my belly. In my arms and legs, which are wrapped around him.
Deep within my core. I make noises I’ve never heard myself make—loud, sensual, guttural moans that come from a place beyond abandon.
Surely no two people have ever fit together so exquisitely.
“It feels so good,” I whisper. “Like your cock was made for me.”
“Mila.” Everett holds still, bottomed out inside me. “If you want this to last, you can’t say things like that.”
“But I mean it.” I rock my hips beneath him. “Don’t stop.”
He groans and begins to move again, harder and faster this time, his hips driving with deep, powerful thrusts. I bring my knees up to take him deeper.
“I want to give you what you need.” His voice burns with urgency. “I want to take care of you. I want it all.”
As need overwhelms me, I moan into his neck, which is damp with sweat and smells fucking delectable.
I suck it. I lick it. I nip it with my teeth.
My hands slide down over his muscular ass and grab it hard, pulling him into me, my body begging for more.
He circles his hips, grinding against my clit until every nerve ending in my body is sparking, the current too much for my system to bear.
He’s with me. Panting, I rake my nails down his back. Dig my heels into the backs of his thighs.
He moves his hands beneath my ass and tilts my hips. The more intense angle is like pouring gasoline on a fire. I’m right at the precipice, that agonizing space between the viselike grip of contraction and the delirious pleasure of release.
A growl rips from his throat, followed by a series of ragged breaths that punctuate every thrust. Everett buries himself deep inside me and his cock begins to throb, which sends me over the edge.
I rock my hips beneath him as the waves crash through me and over me and pull me out into deeper waters. I can’t breathe, but I don’t care.
Let me drown, I think, my body contracting around his as his body releases into mine. Let me drown.
When he collapses on me, I feel his heart banging through his chest, knocking against my ribs. I imagine my heart hearing the sound. Wanting to open up. Wanting to tear down the flimsy walls I’ve built. Wanting to obliterate anything that would keep us apart.
This friends-with-benefits thing is bullshit, says a voice in my head. You’re going to fall in love with him. In fact, you’re halfway there.
Everett picks up his head. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your body just tensed up. And your breathing got fast again. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My God, how can he read me so well? “Maybe just need a little air. And some water?”
“Of course. Sorry.” He lifts himself off me and rolls away. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch him walk out of the bedroom—his gorgeous, naked ass drawing my eye like a magnet—and hear kitchen noises a minute later. While he’s gone, I talk myself out of a meltdown.
You’re fine. This is just post-climax emotional overload. You can handle this. You’re not being bulldozed. You’re not turning yourself into emotional cookie dough. You’re not pretending. Just enjoy this, okay?
This is the problem with trying to hear my own voice. There isn’t just one Mila inside my head. There are two—one of them is a scared kid, and one of them is a (mostly) mature adult. To stave off the panic, I ground myself in the present using my senses.
Five things I can see… Light coming through the doorway. A pillow that fell to the floor. A wooden dresser, its top drawer ajar. A jacket hanging on a hook. Shades pulled on the window.
Four things I can feel… The softness of frequently-washed sheets. Cool air on my warm skin. My hair spilling over my shoulders. Tenderness between my legs.
Three things I can hear… Ice plunking into a glass. Water running. Footsteps.
Two things I can smell… Fabric softener. Sex.
One thing I can taste… Everett’s kiss.
Everett appears in the bedroom doorway, a tall glass of ice water in his hand. My heart’s still racing, but the voices in my head are fading.
He hands me the glass. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” I take a few cool sips, concentrating on the way the icy water feels sliding down my throat.
He climbs back into bed and leans back against the pillows. “So, what time do you have to be at the hospital tomorrow?”
“I should get there by ten. And I’ll need to go home and change first, since I can’t really show up at the hospital looking like I did on your doorstep.”
“Right.” His expression is concerned, like he’s pondering a complicated math problem. “And how many hours of sleep do you need?”
I laugh. “I don’t know. At least a few.”
“Okay, so it’s midnight now, and you have to be at the hospital by ten, which means you’ll want to be home by nine—”
“Better make it eight. I need to get some things done before I go.”
“So that means you’ll need to leave here by like seven forty-five, which gives me a little less than eight more hours with you.”