Chapter 21 #3
How could there be so many parts in me that I had become so completely unaware of?
Or was it that I had been in denial of them?
Either way, I had a lot of thinking to do once thought was more possible.
Because right now, I could feel sections of my brain slowly shutting down until there was only Remy, me, and whatever was happening in the moment.
I felt so entirely surrounded as Remy pushed me against the wall and possessed my mouth, his hand on my chin and almost, almost putting pressure on my throat in a way that was absolutely exhilarating.
It was all-encompassing, and yet it wasn’t enough.
I wanted to feel him against every molecule of my body, as impractical as that was.
“Remy,” I groaned into his mouth, pushing my hips up for a little more of that intoxicating contact. I wasn’t anywhere near tall enough to feel his erection against my already slick core, but his jean-clad thigh provided excellent friction, and lightning struck every cell of my nervous system.
“Greedy,” he rumbled. His grip on me changed, and he hauled me off my feet with one hand.
Holy shit! Obviously, I knew he was strong, but it was another thing entirely to experience it firsthand. My attraction to mighty men was definitely not just an aesthetic thing. My body’s reaction was visceral, and I suddenly found myself wishing I had a change of underwear.
Scratch that, I wished I wasn’t wearing panties and had something else absorbing all the slickness pooling between my thighs.
That thought jolted me enough for even Remy to notice, and he pulled away from the kiss to lock eyes with me. “Is this okay?” he asked, voice ragged.
I nodded, distracted by the desire to make him sound downright feral, but the look in his eyes grew that much more serious.
“I’m going to need words, Jeannie.” He nipped at my lips, but didn’t give me what I was craving, what I was going mad for.
“I need you to say that this is okay and not too far.”
“It’s not too far,” I croaked, and God, it was half hot, half embarrassing just how debauched I sounded already.
I took pride in my gift of gab and the ability to banter with pretty much everyone, but now, my entire vocabulary had trickled down to mostly single syllable words and phrases akin to begging. “I want it. I want you.”
“And I want you too. I… I’ve been trying not to, but I don’t know why I was fighting against it so hard.” He tilted his head upwards, and I thought he was going to kiss me from this new angle, but he wouldn’t close the last of the distance. “But you’ll tell me, right?”
I blinked at him, brain hazy as I stared at those gorgeous, full lips of his. They were a dusky, pale rose and stood out from the dark wire of his tightly trimmed beard.
“Tell you what?”
“If any of this is going too far. If you want to slow down. If you need to stop and think. Whatever you need to feel safe, I will make it happen.”
He kissed me again, and it went down to the very depths of my soul. When he spoke again, I was sure that I was incapable of speech, but thankfully he didn’t ask me any more questions.
“Nothing happens tonight that you don’t want to.”
I nodded, a gesture that didn’t quite feel like enough, but thankfully, Remy didn’t make me say anything else. He understood me right down to my core. A different core than the one that was pressing against his belt buckle, where I could feel just how much he was responding to me.
And man, if that didn’t do things for my ego.
I couldn’t quite tell the size of him, but there was a force pressing against his jeans, desperately seeking contact with me. It made the sensation that much more intense. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders so I could get enough leverage to grind my hips and tighten my legs around his waist.
Remy’s knees buckled a bit, but he straightened and pressed me harder into the wall, his hips thrusting against me.
I couldn’t believe I was thirty years old and essentially dry humping in an abandoned cabin in the woods, but I certainly wasn’t about to object.
I tilted my head back, and Remy kissed his way down my jaw, then my neck, his teeth settling on the sensitive skin there.
Fuck. There was a sharp sting, and I remembered how fang-like his canines had become, but instead of discouraging me, it made me burn that much hotter. I subconsciously angled my neck against his mouth, whimpering for more sensation as his tongue joined in on the bite.
Shit, did I pack any turtlenecks? I didn’t know. I didn’t really care, though. I could cover it up with scarves.
Remy was likely used to sleeping with people who could heal rapidly. I shivered a little at the idea of him being rougher with me than a human might be because he had simply forgotten to think about the difference.
Was I a bit of a masochist? Maybe. Or maybe it was that I’d hadn’t been able to trust anyone like that since I was sixteen years old.
There was something powerful, enchanting, and utterly erotic about giving complete control over to someone else and knowing they would never, ever, abuse it.
All I had to do was say the word or probably snap my fingers, and Remy would stop.
For some reason, that made me feel more powerful.
It also made me feel incredibly safe.
“Jeannie,” Remy rumbled, and fuck, hearing him say my name like that a second time had a physical force rocking through me.
I ground harder on him, not caring if I appeared impatient or desperate.
I let go of his shoulders and clasped his face in my hands, staring into those intense, umber eyes of his.
“I’m here,” I said, surprised that I could articulate the words. “I’m here, and I’m yours.”
He let out a groan like he was fighting himself and leaned right back into that spot on my neck. Instead of biting it, or kissing it, he pressed his face to it. Like he was hiding away from the rest of the world and that crook of my shoulder was his haven.
“What if this is too fast?”
There it was: the fear I’d had in the back of my mind even when I was getting lost in the tumble of it all. The concern that the adrenaline was pushing Remy to do things he wasn’t quite ready for.
“Then we stop. We don’t have to go a single step past right now.”
“And you would be fine with that?”
I really didn’t understand how one person could communicate so much in just their stare, but truly, I saw a litany of emotions and conflicts march across Remy’s handsome features.
“I would,” I answered honestly, shaking my brain loose enough to find the right words.
Even if I was loving being lost in the drunken haze of lust, Remy deserved my full lucidity.
“I… I’m attracted to you. And I think I might have feelings for you.
But I’ve spent the past decade being a mother and only a mother.
This is so new and shaky to me, that I’m flying by the seat of my pants. ”
Another pause so I could chase the thought I was trying to communicate. So I could let Remy know he wasn’t alone, that I understood, and I would hold nothing against him if he put me down and went to bed alone.
“It’s only been a year and a half since your wife passed, and I get the feeling that for a long time you were a caretaker and a father, but not anything other than that.
“So, right now, we’re both breaking out of molds we didn’t realize we’d allowed ourselves to be trapped in. We just got a little too used to things being what they were, you know?”
He nodded, and although I didn’t insist that he use words, I also didn’t let him look away. Yeah, I liked him taking charge, I was thrilled by his dominance, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need assurance. That he didn’t need the green light to be allowed to be scared or uncertain.
“Nothing has to happen tonight. But I’m open to something happening tonight if it’s in the cards. I want to allow myself to experience some of the things I thought weren’t meant for me. And I trust you enough to do that.”
“I don’t deserve it,” he murmured, and he squeezed his eyes closed, like he was trying not to cry.
My heart ached for him, and that animalistic drive to get whatever pleasure I could ebbed, slinking back to simmer just below the surface. “You do, Remy LeBeau, you absolutely do. You deserve the world and more. You deserve to feel good. And Zara would want you to.”
I rushed to clarify, because I knew mentioning his wife was a big deal, but he needed to understand what Ana and even his daughters had expressed to me.
“And I don’t mean that she would absolutely want you to do something right now if you’re not ready, not at all. What I mean is that if you are ready, I believe she would be cheering you on. I know without a doubt that she’d want you to be happy. However that might be.”
Remy didn’t say anything for a long time, and I held very still, not wanting to influence his thoughts. Sure, a good deal of my mind and body longed for things to keep going, but what was most important to me was Remy being safe and healthy.
Sex wasn’t sex if there was coercion. It was something else entirely that I didn’t want any part of.
But then he opened his eyes and his mouth was on me, hard and demanding. Teeth sharp and tongue somehow sharper. I felt myself being yanked right down into that pool of desire, of unchecked want.
I wanted it—God, did I want it—but I wanted to make sure Remy was okay, so I took a page out of his book.
“Remington,” I said slowly, putting enough pressure on his face to break the kiss.
He resisted, but after the tiniest bit more force, he pulled away.
His dark brows were knitted together, his pupils blown wide, so all that honeyed, reddish brown I loved so much was completely eclipsed.
“Remington, I need you to use your words and tell me that this is okay.”
“It’s okay,” he growled through sharp, sharp teeth.
“If there’s any moment where it’s not, you promise you’ll say something?”