Chapter Eleven #2
She glanced at me over her shoulder, face twice as flustered. I knew she could feel me hard as a rock underneath her. I was pretty damn sure she could feel my heart pounding like a mad man on her back. “Good,” I whispered into her ear. “Now be a good girl and stay put.”
Frankie let out a beautiful sound.
I laid my hands on her shoulders, pressing my thumbs into her skin gently and letting them slide up and down the line of her neck.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Do that again.”
My touch turned possessive at her command. Advancing across inch after inch of skin hungrily, around her shoulder blades and down her spine, all the way to her waist, where I let them curl for an instant. Then, rubbing up and down her sides.
“I’ve always loved your hands,” Frankie murmured.
Her compliment made them resume their exploration. Bringing them back up, my knuckles making sure to work on some of the knots they found on my way. “What else have you always loved about me?”
“Your tattoos,” she answered absently, head lolling to a side.
I let my fingers slip into her hair when I reached her neck, basking in the way Frankie immediately turned to softened butter when they touched her scalp.
“Your smile,” she added with a little moan.
“The way you pay attention. How you think before speaking, or acting.”
I held her head with one hand, and with the other, I dug my fingers into her hair a little deeper, dragging it with them as I massaged her scalp.
Another of those whimpers left her, making me grow restless with need under her, making me feel like I was on top of the world just because I was the one who got to do this, who held the power to disarm her.
“What else,” I demanded, hearing the dangerous edge in my voice.
“You’re distracting me,” she murmured. “Away from the plan.”
I turned up the motions of my hand, tangling her hair in my fingers, tugging at it gently, but firmly.
Frankie’s body shook with a moan, her hips starting to shift on my lap, moving with me.
She was so incredibly responsive. I pulled at the wet strands a little harder, tilting her head so I could kiss the side of her neck.
Then, her shoulder. Nip at her ear. Tug at her hair a little harder still.
“You’re being cautious,” Frankie half whimpered, half complained. “I don’t want you to be. I—I want you. All of you.”
I flipped her back around, so she faced me. She couldn’t understand, I was barely holding myself back. Or perhaps I was already past that point. She wanted all of me?
“I’ll make you a deal,” I told her, brushing a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “I promise to always be gentle with your heart. And as rough as you need me to be with every other part of you.”
Frankie’s mouth opened with a, “Yes,” that never made it out.
I took it in my lips. I was done for. It was game over for me. I was surging forward and taking what I wanted from her. Everything. Fucking finally. Her body arched against mine, breasts pushing into me, legs closing around my hips.
All I could feel around me was Frankie, the girl I fell in love with all those years ago and failed to ever completely move past, the girl I was done denying myself with, and it was intoxicating. Heady. Glorious.
“I got you,” I rasped out, dragging my mouth down her throat.
I set my palm on the small of her back and pressed myself into her.
Using each other for friction where we ached most. Frankie moaned, and in response, I repeated the motion while also thrusting my hips up.
“God, how I want this pussy bare. I want it on my tongue. I want it over my cock. I want it any way I can get it.”
“Yes,” she whispered. Green-lighting the trail of drowsy, senseless words leaving me, filter gone. “Oh my god, yes, yes, yes.”
Christ. Was I about to fuck her in this hot tub?
Frankie pulled at the strands of hair at the back of my head, demanding, a desperate plea on her mouth.
I cursed and pulled her out of the water so I could place her on the edge of the tub, legs dangling.
Frankie looked down at me, lips forming a stunned O.
She was breathtaking.
All of her. I ripped my eyes off hers and zeroed in on her pussy. I set my palms on her knees. “Open up for me.”
She did. And it had to be my new favorite thing in the world.
A shiver rocked her body, surely caused by the expression of pure, sheer hunger I had, and the fact I was subjecting this beautiful girl to negative temps so I could eat her.
“I swear this is going to be fast, baby. Just a few strokes of my tongue and I’ll fuck the heat right back into you in bed, I promise you.”
She nodded her head, and when I didn’t move fast enough, she poked my shoulder with her foot. “Get to it,” she rasped.
A laugh echoed around us. Mine. I was so goddamn delighted, so completely in love with this girl that when I descended, I did with a smile.
It wasn’t amusement though. I was gloating.
The first sweep of my tongue, I did with craving, greed.
Like my own kind of vengeance. I was making a point.
Leaving a mark. Asking to be kept. Going crazy.
“Turner,” Frankie moaned. “Ohmigodwhatthefuck.”
That was about right. I thrust my tongue, and when her body spasmed against my mouth, I did it again. Two strokes, I’d promised. Two and she was already—
A loud cracking sound made me come to a halt.
Silence wrapped around us.
The motor of the hot tub had stopped. The soft, buttery light that had clicked on at some point had gone out too.
Frankie met my gaze as I straightened, and a strange moment passed.
Then, every single event that I’d shoved aside, came right back into focus.
Instinct kicked in and I jumped off the tub, snatching Frankie in my arms and sprinting inside the room. Only when I had her safely on the bed, the glass doors secured, and the room scanned for possible threats, break-ins, or anything remotely suspicious, did I stop to breathe.
“No one’s here,” I exhaled, coming back to her. She was heaving too. I patted her face, then kissed her hard and fast. Way too fast. “You’re good. Are you good?”
“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “But are you?”
“Yes.”
We stared at each other for a heartbeat. There was barely any light coming into the room through the windows, but I could see her features. She was spooked, but still riding an adrenaline high. I could tell from the way her gaze kept moving around.
“That was crazy,” she said.
“It was.”
“You leaped off that thing so fast. And naked.”
“I did.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you think it was the jets in the hot tub that made the power fail?”
“It’s possible.”
“How possible?”
“If we were running on an emergency generator possible,” I answered sincerely. “And if we weren’t, then we definitely will now.”
“Shit. We shouldn’t have stayed in so long.”
“We lost track of time.”
Her cheeks flushed, surely recalling why we did. “We’re so bad.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “We are. But I’d leave all of Vermont without electricity for a repeat.”
She laughed lightly, and when I smiled, she laughed harder.
I chuckled in response, and for a moment we just did that, look at each other and laugh.
It was … ludicrous, frankly. I’d been ready to climb the closest peak—naked—if that meant keeping her safe, and the sound of her laughter made that fear worth it somehow.
It had always been so striking to me. She had.
Like a beam of light I wanted I bathe in.
“I’ve missed it like crazy,” I heard myself say. Frankie patted her cheeks. Humor vanishing. “Your laughter.”
Her expression was somber, only the remnants of a small smile tugging at her lips and eyes. “The tattoo I got,” she declared softly. “I think you should see it now.”
I frowned, and before I could ask, she brought her hands to her breasts and pulled them a little apart.
I immediately knew what I was looking at.
The sight left me breathless, and it cemented my feelings, the absolute certainty that this was it.
Frankie was it. She had to when she had me on her skin.
“I thought of you while I was on that chair, under the needle. I wished you were there. And I hoped I wouldn’t regret getting it.”
My heart was ramming against my chest now, and when I brushed a thumb over the small design, touching it, feeling the smaller version of the first tattoo I’d ever gotten, the one tattoo that signified so much, that had branded me like no other had.
A moth. I felt my knees shake. “Did you?” I asked her. “Regret it?”
“No,” she answered, and I knew she wasn’t lying. “I never did. Even when it reminded me of something I wanted, but couldn’t have. It still reminded me of you. And I never regretted loving you, Turner.”
I could barely breathe, but I made myself speak, “You have me, Frankie. You goddamn have all of me.”
She nodded her head, but I could tell there was something.
“No buts,” I said. “I want to marry you. I want to support you, and give you a life. I want to wait for you in bed when you stay up late writing. I want to stir you awake with kisses, and demand you’re not too hard on yourself that day.
I want to protect you from the ugliness and share with you the light.
I want to fuck you to remind you that you’ve always been mine whenever you forget that.
And I want to cherish you until I make up for the times I didn’t fight for us. ”
Frankie turned very still for a moment.
“Tell me that you love me,” she said.
“I love you, Frankie Rossi. I love you like a moth loves the light. Desperately. Mindlessly. And to the last second of my fucking life.”