Chapter 5 #2
Slowly, I work my rings off and set them aside. Downstairs, the door creaks, signaling Jensen’s return. I dip my middle finger into the little pot of cream and dab it under my eyes, listening as he takes off his boots and climbs the stairs. The door opens then shuts.
He appears in the mirror, leaning in the doorway behind me.
“Looking good, baby,” he drawls.
I thought I was going to wait for the right time to talk to him about my conversation with Landis, but it bubbles out right away.
“Landis found that photograph of you and…him,” I say. “He was asking about Kentucky.”
His face doesn’t change, but his throat bobs.
“Yeah?” he says finally.
“He said it pulls at him.”
He looks down, nodding. “He’s mountain stock.”
“I know, but I don’t like it.”
He comes up behind me, hands on my shoulders, eyes on mine in the mirror. Out of nowhere, I’m a little sad. My mind goes right back to the time we spent in that loft, holding each other close, fucking desperately to sort through all our pain, to feel some kind of human connection.
“Sleep with me,” I whisper.
He comes around the side of the chair, kneeling. “You want that now?”
“I do,” I say, turning to face him.
He doesn’t question me—we’ve been together too long for that.
I let him pick me up and carry me to the bed, sinking back against the headboard.
Our clothes come off, kicked to the floor.
His hands skim over me, making my pulse quicken.
I need him like a drug, to level everything out. To make the world make sense.
Straddling him, I bend in to kiss his mouth, drawing back to leave him wanting more. His lids are heavy, chest heaving. He runs the rough palm of his hands grazing over my thighs, clenching on the soft swell of my hips.
“You want it a little rough, baby?” he murmurs.
He’s hard, heartbeat throbbing through his cock where it’s pinned beneath my thigh.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I’d take it a little rough.”
He reaches into the bedside table and takes out the nipple clamps.
My hips work, rubbing up the base of his cock as he takes my right breast in his hand.
Cupping it, he runs his thumb over the nipple, teasing it until it’s hard.
Then, eyes on me, he leans in to lick it, scoring it with his teeth.
Pleasure and pain ripple down between my legs, and my thighs work harder, rubbing my pussy up the hard ridge of him.
“You’re soaked already, baby,” he murmurs, releasing my nipple.
“I like it like this,” I breathe, wincing as he puts the clamp in place of his mouth, twisting it tighter.
“I like you like this, all wet and needy for me.”
He does the same to the other breast, cupping it gently, teasing it until it’s hard. Then, his tongue circles it, sucking through his teeth. My eyes shut as the heat of his mouth is replaced by the sharp bite of the clamp. My pussy aches in response.
Shakily, I graze his chest with my nails. His lips part, eyes flashing. The air between us feels as raw as it did all those years ago, up in that sweltering loft. We might be a little older, a lot more in love, but when it comes to the eroticism of sex with him, it never gets tired or wears thin.
“Put me inside you,” he says hoarsely.
My fingertips skim down between his pecs, making a detour over the cross on his ribs then traveling to the hair on his stomach.
I follow that line down to the trimmed dark hair on his groin and wrap myself around his cock.
Hot, hard, in my palm. Slowly, I run my closed fist up to the tip, enjoying how wet it already is. He’s watching me, eyelids heavy.
“You want to fuck me, Shotgun?” I whisper.
His eyes flick up, narrowing. “God, baby, just fucking put it in.”
I grip him harder, giving him a taste of my nails. His jaw works, chest heaving. He’s so hard in my hand, he’s twitching. He grips my thigh enough, I know he’s getting to the end of his rope when it comes to patience. I tense my thighs, lifting so he can see, and guide the head into my pussy.
His head rolls back for a moment, muscles flexing.
“Fuck, baby,” he breathes. “Do that thing.”
“Which thing?”
His eyes narrow. “The thing you do with your cunt.”
“Oh, you mean this?” I tense my pussy and drag it up to the tip as I pump him so he feels it where he’s most sensitive. A vein stands out in his neck.
“Yeah, fucking that,” he pants. “Hit me, baby.”
I give him what he wants, backhanding him across the face.
He groans, hips jerking, fucking up into me.
A muscle twitches in his tensed jaw. Our eyes lock, and the familiar sensation of him bottoming out as he comes, the sweet, painful sensation of being filled to the brim by him, is so perfect.
He twitches, eyelids flickering, fingers digging into my hips as he presses me down.
The pressure of his groin against my clit sends me over the edge abruptly, and I come too, body shaking in his hands.
We both go still, the aftershocks settling.
“Every damn time,” he murmurs, leaning back.
“What?”
“Every damn time, it’s just as good as the first,” he says. “Better, actually.”
Blushing, I climb off him and fall onto my back. He leans in, kissing my mouth deeply as his fingers drag through my hair. He doesn’t have to say he loves me with his words. He’s saying it in the way he pulls the air from my lungs and sends tingles from my head to my feet.
“Your dick’s pretty good too,” I murmur when he pulls back.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, just alright.”
He laughs, rolling out of bed and grabbing his sweatpants.
I unclip the clamps, laying them aside. He sinks into the chair by the window.
I’m in a haze, warmth settled deep in my hips.
I roll my head to the side, and I’m right back to the night we met.
He looks just the same as ever to me. All rumpled, sexy, and satisfied.
“You look good,” I murmur.
He cocks his head. “You look better. Mind if I have a smoke?”
I shake my head, snuggling back into the pillows. He never smokes anymore; he quit when the kids came along. But occasionally, after a particularly good time, he’ll get a cigarette out of the dresser drawer to help smooth out the comedown.
“Open the window,” I say.
He stands, sweatpants riding low, and gets a busted pack from the dresser. I watch him from beneath my lids as he pulls open the window and flicks his lighter. His face hollows for a half second. Then, he leans in the window, and I’m distracted by him all over again.
“I told you that you didn’t want things to change. That’s why you were scared of Julie-Mae dating,” I say slowly. “I’m scared too, but not for her.”
“For Landis,” he says, turning and sitting in the windowsill.
I nod, throat catching. “He’s the only one I worry about.”
Silence. My mood is taking a sharp dive.
“I just…I wish he was yours,” I say, knowing my words could be taken wrong. “It would make things so much simpler.”
“He is—”
“I know he’s yours,” I amend. “I just wish… He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Neither did you,” he says. “We’ve all made something good out of something pretty damn terrible. We should be proud of that.”
I smile weakly. “I am.”
He stabs out his cigarette and sinks down on the end of the bed. His rough palm comes up and brushes back my hair.
“I’m proud of Landis,” he says. “I don’t want him leaving or going back, but we might get to that.”
I nod, sniffing. “I know.”
“We had our big adventure,” he says, leaning in to kiss my forehead. “And it led me to you. I don’t want him to go, but if he does, I hope he finds what he’s looking for, the way I did.”
That flips a switch in my brain. When Jensen and I returned to Kentucky together, he went to get some understanding and make peace with his past. Maybe my son is more like Jensen than I realized, both fiercely independent and so brave.
It might not always be safe or comfortable, but that will always make me proud.