Chapter 43
43
Sybil
Outside Kieran’s window, rain pelted the glass, the sky dark, but I couldn’t tell if it was early or the storm was just strong. As I made my way back to bed from the tiny bathroom down the hall, thunder clapped and a flash of lightning lit the sky.
“Hey,” he croaked, voice full of sleep, when I slid back under the covers, warming my bare legs under one of his T-shirts. “Morning,” he said.
“It’s raining,” I said, taking advantage of our proximity to soak in the warmth of his bed. “And cold.”
“Want another blanket?”
“No.” I nudged my way against him, hand on his chest, like I had so many other mornings, and his arm came around me the same way, like an instinct. “I’ll just make you keep me warm.”
“I already gave you my shirt,” he said, his hand wandering circles on my side under the blankets.
“Thanks for helping me into bed last night.” I glanced at my dress in the closet. “And hanging up my dress.”
“No problem.” His palm flattened and shifted from circles to long, slow sweeps up my side, over my ribs, and down to my hips. “You crashed pretty fast once we got home.” His strokes paused, and he added, “Got back to my place.”
“I like calling it home,” I admitted, earning one of those grins I was seeing more and more of.
I’d been so close to telling him the night before, so close to kissing him and asking him to take me to Whataburger once we got to Texas. “It was a long night,” he added, resuming his strokes up and down, his touch having the desired effect of warming me, but also making me want more.
“Because your date got drunk?”
He chuckled, the movement making the mattress vibrate. “Exactly. I had to make sure you didn’t put someone’s eye out doing the YMCA or injure yourself doing the electric slide.”
“There was a rumor that song is about a vibrator,” I mused, fiddling with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Really?” His palm swept lower as another clap of thunder shook the building, his fingers toying with the hem of my shirt.
“It’s not true, but there should be more songs about sex toys,” I said, caving to the feel of his hands, which made me want to lean into every stroke and touch. I lifted my knee to his hip, and he immediately swept his palm lower.
“You can write one,” he said, sliding his hand under the shirt and over my bare thigh. “Next career move.”
“That patriotic dildo really was giving ‘Proud to Be an American’ vibes,” I added, breath stuttering when he dragged a finger along the line of my panties over my thigh. Our voices were low in the darkened room, with only residual light from the streetlamps casting shadows over Kieran’s face. I traced a finger along his jaw, the prickle of his morning stubble so familiar and the soft, hooded look of his eyes as he teased me clear on his face, when a flash of lighting filled the room with energy, and I arched against him. “Do you need to open the shop this morning?”
His lips moved along the column of my throat, and he spoke against my skin, the sleep in his voice shifting to something else. “I posted that we’d be opening late today.” His hand fell away from my panties but moved over my stomach before I could complain. “I thought we might want…”
I sucked in a breath when he stroked a path up my stomach and the pad of his thumb brushed over my nipple.
“Time this morning.”
“Kieran,” I groaned as his thumb worked over my peaked flesh in the tight circles I liked, waiting to brush over the tip until I was worked into a frenzy. “We do need time,” I said, knowing there were so many levels of truth to that. We needed this bed and hours to enjoy each other, but I needed more time like this, wrapped in him, wrapped in us. I guided his chin toward me, pressing my lips to his, the kiss in time with a clap of thunder, and I sank into the bruising wholeness I felt against him. “We should talk.”
“Take this off,” he said, tugging on the shirt. “I promise I’ll keep you warm and we can talk after.”
I sat and wriggled out of the shirt, tossing it aside.
“Lay back against the pillows,” he directed, and I reclined, seeing his shadowed gaze move over my body in the low light before he shifted to tug my panties down my thighs, tossing them across the room. “What do you want to do with our time, Syb?” He leaned forward, and I prepared for another kiss to take my breath, but he diverted at the last minute, his lips falling to my collarbone and his hips settling between my spread legs, the familiar hard length of him against my bare center.
“I want time for everything.” I ground against him, sliding my fingernails against his scalp before guiding his chin so he looked at me. “I want everything.” I repeated the words, hoping they conveyed it all, hoping he’d understand “everything” meant his sleepy voice in the mornings and his pathological need to be on time and the way his hand felt against my lower back leading me through a crowd. “Everything,” I said in a lower voice as the deep rumble of distant thunder filled the room.
I kissed him, enjoying the interplay of our tongues, and the friction between my legs at the pressure of him reminded me of how lucky I had been feeling every day lately. Kieran broke the kiss and dropped his lips to the tip of my nose, the gesture so out of place in the heat of the moment that I giggled, taking in the playful expression that had crossed his face. This was us, and I didn’t want to lose it.
“Relax,” he said, kissing down my chest and stomach, nudging my thighs apart.
“Do I look tense?” I stretched.
“You look like you’re…” I watched him move over my body, landing on my face, his stare intense in a way I didn’t expect, and he didn’t finish his sentence but dipped his mouth between my thighs, and the first touch of his tongue took me to the first night, and the last time, his lips making paths that were both familiar and shockingly effective and driving me wild. “Ready.”
“Kieran,” I groaned, my breaths coming fast as he worked me toward an orgasm while the rain outside pounded against the building. “Everything,” I repeated, and his thick finger slid into my heat, curling at the right pace to make it impossible to catch my breath as my thighs quaked.
The orgasm built slowly until it didn’t, and I crashed along with the noise of the storm outside, Kieran coaxing the pleasure from my body and slowing to bring me to another orgasm until I pulled him forward for another kiss.
I expected this moment to be filled with long, intense eye contact, but he guided me to my stomach and raised my hips. I liked it this way—it was always so good, and I looked over my shoulder, still needing to catch his gaze in the dark, but his stare was on my back as his hand trailed between my shoulder blades, pressing my upper back lower as he teased me with his finger. “Condom,” he said, his voice flustered. “Can you reach the nightstand?”
I stretched but couldn’t. “I’m on birth control,” I said, grinding back against his teasing finger. “And I trust you.”
Kieran groaned, and the head of his thick erection pressed against me, my body eager with the promise of him inside me, of the power in our joining. “Syb…” His palm slid down my spine, his fingers almost deferential against each ridge of my vertebrae.
“Everything,” I said, backing against him, breath escaping in a gasp when he pushed inside, us bare to each other.
His thrusts grew in intensity fast, both of us frantic for more and more of each other, more and more of this. I gripped the bedding in front of me, meeting him thrust for thrust as he hit the right spot almost immediately, knowing my body so well. I wished I could see his face, but I knew with every breath that we’d have hundreds, thousands of mornings like this, and I smiled and cried out as he thrust against my G-spot again and again until I was on the edge, and that was when his finger slid against my clit, finding me in the dark, in the chaos. Everything felt like it made more sense with him near me like this.
I clenched around him as another series of heavy thunder and lightning shook the world, and I came hard around Kieran, who followed me over the cliff, his hand at my waist tightening. He grunted, guiding us both down to the bed, still connected, both our breath coming fast as we came down from the climax. His hand was hot against my skin, and I pressed my back to his, imagining how he’d look when I shared with him all the things I wanted to say. Working out the right words to use. “So, I was thinking,” I said, linking my fingers with his. “About us.”
He kissed my shoulder. “I like us.”
“And Texas,” I added. I wondered what it would be like to live somewhere new, to start over with new people in a new town. It was exciting and terrifying. “I was thinking—”
We both stopped short at the crash from the kitchen, and Kieran was on his feet in an instant, snatching his basketball shorts from the floor and running out. I searched the floor for his T-shirt and ran out behind him to find him hunched over Joe, who lay still on the kitchen floor.
“Call nine-one-one,” Kieran shouted over his shoulder, and began pressing on Joe’s chest. “He’s not breathing.”