Chapter 7
Julie
I have never felt this loose in my body before.
Everything in me is warm. Heavy. Soft in a way I do not think I have ever been. Like he touched every tight, aching thing inside me until it finally gave way.
Tank is still half over me, his face buried for a second against my throat, his breath rough and hot against my skin.
I do not want him to move.
That thought comes fast and clean and startles me a little.
My hand slides into his hair before I can think better of it. Thick, dark, a little damp at the roots. He goes still under my touch.
Then his mouth drags once against my throat.
A kiss.
Then another.
Slow. Lazy. Possessive enough to send a soft shiver through me.
He lifts his head and looks at me.
Those pale eyes are darker now somehow. Hooded. Hot. A little wrecked. His face looks harder after sex. Rougher. More beautiful. Dark stubble shadows his jaw, and there is a flush high across his cheekbones that should not undo me as badly as it does.
His hand slides up my side and settles at my waist.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
My voice comes out soft and a little breathless.
He studies my face like he is checking for every truth at once. Then his thumb drags over my lower lip, and something low in me melts.
Tank rolls enough to pull me with him until I am sprawled half over his chest.
Skin to skin.
No clothes. No barriers. Just him.
The heat of him hits me all over again.
My cheek lands against hard muscle. His chest is warm under me, broad and solid, dusted with dark hair that scratches lightly against my skin when I shift. His heartbeat thuds slow and heavy under my ear.
I like that far too much.
The fire snaps low in the stove. Wind moves outside. The room smells like wood smoke and sweat and sex and him.
His hand moves down my back. Big. Slow. Rough palm stroking over bare skin.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
I tip my chin enough to look up at him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say after...” My face heats. “All that.”
His mouth shifts. Close to a smile.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
His hand slides lower, settling at the curve where my back turns into my hip. Heat sparks through me again.
Then he tips my face up with two fingers under my chin.
“You keep looking at me like I’m about to tell you this was a mistake.”
I go very still.
He sees too much.
“It wasn’t,” he says.
Something deep inside me gives a little at that.
His eyes darken as he watches it happen.
“You hear me, angel?”
“Yes.”
“That means you stop making up stories in that head of yours.” His thumb brushes my jaw. “About this. About what I want.”
Heat creeps up my neck.
His gaze never leaves mine.
“I want you in my bed.”
My breath catches.
“I want my hands on you.”
The words land lower.
“I want to hear you say my name like you did a little while ago until I can’t think straight.”
My thighs press together before I can stop them.
His eyes flick down, catch it, and go darker.
Then his hand slides to my throat, rough and light and claiming all at once.
“You’re mine now, angel.”
The words go through me like fire.
They should make me flinch.
Instead they settle somewhere so deep it leaves me shaky.
I stare at him.
He keeps looking at me like he means every word.
“When I’m done with you,” he says, voice rough as gravel, “there won’t be a damn question who you belong to.”
A quiet, helpless sound slips out of me.
His mouth tilts.
I spread my hand over his chest, over the hard beat beneath skin still damp with sweat. “You say things like that and I’m not going to know what to do with myself.”
“I know exactly what to do with you.”
That sends another shiver through me.
And then I realize something else.
He took care of me.
He watched my face. Asked for words. Made sure I came apart before he let himself go.
My gaze drops before I can stop it.
Down his chest. The broad plane of his stomach. The trail of dark hair disappearing lower. The thick, heavy line of him already hard again against his thigh.
Heat floods me so fast my whole body goes tight.
His hand stills on my back.
When I look up, he is watching me.
Hungry. Curious. Dangerous.
“You took care of me,” I say quietly.
“Yeah.”
“I want to do something for you too.”
The room goes still around us.
His chest rises once under me.
“Julie.”
Just my name, and somehow it feels like a touch.
“I mean it.”
His hand slides up my back, fingers spreading wide between my shoulder blades.
“You don’t owe me a damn thing.”
“I know.” I swallow. “I just want to.”
He watches me for so long I start to feel each second in my skin.
Then his hand catches in my hair and he kisses me slowly.
A kiss that feels like permission and warning all at once.
When his mouth leaves mine, he says against my lips, “You got no idea what that does to a man.”
Maybe I do not.
Maybe I want to find out.
I push up onto one elbow and kiss my way down his throat because it feels easier than talking. His skin is warm and tastes faintly of salt and smoke. He makes a low sound when I mouth over the place where neck becomes shoulder.
My pulse jumps.
I kiss lower.
Across his collarbone.
Over the hard plane of his chest.
His body is beautiful in a way that almost makes me angry. Broad and thick and carved up just enough to tell stories I do not know yet. There is a scar near his shoulder, pale under my mouth. Then another lower down, close to his ribs.
I stop and trace one lightly with my fingertips.
His hand tightens in my hair.
“What happened there?” I ask.
“Another day.”
His voice says enough. Flat. Final.
I nod and do not push.
Instead I kiss the scar softly.
That changes his breathing.
A sharp little edge of confidence slips into me at the sound.
I kiss lower.
His chest.
His stomach.
The hard ridges there jumping once when my mouth brushes over them. My hand follows, palm sliding down over warm skin and tight muscle, learning him by touch while my courage shakes and somehow holds.
By the time I reach lower, my heart is hammering so hard I feel lightheaded.
He lifts his head enough to look down at me.
“Julie.”
There is warning in it.
A lot of heat too.
I glance up at him through my lashes, my hand resting low on his stomach now, close enough to feel the tension in him.
“You said I’m yours now,” I murmur against his skin.
His whole body goes still.
Then his eyes darken until they almost do not look pale at all.
“Angel,” he says roughly, “you keep talking like that and I’m gonna flip you over and start all over again.”
The threat should probably stop me.
It does not.
It makes me ache.
I let my fingers drift lower, over the hot, hard weight of him, barely touching.
He swears under his breath.
That sound goes straight through me.
I kiss him just below his navel. Then lower still. Soft at first. Testing. Feeling the way his stomach tightens under my palm, the way his hand in my hair goes from gentle to gripping.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
I look up at him.
He is watching me with that same wrecked, hungry look he had when I walked out of the bathroom in his shirt.
Only darker now.
A little desperate.
Something about that sends a thrill through me.
I let my hand close around his cock properly this time.
He jerks under my grip, breath hissing out through his teeth.
“Julie.”
There is my name again, but this time it sounds like a warning he has already lost faith in.
I stroke him once, slow, and watch his face.
The reaction is instant.
Head falling back.
Jaw going tight.
His chest rising hard under my other hand.
A rough sound dragged from deep in him.
My whole body answers it.
I do it again. Slower. Bolder now. My thumb brushing over him the way instinct tells me to, learning from the sounds he makes, from the way his body shifts, from the way one huge hand comes down to grip the sheets like he needs something to hold onto.
“Angel,” he says, voice gone wrecked. “You keep that up and this is gonna go a real different way.”
That almost makes me smile.
Almost.
I lower my mouth to him before I can think better of it.
And the sound he makes then is the roughest one yet.
It goes straight through me.
I take him slowly at first, clumsy and learning, one hand braced on his hip while the other keeps stroking what I cannot fit. He is big. Hot. Heavy on my tongue. The taste of him is darker than skin, saltier, male in a way that makes my stomach twist and my thighs press together.
His hand fists hard in my hair.
“Jesus, angel,” he grinds out. “Where the fuck did you learn that?”
A shaky little laugh slips out of me around him and makes his whole body jump.
That does dangerous things to my confidence.
I do it again. Slower. Deeper. Learning from the way he swears, from the way his stomach tightens, from the way he jerks when I use my hand with my mouth and get the rhythm close to right.
He throws his head back.
“Fuck.” The word is ripped out of him. “Julie...”
Hearing my name like that makes me wetter than I already am.
I keep going.
His breathing turns rough and uneven. One hand in my hair. The other braced on the mattress so hard the tendons stand out in his forearm.
“Look at me.”
The command lands low and hot.
I lift my head.
His eyes are on me, blown dark, face hard and wrecked and barely held together.
“That pretty mouth on me again and I’m not lasting.”
The words hit me like a slap of heat.
I take his cock back into my mouth just to watch him lose another inch of composure.
That does it.
He swears and catches me under the arms, hauling me up his body in one rough, desperate movement until my mouth crashes into his.
I taste myself and him, and the filth of that alone nearly makes me moan.
He kisses me hard enough to steal my breath.
“Little tease,” he mutters against my mouth. “You trying to kill me now?”
I shake my head, dazed and smiling a little despite myself.
His eyes catch that smile and go hotter.
“You want me again?”
“Yes.”
“Words, angel.”
“Yes. I want you again.”
He rolls us before the last word is fully out of my mouth, settling over me with one knee between mine, one hand catching my wrists and pinning them gently above my head.
The move is fast enough to shock me and smooth enough to make me gasp.
There he is.
That rough edge.
That leashed violence that somehow makes me feel safer instead of scared.
His mouth drags down my throat.
“Mine,” he says against my skin.
The word sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through me.
He lets go of my wrists and slides one hand down my body, over my breast, my waist, my stomach, lower.
His fingers find my pussy wet and swollen and still sensitive, and I jerk with a cry.
His head lifts. “Still with me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He rubs me once, slow and filthy, while watching my face.
“Look at that,” he murmurs. “Still soaked.”
My whole face burns.
His mouth tilts.
“From sucking my cock?”
The words are so filthy and so rough and so exactly what just happened that a broken sound falls out of me before I can stop it.
“Tank...”
“Yeah.” He kisses me again, then drags his thumb over me once more. “That’s what I thought.”
I can barely breathe.
He keeps touching me just enough to make me shake, then lines himself up again.
“This time,” he says, voice low, “I’m not going slow or gentle.”
Heat rushes through me.
I nod.
“Words.”
“Yes.”
He pushes in deeper this time, one hard smooth thrust that fills me so suddenly I cry out and arch up under him.
“Christ,” he mutters, forehead dropping to mine for one second. “Still so tight.”
He starts moving.
Hungrier now.
Still careful. Still watching me. But the restraint from before is fraying fast, and I can feel it in the weight of his body, the rough drag of him, the way his hand grips my thigh and holds it open wider.
I wrap my legs around him.
That gets a curse out of him.
“There you go,” he says, voice gone gravel-rough. “Take it.”
Every thrust hits harder now. Deeper. The bed creaks under us. The fire pops in the stove. My breath comes apart in little broken sounds I do not even try to hide.
His hand slides between us again.
The second his fingers finds my clit, I moan.
“Yeah,” he says. “You give me that. Come on.”
The praise does something wicked to me.
Every filthy little word out of his mouth lands low and deep.
“That’s it.”
“Good girl.”
“Take what you need.”
I clutch at his shoulders and let him move me where he wants, let him hold me open and touch me until every nerve in my body feels bright and stretched too tight.
“Tank,” I gasp.
“I know.”
He kisses me hard, then breaks it just enough to look at me.
“Come for me, angel. I want to feel it.”
That pushes me right over.
The orgasm hits hard enough to pull a cry out of me. My whole body tightens around him, back arching, nails digging into his shoulders while his name breaks from my mouth again and again.
“There you go,” he groans against my throat. “Fuck, there you go.”
The way my body clenches around him wrecks what little control he has left.
I feel it happen.
His rhythm breaks. His breath punches out of him. His hand grips my thigh so hard it almost hurts.
Then he comes with a broken, filthy sound against my neck, hips jerking once, twice, body locking over mine while every hard line in him goes tight.
After, neither of us moves for a long second.
He presses a kiss to my throat.
Then another.
I slide one hand into his hair and hold him there because I still do not want him to move.
That gets a rough exhale out of him.
He lifts his head enough to look at me.
Flushed. Kiss-swollen. Hair falling into his eyes. Pale gaze still a little dazed and far too intense.
Beautiful.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. Then, because it matters to answer him right, “Yeah.”
His thumb brushes my bottom lip.
“Good.”
The word is low and final and full of things I do not know how to name yet.
I only know I feel them too.