14. Chapter 14
Loralee
Rocco crosses the threshold because I pull him across it, but once he is inside, neither of us pretends I have invited him in to discuss security footage.
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
His broad body fills the small entryway, bringing cold night air, the scent of cedar, and an intensity that reaches me before he does.
For three days, I have felt the control he keeps wrapped around every instinct.
It is there now in the rigid line of his shoulders and the hand hanging motionless at his side, as if touching me without another clear invitation would violate something he refuses to name.
The restraint should make this easier. Instead, knowing how much he is holding back sends heat curling low through my body.
I slide my hands beneath his open jacket and push it from his shoulders. Rocco allows it to fall onto the chair beside us, but his eyes never leave mine. He is giving me every opportunity to slow this down, change my mind, or turn the invitation into something safer.
I don’t want safe.
I reach for his hair, drawing him close enough that my mouth brushes his when I speak. “You told me I might not understand what I’m asking.”
His hands finally settle at my waist. The contact is firm, warm, and unmistakably possessive, but he still waits.
“Show me,” I whisper.
His mouth claims mine with a force that almost knocks me off balance.
For a moment, I am simply held by his hands and the weight of his body.
There’s a certainty in the way he kisses me, with nothing gentle about it.
I want none of his gentleness. The days of waiting, of watching him look at me with those dark, unsolvable eyes, have built a pressure I only now understand.
We move backward until the wall catches me, though I couldn’t say who led whom there. My fingers slide into his hair and grip the back of his neck. Rocco kisses like a man who believes in consequences, and tonight he has decided to accept all of them.
Rocco’s hands map the shape of my sides, slipping under my sweater to pull me closer, until there is no air between us. His tongue tangles with mine and my fingers caress his neck where the skin is hot and pulsating.
I want him inside me so badly it is almost painful.
I guide his hands beneath my sweater, and his palm spreads hot across my waist. He pushes the fabric higher, exposing my ribs to the chill of the cabin, then traces upward until his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts.
I have never worn a bra to bed and tonight there is nothing between his skin and mine except the thinnest layer of air.
His breath breaks against my mouth when he feels this, and the sound of it makes me arch into his hands.
His mouth leaves mine and moves down my neck, biting gently where my shoulder meets the sweep of my throat.
I dig my fingers into his hair, guiding him lower.
He laughs, low and rough, against my collarbone, as if he cannot help it.
The vibration sends a tremor through my chest and down between my legs.
I press my hips forward and feel the hardness already straining behind the zipper of his jeans. I want to lose the last threads of caution inside both of us, to see if Rocco can be unmade the way he sometimes unravels me with a single look.
My hands move down his chest to the hem of his shirt, finding the heat of his skin and the hard lines of his stomach.
I push it up, and he breaks the kiss just long enough for me to peel it away.
He lifts me without asking, my thighs wrapping around his waist as he carries me toward the bedroom.
I taste salt and want on his shoulder, and his hands grip beneath my ass so tightly that I gasp out loud.
He lowers me gently onto the bed and steps back. The light from the hallway cuts a sharp line across his body, illuminating the muscles tensing in his arms. I want him the way I want to be split open by sensation, emptied of everything but this.
I pull off my leggings and sweater, almost in one motion, letting them drop to the floor.
He watches, lips parted, and the hunger in his face is almost a physical thing.
My skin breaks into goosebumps under his gaze, as heat gathers at my core, an ache so deep it feels like hunger.
He undresses without theatrics, but every movement is deliberate.
He peels off his jeans and briefs together, his cock straining against the waistband until it springs free, dark and thick and so beautifully hard.
Rocco kneels onto the mattress, the bed dipping beneath his weight.
For a moment, both of us hover in some tense, hungry pause.
Rocco moves over me, his hand gripping my calf and dragging it over his hip, opening me wider for him.
The air around us is cold, but my body is molten, every nerve awake and greedy for what he will do next.
He kisses me again, slower now, biting at my lower lip until I moan into his mouth and dig my nails into his shoulders.
His hand moves down, cupping my breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and finger until it hardens to a sharp ache. I want to taunt him, to say I told you so, you want this as much as I do, but the words tangle up in my throat and scatter when he slips his other hand between my legs.
What if I tell him I know we’re meant to be together … that I was meant to come to Cady Springs at precisely this time? My thoughts remain unsaid.
Rocco says plenty without words as his palm caresses my inner thigh.
His hand feels hot and heavy as he spreads his fingers, covering more of me without touching the place that matters most. He drags the backs of his knuckles slowly up the seam, so light it’s torture, until I can’t help rocking my hips, chasing friction.
My own wetness is already slick between my legs, and when his thumb presses into the crease beside my labia, I groan.
Not from surprise, but from the confirmation that I am as ready for him as I have ever been for anything.
He slides two fingers between my folds and strokes upward, drawing a line from my entrance to my clit, circling it once before returning to slide slowly inside.
His fingers are thick and warm, and there is nothing tentative about the way he moves.
It’s as if he already knows exactly how I want to be touched, ruthlessly but with all the attention in the world. That’s how he notices everything.
Rocco curves his fingers just so, rubbing the pad against the place that matters, and the shock of sensation makes me buck up into his hand.
He watches my face as I shudder, the pleasure almost too much, and then he withdraws to draw slow, deliberate circles around my clit.
The sound I make is embarrassing, high and uncontrolled, but he rewards it by pinning my thigh open with his arm and lowering his mouth to my breast. He sucks the nipple deep, hard enough to border on pain, and I am greedy enough to want it to hurt a little.
My hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and he moans against my skin, the vibration igniting every nerve in my body.
He moves down my body, kissing and biting a path across my ribs, my stomach, then lower, until I feel the heat of his breath against my wetness.
He doesn’t tease, not at first. His tongue is as focused as the rest of him, parting me with a rough, confident stroke, as if every moment he’s spent watching and waiting for this is now being translated into precise attention.
I thought I’d feel shy, exposed, but there’s nothing clinical about the way he uses his mouth.
He’s greedy for it, his hands locking my hips to the bed while his lips and tongue work me in a slow, devastating way.
Every time I gasp, he groans against my skin, as if each sound is a confirmation that I belong to him.
He slips two fingers inside me again, curling them in that perfect way, and the pressure of his tongue on my clit makes my head slam back against the pillow. I want to last, to savor this, but the sensation is so intense I’m unraveling by the second.
Rocco is relentless, his pace increasing as he senses how close I am.
His hand on my thigh goes rigid, holding me in place as I start to shake.
I want to tell him yes, yes, I want this, but all I can do is ride the trembling edge as he sucks my clit between his lips and drives his fingers deeper, curling them inside me like he means to claim the place no one else has ever reached.
My orgasm comes with startling force, obliterating everything except the points where we touch. I feel his mouth, fingers, and hands holding my hips firmly to the bed.
When it finally ebbs, I’m wrecked. Sweat dampens my hair against the pillow, my thighs shuddering around his hand.
Rocco eases his fingers from me and licks them clean, eyes on my face, the gesture so intimate it nearly undoes me a second time.
He moves up the bed, crawling over me, and the mattress shifts beneath his weight.
For a moment, he just hovers there, arms braced on either side of my shoulders, watching my face as if he wants to be sure I am still with him, that I am exactly where I want to be.
I am … so much so that I ache with it. My body is still coiled and thrumming from the aftershocks, but the need for him is just as sharp and immediate as before, maybe more so.
Rocco kisses me, and the taste of myself on his tongue should be embarrassing, but instead it feels like another kind of possession. I tighten my legs around his waist and drag him deeper, holding him there as though I can prevent either of us from ever leaving this moment.