Chapter 26 Lottie #2
It’s clumsy at first as I try to balance myself over him while working him with my mouth.
It’s nearly impossible not to lose my focus when he hooks a finger inside me when he sucks on my clit.
I don’t know how I manage, but I do. On shaking arms and legs, I feel the intense satisfaction of what it means to please and be pleased at the same time.
To understand what it’s like to drive someone crazy as you’re being driven to your wit’s end.
It’s like a vicious cycle of giving and taking and it takes over my entire mind and every other sense in my body beside touch and sound have taken a back seat.
All I can think of are his hands and tongue on me, the noises he makes from between my thighs, and I can barely stand it any longer.
It’s building, I’m building, and then I’m falling in his arms, between his legs, as he pumps his hips up into me and falls at the same time.
The soft click of a camera wakes me the next morning. I open one eye to catch his lens aimed at me, a sly grin on his face. Groaning, I roll onto my other side and bury my face in my pillow. It smells like sex and sweat and Knox.
“You’re being a total creep,” I say, my voice muffled by the pillow.
He laughs softly as I hear him place the camera back on the nightstand, dipping into bed and pulling my back to his bare chest. “I don’t think it’s creepy.”
“It’s totally creepy.” But I smile into the pillow. “I’m sorry I fell asleep last night while watching the movie.”
“It’s okay,” he says with a shrug, placing a kiss on my bare shoulder. “The book was better than the movie, anyway.”
“The books are always better than the movies.” I yawn, relishing in the soreness I feel in almost every muscle in my body.
“Speaking of books,” he says between open-mouthed kisses on my skin, “would you like your e-reader back now?”
I struggle to keep my breathing level, to not let him distract me as his tongue begins to travel between my breasts, circling first my right nipple, then my left.
“I told you,” I swallow once, trying not to let him see how affected I am by his ministrations. “Keep it for now. You can learn a thing or two from fictional men.” Although, I currently have zero complaints.
He pinches my side and I jump, laughing.
Thankfully, he stops what he’s doing—at least temporarily—so I can finish a coherent thought.
“I don’t need to read books with sex, Knox.
I just enjoy them. And if I happen to crave reading one, Henry Cavill and I can just use the app on my phone.
” I shrug. He raises a perfect eyebrow before asking, “The guy from The Witcher?”
Jesus Christ.
“He’s not doing the show anymore, but yes. And he was also Superman. Not to mention Charles on The Tudors, but you might be too young to remember that show.”
He grimaces, but otherwise ignores my comment about his age. “What does he have to do with your dirty books?”
“Don’t call them dirty,” I say defensively.
“Calling them that implies that sex is wrong or something, and it’s not.
It’s completely natural and can be part of a healthy relationship or just for fun.
As we both know, it’s not just for procreation purposes.
” It took me a while to get back to thinking of sex in that way; as something that wasn’t just about making a baby, but something enjoyable too.
Not that I’ve had very much of it since my divorce (at least before Knox came around).
But it felt good to reclaim that part of myself.
Of my body. Sex is more than just about having kids.
“Well, I know that.” He smirks. “But I get what you’re saying. The word association isn’t deserved. What should I call the book genre, then?”
“Spicy?”
“Gotcha.” He laughs once before dipping his head to kiss and bite my clavicle once. “But you still haven’t answered my question. What does Henry Cavill have to do with your spicy books?”
I blush and laugh, burying my face in his chest. I run my hands up and down his biceps, over his tattoos, each one telling a story I’m dying to hear but for some reason can’t bring myself to ask about.
Like I’m too scared to know him even more.
Like I feel the need to leave at least one part of him uncovered.
“It’s what I named my vibrator,” I finally tell him, my hands traveling all over his chest.
His eyes widen for a split second before he bursts out into laughter. “Are you saying you named your vibrator? Is that something women do?”
“I don’t know, but this woman does.”
He pushes my hair away from my face, cupping it gently between his strong hands. “I only care about the woman right here in my arms.”
Heart flipping in my chest, my smile falls.
Already I feel myself getting too attached to him, my mind racing with images of what my life will look like after he leaves this town—leaves me.
Everything will go back to normal; nothing will have changed.
Not really. So why the hell does the thought cause a yawning void in my chest that almost leaves me breathless?
“Does it bother you or something? That I have a vibrator?”
“Hell no.” A wicked grin spreads quickly across his face. “I think it’s hot. Actually, I think we should incorporate Henry. Invite him to participate from time to time. Have a little ménage-a-vibe.”
I laugh at him, but he ignores me and reaches for his camera on my nightstand.
Immediately, I become the subject of his photographs once again.
“I look like a mess.”
“You don’t look like a mess.” He kisses my neck, breathing me in as if his life depended on it.
“Also, it’s my job to find and photograph beauty in everything.
If I can find it in the most difficult of places, what makes you think I can’t find it in the most amazing woman on the planet?
Especially when she looks so incredible in the mornings. ”
My heart. It aches and I can’t breathe, I can’t move. All I can think of is how much I want to stay in his arms. All I can think of is how badly I want to run away.
“We’ve never really talked about your work,” I say, needing to change the subject while doing my best to keep my voice level and breathing steady. My heart, I realize, is a lost cause as it beats wildly against my ribs.
“What about it? I take pictures for a living.” He says it matter-of-factly, as if he were no more than a passport photo photographer, and not the award-winning photojournalist I know him to be.
I snort. “Yeah, but I only know the basics. I want to know why you got into it, for example. What made you want to pursue it enough to fight Walter on it? How did you get started?”
“Ah, well. Walter gave me my first camera—his camera—when I met him and came to town to take care of me. A Nikon with actual film—very old school.” I laugh softly, marveling at how “old school” film sounds to him.
I’m sure he barely even remembers what “one hour photo” really means.
“I found it in one of his boxes when he was moving into his place when he first came to town. I started playing around with it and he just gave it to me.”
“Did he teach you how to use it?”
He nods before taking a deep breath. “Yeah. It’s kinda how we bonded at first. And then he’d take me hiking around the area and we’d take pictures.
It was… kinda our thing. Then he got me my first professional camera when I turned sixteen—used.
But it was perfect. It changed everything for me.
Started participating in competitions and stuff and… ” He shrugs. “Yeah, I was good at it.”
“Why did you choose to travel? To do photojournalism?”
He raises an eyebrow at me like it’s the dumbest question. “I get to travel to remote places on another person’s dime doing something I love. What’s not to love?”
But I don’t buy it. “There’s something else; that’s not why you did it,” I accuse him, narrowing my eyes at him.
He’s quiet for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek, carefully considering his words.
He scratches the back of his head and grimaces before saying, “I… I guess, in the end, I knew I didn’t have a home to go back to after art school.
Mom was living somewhere new, Walter and I weren’t on speaking terms, and nowhere felt like home.
So I made everywhere my home.” His voice is muted and soft as he speaks, a tinge of regret in his words.
“You never wanted to stop and be in one place?”
He shrugs. “Sure. Maybe. Just not used to it, you know. Never had that. Except for those few years with Walter. In the end, it seemed easier to just travel. I’d done it before.” He scowls and looks away, jaw tense.
I sit up, covering my chest with the sheet as my hair falls over one shoulder. “Show me.”
He looks up at me with a questioning brow. “Your photos, I mean.”
His smile is lopsided, fingers playing with the ends of my dark hair. “Not yet. You’re not ready.”
“Ready for what?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Ready for the pictures to speak to you.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I deadpan.
“Nope.”
“Not even your old ones?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“You know I can just Google them, right?” I raise a brow, making another reach for the camera and failing.
“You could. But you wouldn’t be able to appreciate them.” He shrugs, unperturbed. Like he knows that I’m not about to hop on my phone and give him a quick Google.
Dammit.
“At least let me see the ones you took of me. I’m entitled to that.”
“Are you insane? Absolutely not. Those are the ones you’re least prepared to see. You won’t be able to handle it.” He shakes his head vehemently.
“Knox… Come on,” I plead. “Aren’t the ones on your camera just pictures of the town? The remodel? What’s the big deal? It’s not like it’s some hidden gem ready for me to discover. Nothing I haven’t seen before; nothing special.”
His smile is blinding as he sits up and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me back down to the mattress with him.
“That right there. That’s my point. You’re not ready.
My job is to show you the beauty in what can be misconstrued as mundane.
But only if you’re open to it. When you’re ready, I’ll show you. ”
I huff, almost call him out on being hokey, but he manages to distract me with a kiss on the neck, followed by a soft nip of his teeth in the same place.
“Fine,” I capitulate. “But I think you’re being ridiculous.”
“You often do.” He kisses me on the neck once, twice. A third time that’s slower and has my skin heating.
But I’m sore and tired, just a few days before I get my period, bloated and feeling incredibly unsexy right now.
Sleeping with a younger guy as hot and energetic as Knox has its advantages—a mile-long list, if you ask me.
However, it definitely comes with its disadvantages.
He’s insatiable, which I should be flattered by, but my inability to constantly be at the ready— whether it’s from pain or exhaustion or spotting—even when I do want it, is getting to me.
I feel like shit when I softly push him off me, rolling away with a forced smile on my face that I know would never ever even be considered for an Oscar—more like a Razzie Award.
For a second, I reconsider. There’s an amazing twenty-seven-year-old man who looks like a tatted up male model naked in my bed staring at me with a heated look in his eyes. On the other, my gaze drops down to my swollen belly while I try to ignore the sudden onset of cramps.
It makes me wince, make me immediately feel the need to pull some clothes on.
“Breakfast?” I ask, pretending like everything is fine. “I have pancake mix.”
Knox quietly stares at me from the bed, his hair sticking out in every direction.
His eyes are soft and something about the look in them tells me that he understands there’s something I’m not ready to talk about with him.
Something about the way his eyes are on me tells me that he’s not only looking at me but seeing me.
I just hope he doesn’t see too much before he goes.