Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Lennix
My head was spinning. Everything felt fuzzy, like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. In that very moment, I would have gladly suffocated if it meant Raylan never stopped kissing or touching me.
My body was alive, every nerve ending in my skin firing as sparks of electricity went off inside me.
We were a mess of teeth and tongues and limbs as we shouldered our way into the house.
How Raylan managed to carry me through the living room and down the short hall to my bedroom was a true testament to how strong he really was.
I wasn’t exactly light, but he made it seem like it was no more taxing than carrying around a pillow stuffed with feathers.
The fact that he managed it without stepping on an animal was downright impressive.
The sound of the bedroom door being closed was punctuated by the whine of both Havoc and Ziggy. But as quickly as any dog mom guilt came on, it disappeared when Raylan lowered me to my feet at the foot of my bed and dropped to his knees.
There was something about the sight of that big, strong man on his knees for me that made it impossible to focus on anything else. The edges of my vision started closing in, narrowing until he was all I could see. All that existed in that very moment.
My whole body began to tremble when he nuzzled his face against my stomach.
His back expanded on a deep, audible inhale, as if he was trying to replace all the air in his lungs with my scent.
A sharp gasp was ripped from my throat when his teeth caught the hem of my top and tugged it upward so he could run the tip of his tongue over my skin, circling my belly button.
I managed to pull in a choppy inhale and looked down at him, my gaze locking with swirling mercury.
“Fuck.” That single word sounded like it had been ripped from the deepest recesses of his chest. “You have no fucking clue how bad I want you.”
My hand shook as I brought it up, sliding my fingers through his hair and pushing it back from his forehead. “I think I might have an idea,” I managed to get out, my words barely above a whisper.
This was all I’d wanted for as long as I could remember.
I’d dreamed about him touching me and kissing me.
Fantasized about what it would be like to take him to bed.
I’d created a million different scenarios in my head of a moment just like this one, and in my head, I was confident and sexy and seductive.
But now that it was really and truly happening, that self-assured badass was nowhere to be found.
Instead, I was nervous and jittery. I wasn’t a virgin, but my experience was sorely lacking when compared to Raylan’s.
I’d slept with a total of three guys—the first being the boy I lost my virginity to in high school.
Those brief, frenzied encounters barely counted, considering they didn’t even last a handful of minutes and I never got anywhere near completion.
I tried again not long after I took over The Tap Room from my parents.
It had been . . . okay, I guess. Then there was Mitch.
He was older and more knowledgeable than the first two guys, but I still felt like I’d been missing something every time we were together.
The thought occurred that maybe the problem wasn’t them, maybe it was me.
And I suddenly worried I wasn’t going to be able to please Raylan like all those other women.
Women who’d always been statuesque, tall, and willowy. Women who looked nothing like me.
I hadn’t always been so confident in my own skin.
It had taken me a while to accept that I was a plus-sized queen, but once I had, I loved and appreciated every single inch of me.
That was a mentality I’d worked to gain, and now I owned that shit and held my head high everywhere I went.
But as Raylan rose to his feet, his fingers catching the hem of my shirt and slowly bringing it up, up, up, I was suddenly overcome with discomfort.
My belly was soft and rounded. My hips and ass were wide.
My breasts were bigger than average, and I had cellulite and stretchmarks.
Rationally, I knew that none of that made me unworthy or ugly.
Most days I loved the skin I was in, and I’d never really lacked for male attention.
But there was something about the fact that it was Raylan who was about to see me naked that made me feel raw and uncertain all of a sudden.
I was feeling self-conscious in a way I never had with Mitch or those other guys. But they weren’t Raylan. The man I’d practically been in love with for half my life—the one I compared all other men to, setting those relationships up for failure before they even had a chance to start.
Raylan reached his full height, towering over me so that I had to tilt my head all the way back. I squeezed my eyes closed as he slowly dragged my top over my head and couldn’t find the courage to open them again as I heard the rustle of him tossing it aside.
“Ah, fuck me,” he groaned, the words sounding almost pained, like they were being torn from his throat. My hands came up immediately, my fingers splayed wide in an effort to cover my stomach.
“Don’t.” My eyes flew open at the sharpness of that one word. “Don’t hide yourself from me.”
His expression was downright severe, his features hardening to stone. My lips parted on a choppy exhale as the intensity pouring off of him slammed into me. “What?”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and pulled my hands away.
“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of this.
” As if to punctuate his point, he slid his hands down my ribs slowly, his touch feeling downright reverent.
His gaze was worshipful as he watched them track across the dip in my waist to the swell of my hips.
He clenched his hands, his fingers digging in possessively.
“How long I’ve wanted to touch you just like this .
. . to have you laid out completely bare for me and at my mercy.
There’s no way in hell I’m letting you hide from me.
Not when my goddamn dream is finally coming true. ”
My breasts heaved as I pulled in such a deep breath I was surprised my lungs didn’t explode.
Everything he said, the genuine sincerity shining in his gaze like blinking stars.
He meant it. This man who looked and felt like he’d been carved from marble wanted me so badly I could feel it in his touch, like electricity arcing in the air between us.
Not only did he make me believe he meant it but he made me feel as beautiful as he insisted I looked.
With my confidence back in force, I reached up to unsnap the button on my jeans and slide the zipper down.
I’d never in my life felt more powerful than I did just then, watching Raylan’s eyes darken, his attention rapt as I slid my pants to the floor and kicked them off.
I sent up a silent thank you to the sex gods for granting me the foresight to do my laundry a day early so I had on a pretty lace bra and thong in a deep plum color instead of my usual stretched out, faded, saggy laundry day underwear.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groaned as he drank in the sight of my pretty lingerie. He took a step closer and reached for me, but I held up my hand to stop him.
“Ah, ah, ah.” I braced my hands on my hips and gave him a smile full of sass and attitude. “Not so fast. Your turn.”
He returned my grin with his own that was dripping with arrogance.
Oh yeah, the asshole knew he looked good, but I had to admit he deserved to be cocky.
Grabbing hold of his collar at the back of his neck, he yanked it over his head in one smooth move.
My eyes didn’t know where to look first. Firm, rounded pecs sat atop a stomach that was chiseled to perfection.
It had been a few years since I’d seen him in a pair of swim trunks, and in that time, he’d managed to pack on even more muscle.
His jeans were next, revealing thighs thick as tree trunks and dusted with the same golden hair he had everywhere else, including that little trail that started beneath his belly button and dipped down into the waistband of his navy boxer briefs.
The appendage currently tenting that cotton was big enough to give me a moment’s pause as I considered whether or not it would even fit.
“It will,” Raylan husked, his throat working on a swallow.
I blinked away the dickmatization and cleared my throat. I knew I hadn’t said that last part out loud. “Huh?”
“Caught that flash of fear on your face while you were starin’ at my dick. You’re worried it won’t fit. Trust me, baby. I’ll get it in and make you feel so fuckin’ good while I’m at it.”
Man, he was good at dirty talk. I had to say, that surprised me a little, in the very best way. I guess I always thought his penchant for surliness would lead to silence in the bedroom. Glad to see I’d assumed wrong.
With that potential worry done away with, I let myself look my fill. I bit down on my bottom lip as I tried to mentally catalogue where all I wanted to lick and what path I wanted to take . . . where I wanted to start first.
He held his arms out wide and gave me that crooked grin that made his dimple appear beneath the scruff on his cheek. “You need another minute, or have you ogled me long enough?”
I slid the tip of my tongue across my bottom lip and twirled my finger in the air unapologetically. The chuckle Raylan let out warmed my chest while the sight of his biteable ass made me wet with arousal.
He slowly turned in a circle, not an ounce of shame.
And when he glanced back at me over his shoulder and winked, I swore I had a mini-orgasm on the spot.
Once he faced forward, he hooked his thumbs in the briefs and shoved them down his legs.
His cock sprang free, hard and thick and pointing straight at me. God, his body really was perfection.
With each passing second I felt myself get needier, my core clenching, desperate to be filled.
I made quick work of my bra and panties, eager to move things on to the next phase, but when I reached for him, Raylan took a step back, one corner of his mouth curling up in a smirk as he twirled his index finger in the air and repeated my earlier words.
“Not so fast. Your turn.”
My entire body flushed a deep crimson, and I was sure I felt hot to the touch.
A wave of nervous energy washed over me, causing a giggle to burst past my lips as I copied him and turned in a slow circle.
I’d never felt so exposed, yet so excited at the same time.
My belly felt lighter than air, like I just drank something fizzy.
The noise that came from his chest once my back was to him had goosebumps breaking out across my skin.
“That goddamn ass.” I looked over my shoulder to find him grinding his molars.
“Even better than I imagined. And it’s unnatural how often I’ve imagined your ass.
” I stopped my turning and arched my back, sticking it out farther as a moan rose up in my chest. He wasn’t even touching me and I was more turned on than ever before.
There wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that, by the time this night was over, he was going to have ruined me for any other man.
The crack of his palm against my ass filled the otherwise quiet room. I sucked in a sharp breath as the burn of his handprint radiated through my body, sending a fresh rush of arousal between my thighs.
“Oh.”
He pressed his chest against my back, his heat washing over me as he ran his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. “You like that, Chaos?” I clamped my lips between my teeth on a whimper, my belly quivering beneath his touch as his hand continued its trail around my body until he was cupping me between my legs.
“Oh yeah.” He growled against my neck, his long, skilled fingers dragging through the wetness that built there.
“My girl fuckin’ loves it. You want it again, baby? ”
I answered silently, thrusting my ass back into him and bending forward to brace my hands in the mattress, desperate to feel that stinging crack again.
He knew exactly what I was begging for, and didn’t hesitate to give it to me, spanking the opposite cheek before rubbing the pain away gently.
I felt like I was coming apart at the seams.
“Fucking perfect,” he murmured, and I couldn’t help but feel like a goddess.