Chapter 9 #2
A shaky breath of relief left me when I saw that Delilah was at her apartment.
But then my heart sank at the possibility that she took that prick home.
I hadn’t even been in her apartment yet; we always came here, and she never stayed the night.
If I found him there, I’d probably drag him out by his balls and throw him down the stairs.
I threw on a shirt and left the house, rain pouring in a thick sheet as I jogged to my truck. So much for my shower. I drove faster than I should’ve in the rain, but I didn’t care. I needed to get to her, needed to know he wasn’t there, making her laugh like he had at the party.
When I got to her complex, I was frozen. The thought that she might make me leave made my chest tighten. I wrung my hands on the wheel, my head pounding. This was absurd. I’d been in combat, stared death in the face—I could knock on her damn door.
“Buck the fuck up, Hayes,” I murmured and flung the door open. I ran across the parking lot, rain soaking through my clothes. My heart was racing by the time I reached her door on the third floor, and not from exertion either. Before I could talk myself out of it, I knocked.
The door swung open moments later. Delilah was in skimpy dark green pajamas, with wet spots on her chest from her hair. Those hot-as-fuck piercings in her nipples visible through the thin material. “You’re not pizza,” she stammered, eyes wide and unblinking.
God, I was gonna puke right here on her welcome mat if she was waiting for post-sex pizza after a post-sex shower.
A shower she’d refused to have with me after our first time.
The thought of him here in her space, having something I hadn’t been allowed to, made me livid.
My shoes squeaked on the hardwood as I shoved past her, scanning rooms like this was an op, and he was a target I needed to take out.
“Is he here?”
“What the hell are you doing?!” The door slammed shut, and she stormed after me. “You can’t just barge in here! You’re tracking water everywhere.”
I spun on my heel in her bedroom, and she stopped short directly behind me. “Is. He. Here?”
“Who?”
“Calvin,” I spat. “Heard about your little date.” I looked in her closet—it was a wreck. “Did he need a step stool to kiss you?”
She scoffed. “You can’t be fucking serious. You’ve just bulldozed your way into my apartment, all pissy after you made me watch you flirt with that chick? You are such a hypocrite!” Her eyes were blazing, while white-knuckling a bottle of whiskey like she wanted to hurl it at me.
I froze. If this was supposed to be casual, like she insisted, then why the hell did she care? “I didn’t flirt with Callie, Delilah.”
That fire in her eyes flickered brighter. “Do you need your fucking eyes checked? She was touching you! I know you’ve been out of the game for a minute, but that’s flirting.”
I took a step towards her, fists curling at my sides. “Just like you touched that fucker who thought he had a chance, right?”
She lifted her chin, defiant. “Who said he didn’t have a chance? Maybe he just left.”
“I know what you look like after sex. So either he wasn’t here, or he’s shit in bed. Which is it?” If it were the latter, I’d need to drink myself stupid to forget the mental image. I snatched the bottle out of her hand, taking a pull, our eyes locked.
Delilah wrenched her jaw. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that?”
Another step. Another sip. Our chests were almost brushing. “Yeah, sugar, I do, now answer the damn question.”
Her throat moved with a swallow, her pulse thumping in her neck. I wanted to chase it with my tongue, taste every inch of her. My eyes met hers. They were dark, overrun with the same need that made my hands shake. “Give me my whiskey back.”
The deflection had me scoffing. I looked down at the bottle in my hand. “Why? You thirsty?”
She scowled. “Yeah, I’m fucking parched, now give it back.”
Satisfaction surged through me—my sweet girl was such a brat.
I took a sip, but held the liquor in my mouth.
I wrapped my hand around her jaw. Her lips parted, hazel eyes glazed over with want.
With a little pressure, I tilted her head back and let the whiskey spill right into her mouth.
Chased it with a kiss that might as well have been a brand on us both.
She tasted like whiskey and obsession. And God help me, I was addicted to every drop.
“I canceled on him after you left,” she whispered as we broke apart, licking her lips.
“I wanted to make you jealous.” I just stared at her, my head reeling.
She did all of that just because I talked to some random girl?
I now understood why she’d said only once.
Because even though I shouldn’t, I cared, and this was the damning proof that she did too.
“Congrats, it worked.” I wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and hauled her mouth back to mine. She moaned, her fists curling in my shirt to pull me closer. I reached behind me blindly, setting the bottle down on her dresser before I picked her up.
“I’m gonna fuck you so hard you can’t even think about another man without feeling me.” And I meant it, too. I wanted her to feel me in every goddamn step she took for the next fucking month.
Her legs tightened around my hips, and she nodded eagerly.
Our mouths only parted so she could pull my shirt over my head as I walked us to her bed.
We dropped onto the mattress, all heavy breaths and tangled limbs.
Yanking down her tank top, her tits spilled free.
I groaned, dragging my tongue over her nipple.
Her back bowed, arching into my mouth for more.
“Emmett,” she whined, fisting my hair, while I teased her nipples. “I need you.” My dick throbbed in my sweats, already aching and desperate to be buried inside her.
“I know, sweet girl, I know.” I needed her just as much. I ripped her shorts down her legs, my heart in my throat. “It drove me fucking crazy watching you with him,” I admitted while tugging my sweats off. “I wanted to wring his neck, thinking my girl was a sure thing.”
She sat up and pulled her shirt off. “Now you know how I felt watching you with Callie.” Her name came out bitter and spiteful—it made me giddy.
I threaded a hand through her hair, her eyes fluttering, and angled her head back to look at me.
Time screeched to a standstill, and she was all I saw.
She was stunning, and I was addicted. Addicted in a way I’d never been with anyone, and never expected to be, least of all with her.
“Don’t make me share you, Delilah. I want you too much to bear it. ”
Her breath caught, eyes widening slightly. Did I really just say that out loud? It had been too easy to. But all of this was too easy. Being with her, talking to her, wanting her, missing her when we were apart. It was a slippery slope, one I was already sliding down at breakneck speed.
“There’s no one else.” She ran a hand over my pounding heart. “Never has been.”
Something in my chest warmed at that. Leaning down, I kissed her because it felt like I’d disintegrate into nothing if I didn’t have her lips on mine right this second. She pulled me down on top of her and wrapped her legs around me.
“Please,” she whispered. Her fingers slid down my back, tugging on my hips.
She was so sweet, spread out and needy for me like this.
She bit her lip and reached between us. My eyes nearly rolled shut when she pumped my dick.
I was fairly certain I’d never been harder in my life. “This all for me, Em?”
“Yeah, sugar. Now, be good and put it in. I wanna watch you take it.”
A strangled groan left me at the sight of my cock stretching her.
It was the best thing I’d ever seen. I dropped onto my elbows, my head falling to the crook of her neck.
“Jesus Christ, Lilah.” Didn’t know where that nickname came from, but the way her pussy gripped my cock told me she liked it, and fuck me, if I didn’t love it, too.
Her gasp when I bottomed out had me squeezing my eyes shut, my dick jerking. It was almost embarrassing that I was already so close, but it was her fault. She was too fucking perfect for it to be any other way.
She stole my breath—my sanity—whenever I got inside her.
And it was always like this. Like I was on the precipice of losing control.
Control was what kept me alive overseas, kept me moving since I came home.
It was all I knew. But with Delilah, I think I wanted to let go.
To surrender and be free like her—with her.
My hips surged forward hard and fast just like I’d promised, sending her headboard smacking against the wall. “You think he could’ve fucked you like this?” I asked between heavy breaths.
Her nails raked down my back, sharp enough to sting. I hoped I woke up with angry red trails to remember her by. “No,” she moaned. “No one can.”
God, I nearly came right then and there.
One by one, I took her hands off me, pinning them over her head with one of mine. I reached between us, rubbing her clit with the other. “That’s right, sweet girl, and you wanna know why?”
Delilah’s eyes were hazy and unfocused as she looked up at me, her cheeks flushed with the heat that simmered between us. “Tell me.”
I leaned down and kissed her. The kind of kiss that made me feel weightless and unburdened, like I was soaring. Her grip on my hand tightened to the point of pain, the kind that reminded me I was alive, that this was real. That I was fucked.
“Because you’re mine,” I whispered.
She came hard, my words setting her off. They shocked me as much as they wrecked her. But I wouldn’t take them back even if I could. It was the truth. She was mine, whether I had the right to claim her or not. And knowing I belonged to her just as much had me coming harder than ever.
We said no strings. But lying here with her wrapped around me, looking up at me with those hazel eyes and a blissed-out smile, all I could see were strings.
I jolted awake under a ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it, too hot, with orange hair in my face. I looked down and found a freckled arm around my waist and a matching leg slung over my hips.
My breath caught. Holy shit. I slept over at Delilah’s.
I didn’t even remember falling asleep. All I remember was holding her and playing with her hair while she asked about my tattoos.
Reaching for my phone, my eyes widened when I saw it was seven in the morning.
I hadn’t slept this late—or through the night—in years.
I felt rested, rejuvenated, and fucking terrified.
This was so careless of me. I could’ve had a nightmare, and all those fears I had about accidentally hurting someone would’ve come true. We could’ve become one of those statistics.
Guilt had me sliding out from under her grasp.
She only stirred a little, nuzzling deeper into her pillow when I pulled the blanket over her.
I hated that the sight of her sleeping made my heart skip a beat, that because of her, I’d had the most peaceful night of sleep since my early twenties.
But most of all, I hated that I was leaving because I didn’t want to.
Unable to stop it, I brushed her hair back and kissed her temple, savoring this moment because I couldn’t let it happen again. No matter how much I wanted to. This was supposed to be just sex, and I couldn’t drag her down into my mess. No matter how good I knew she’d look in the dirt.