Chapter 10 #2
“Dawson.” Just my name. Barely a breath behind it.
“Don’t ask me about that one yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I tell you what it means tonight, I won’t be able to stop myself telling you everything else that goes with it, and I’d rather earn the rest of it first.” I turn my wrist so the ink catches the light, and I watch her decide not to push.
“Your turn. Nashville. Twenty-three. I want the story.”
Her mouth curves, wicked and in no hurry, the same look she gave me on the porch the day Cricket caught us mid-standoff, right before she called me a liar and meant it as a compliment. “Not tonight.”
“You’re going to make me wait?”
“I let you keep a secret. I’m allowed one too.” She steps into me, close enough now that neither of us is talking about tattoos anymore, and her hands go to the hem of the shirt she stole. “Tonight I have other plans for your mouth.”
She pulls it over her head in one motion, no rush in it, and wiggles out of her cut-off shorts.
Underneath she’s wearing red lace, another set, skimpy panties and a bra that pushes her perfect tits into luscious mounds.
She’s been wearing it under my shirt through dinner and the whole tattoo conversation and let me sit there having absolutely no idea.
“You’ve been wearing that since I got home.”
“I told you I’m a thorough researcher.” Her chin comes up, daring me. “You texted me this morning asking if I was wearing lace. Figured I’d deliver the notarized version in person instead of making you wait for a photo.”
There’s no room left to cross. I wrap her hair around my fist, pulling down and tilting her chin up to meet me. My mouth finds hers and it isn’t careful. Not after all these years of imagining exactly this and getting every version of it wrong in my head.
She meets me with the same lack of mercy, her fingers twisting in my hair. Our teeth catch once before the kiss goes deeper, tongues tangling, both of us trying to make up for lost time in the space of one breath.
Her knees give out halfway through it, and I catch her, one arm banded around her waist. I swipe my phone off the bathroom counter on the way past without breaking the kiss, because apparently that habit survives anything, and walk her back down the hall and into her bedroom.
The train has left the station. No going back now.
I lay her down at the edge of the mattress. The towel’s the only thing still on me, and I let it drop before I follow her down, watching her watch me do it, her breath gone fast and shallow in a way I intend to spend the rest of the night taking credit for.
Then I take my time with the lace.
I peel it off her piece by piece, deliberate, and when she’s bare in front of me in the low lamp light I have to stop and just look, because my memory is nothing, nothing, compared to the actual truth of her laid out in front of me.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“You’re beautiful. Every God damned inch of you.” I drag one hand up the inside of her thigh, watching her breath catch. “I want a closer look.”
I push her back onto the mattress and spread her thighs and settle between them, and I take her apart by degrees, with my fingers first, learning what’s changed and what hasn’t.
“You’re so wet for me.” My voice comes out wrecked, barely mine. My cock’s never been this hard in my life, and I haven’t even gotten inside her yet.
She moans, throaty and unguarded, her hips rocking up into my hand. “Don’t stop.”
“Does it feel different,” I ask, rough, “with the jewelry?”
“You tell me.” Her breath catches as I find out for myself. “You’re the one with your hands on it.”
“I’ve never done this with a woman who had one.” I look up at her, and there’s nothing performed about the honesty in it. “You’re my first.”
Surprise crosses her face, then a warmth underneath it she doesn’t hide fast enough.
She doesn’t get to decide what to do with either, and I use the moment to put my mouth where my hands just were.
I drag my tongue up her pretty, pink cunt to the little jewel at the top of her, circling it once before I settle in and stay there, and her hips buck up into a wild rhythm I do everything I can to keep pace with.
I slide two fingers back into her while my tongue stays right where she needs it, and she thrashes under me, one hand fisting hard in my hair.
“Fuck, Dawson.”
I keep her right there, on the edge and not over it, her whole body drawing tight, her hips pressing up into my mouth like she can’t stand another second of almost. I don’t let her off that edge until I want her to come, one last long stroke of my tongue up the full length of her, from her ass to her clit and she detonates, legs locking around my head, thighs shaking, a sound tearing out of her that isn’t a word at first and then is, my name breaking on her tongue like she forgot she wasn’t supposed to still want to say it that way.
I don’t stop until she’s completely wrecked, until the sound of my name is the only thing left in the room.
She’s still catching her breath when she pulls me up by the jaw and kisses me, tasting herself on my tongue and not caring one bit, and if that isn’t enough to have me pressing hard into her stomach already, her hand finds me between us, testing, deliberate, until she rolls me onto my back and follows me down, her mouth lowers before I can stop her, though fuck knows I don’t try very hard.
She takes her time with it, taunting, learning me again like I was learning her a few minutes ago.
My hips arch up to meet her, and I groan when her tongue swirls around the head, merciless, like she’s got every intention of taking me apart the exact same way I just took her apart.
She hollows her cheeks and sucks, and I have to grip the headboard and remind myself, out loud in my own head, that I am not going to come like this, not yet, not before I’m inside her.
“I have an implant,” she says, breathless, pulling back just enough to say it. “And nobody in three years. I’m clean.”