Chapter 16 #2
His soft smile warms every part of me.
“You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that. I feel about twenty pounds lighter. I thought I’d done something wrong. Maybe hurt you.”
“You could never hurt me.” I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I lick my lips, and his chest rumbles with the quiet groan he lets out as his hungry gaze tracks the motion. “But I don’t know what comes next. Or how it’s different when it’s with someone you want.”
“The difference,” he says, punctuating each word with a sweet kiss, “is only doing things that the other person would like. This is about making each other feel good.”
“I like the sound of that.”
He settles down on the bed beside me, bracing his weight on one elbow, his left hand skimming my side as his hard, muscled thigh settles between my legs. “So do I, sweetheart.”
As always, whenever he calls me sweetheart or darlin’ in his gruff Southern accent, a part of me melts. “I like it when you call me that.”
He grins. “Then I’ll have to make sure I keep doing it,” he says, and kisses the corner of my mouth. “Twenty.”
“Twenty?” I echo, confused.
“Twenty is how many kisses I intend to cover your body with before I kiss you… here.” His fingers brush the front of my sweatpants.
Through the thick material, I feel the promise of his touch—and his kiss. I shiver. “And how will that feel?”
“Good,” he says, one corner of his mouth tilting in a crooked smile. “At least, I hope you’ll like it enough you might want me to keep on kissing you there.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
His smile fades. “Then I stop, help you dress, and take you to your room. It all ends the second you stop being comfortable with anything we do together. That’s the difference between what you had before and what you’ll get from me.”
“Okay, then.”
The first kiss is deep, searing my lips and making my eyes flutter closed.
I start counting kisses as he works his way down from my mouth. My right cheek. Left cheek. Chin. Jaw. The hollow of my throat.
His fingers are gentle as he pulls the clothes from my body, and I briefly forget to keep counting when his next two kisses linger on my breasts.
As he kisses his way downward, my skin overheats and I struggle to breathe.
I have completely lost track of time, never mind what number of kisses we’re on when he tugs down my sweatpants and my panties, and nudges my thighs aside.
My eyelids flutter open.
Vonn lying between my naked thighs doesn’t make me want to cover up, embarrassed to reveal every inch of myself to him like this. Vonn looks at me like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. So, I feel beautiful.
With his eyes holding mine, he says, “Twenty,” quietly, and puts his mouth on me.
I stop breathing, even as I grab his head, and a low, husky moan, a sound I have never made in my life, tears from my throat.
“Byrdie?” There’s a question in his eyes, and my answer is so important to him.
“Don’t stop.”
He dips his head again, and my eyes flutter shut as he puts his mouth and his tongue on me. I fight against the intense pleasure bubbling up in me, and keep fighting until I can’t anymore, so I give in to it.
With my thighs trembling and my heart in my throat, Vonn settles over me.
It takes a good long while for my breathing to even out.
Vonn kisses me lightly, and I taste myself on his lips.
“How did you like my kisses?” he asks.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, feeling light and happy and boneless. “I love your kisses almost as much as I love you.”
He freezes, eyes widening and then softening. “You love me?”
I laugh. “You weren’t listening to me when I told you my feelings for you were complex and complicated, were you?”
Smiling, he presses his lips to mine. “I was listening, but clearly I wasn’t listening.”
My body moves instinctively against his. My legs wrap around his waist, and he drops his forehead against mine as he lets out a pained groan when his cock sinks into the V between my thighs.
“Byrdie…” he pants, and I feel him swelling through his gym shorts.
“What comes next?” I ask, wanting to rock against him. “I think I want more.”
“Think?” He lifts his head to ask me.
“Not think. Want. I definitely want what comes next.”
“What comes next would be me taking my shorts off and sliding inside you, Byrdie. Being inside you is…” He swallows hard, eyes darkening. “Something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. Stopping would be hard.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“You’re sure this is what you want?”
I take my hands from around his shoulders and can’t help but notice his disappointment until I grip the waistband of his shorts and push down. “Off.”
They’re off and hitting the floor beside the bed a split second later.
His cock nudging my lower belly makes my pussy tighten in anticipation. There’s nothing between us. Bare skin against bare skin, his muscled, tattooed arms braced on the bed beside me so he can’t crush me.
“You look overwhelmed,” he whispers, not moving.
“I’m feeling a lot of things right now,” I whisper back.
“Bad things?”
“Good things.”
I circle my legs around his waist. The tip of his cock nudges me between my thighs, and I moan, rubbing myself against him.
His size should intimidate. He feels too big—too thick—to fit into my body, but the thought of him pushing his way in, creating a space for himself inside me, makes me burn up.
His lips claim mine in a hungry kiss. When he rocks back, I tilt my hips, and he slips inside. He’s barely in, and already it’s almost too much. I moan, and he swallows the needy sound.
One rock and grind swiftly turns into a frantic race. With each thrust, he buries more inches of hard, thick cock inside me.
Running my hands up and down his back, I feel the muscles tense and contract beneath my palms. He’s trying to go slowly, but I don’t want slow. I like this hard, deep rhythm too much to want it to stop.
He listens.
He thrusts and retreats. My body burns, and I explode around him.
He picks up the pace, moving faster, breaking the kiss to throw his head back and pound into me. Harder. Deeper.
His cock jerks. He groans my name and presses in even deeper, holding himself there as he strains inside me.
Gathering me against his chest, he turns us and pulls the covers over us both.
And he holds me, kissing me lightly and stroking my back as our breathing evens out.
“We have to do that again,” I whisper, long minutes later.
His laugh rings out, loud and long. “Yeah.”
I grin up at him, and he grins back. “Will you tell me about your tattoos?”
He kisses me. “Just as soon as I finished telling you that I love you. I might have forgotten to tell you before on account of how turned on I was.”
“I know that,” I say, taking his hand and pressing his palm against my heart. “I feel it here whenever you look at me.”
“Good,” he says, looking pleased.
He gathers me against his chest and tells me about his tattoos. Every single one is a symbol and a memory of all the people he loved and lost from his birth family and the family he found in the army.
He doesn’t get through all of them before one light touch turns into a kiss, which turns into another, and we’re too distracted to talk.
We nap, shower together, make love yet again, and then he slips out in just his boxers to get food for both of us. As we eat, I tell him about my family, and he tells me about his.
And he never stops looking at me as if every dream he ever had just came true.
I look at him, feeling the same way.
The next morning, wanting a fresh change of clothes, I head down the stairs to my bedroom in one of the smaller living rooms.
Vonn said I could borrow clothes from him, or he could get something for me to wear, but if we don’t show our faces soon, Makhi, Nash, and Nance will worry.
I should really move to my bedroom upstairs, since Makhi and Nance only set up the downstairs bedroom for me when I sprained my ankle and could barely walk.
A familiar figure in a maid's uniform crouches beside my bed.
I pause in my bedroom doorway, frowning. “Lydia. What are you doing?”
She jumps and spins around, flashing me a fake smile as she straightens and smooths down the front of her skirt. “Nance asked me to empty your trash. I’ll leave you to it.”
I open my mouth to tell her I don’t have trash, but she ducks around me and takes off, through the entryway and out the front door.
Suspicious and uneasy, I scan my room. My bedside table is open a couple of inches, instantly catching my eye.
Lydia would have no reason to open it if she were here to empty my trash. The trash can is beside the door, and it was empty before I left to go on a ride with Makhi because Nance had already emptied it.
When I pull the drawer open the rest of the way, I suck in a breath when I spot a silver bracelet that is definitely not mine.
She did it.
Lydia hid the necklace in my room before, and she was back to hide something else that would make Makhi, Nash, and Vonn think I was stealing from them.
With the bracelet, I hurry after her and bounce into Makhi, who catches me with a, “What’s the rush?”
“Lydia was in my room. She hid this.” I lift the bracelet to show him.
I don’t know why she would do it, but my instincts scream it was for no good reason.
His expression hardens, and he nudges me back into my room. “Wait there. I’ll go.”
“But—”
Too late, he’s out of the front door, leaving it wide open.