Chapter Twenty-Three
Diana
“Mags?”
“Mm?”
It was after breakfast, and we were back in bed, my head on his chest, his dark sheets tangled all around us. After I’d woken up and found him on the porch, he brought me into the kitchen, dead set on eating me out on the counter, but my stupid insecurities got in the way. So instead, after we had a conversation, he kissed me on the forehead, went into his bedroom, and came back with one of his flannels for me to wear. It wasn’t super loose on me, but I could get it buttoned and it covered my ass. Then, he made both of us breakfast, instructing me to tell him about Yale.
As soon as our plates were empty, he carried me back into the bedroom to finish what he started.
“What is it, baby?” his deep voice rumbled, causing goosebumps to spread across my exposed skin. His hand, which had been tracing aimlessly up the curve of my spine, slowly came to halt and a second later, I felt his fingers underneath my chin, forcing me to look up at him. His harsh features were the softest I’d ever seen them, his eyes filled with nothing but love.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I whispered. I’d made myself look like an idiot, because I couldn’t figure out how to express myself and ended up hurting him in the process. “You really are beautiful, you know?”
A muscle in his cheek jumped. “Don’t apologize.”
“I need you to know that, though. I—the last thing I ever want to do is make you—”
I didn’t get a chance to say the rest, because he was on top of me, pinning my hands above my head, his mouth finding my ear. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s over and done. Get out of your head about it.”
My nipples pebbled against his chest, his pierced cock hardening against my thigh. “Fair warning; I’m in my head a lot, cowboy,” I told him as he rubbed his beard against my neck, humming.
“I’m aware,” he replied, his tongue stroking my neck before I felt the graze of his teeth. “You be in your head. I have no problem dragging you out of it.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
His head shot up, his eyes darker than before. “Don’t apologize,” he commanded. “That’s a habit I’m going to break you of, and I know it’s going to take time, but I’ve got the patience for it.”
“I—”
“Your ex abused you.”
My mouth closed.
“He abused you, verbally and physically from what you told me on the phone the night you didn’t want me to kill him,” he went on.
“Wait—you actually listened to that?”
“Listened to every single word, Firefly, and every day, my regret for not killing the bastard grows.”
“Mags!” I snapped.
He leaned down then, his voice deathly quiet. “That man put his hands on you, baby. You asked me not to kill him, and I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.”
“Lucas is long gone,” I stressed. “Chase dropped him on the edge of town like in those old western movies and told him to never show his face here again.”
“Diana, I know. I’ve been keeping tabs.”
I jerked, blinking once—-twice. “What?”
He said nothing, his hair falling around his face now, making him look like a god.
“You’ve been keeping tabs on my ex?” I breathed.
“On a man who threatened you? Yes. I also have tabs on your parents should they ever decide to show their faces in this town,” he said simply.
“I—”
“To get to the point I’ve been trying to make, gorgeous: you’ve been abused, not only by your ex, but also by your parents.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “You remember everything, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered, his dark eyes reaching out for my soul. “You’ve been abused and still have some healing to do. Healing is messy, but I can’t be your safe space if I can’t handle the mess. This is me telling you I can handle whatever mess you bring me. I’ll still love you even when I’m cleaning it up.”
I brought my hands up, cupping his face, stroking the stubble on his cheeks with my thumbs, feeling the strength in his jaw, his heat enveloping me. “I’m working on it,” I promised, looking at his lips. “I’ve been fighting this…demon for a long time now.”
“What demon is that?”
My eyes met his. “Food noise.”
Slowly, his brows furrowed. “Food noise,” he parroted, confusion lacing the jagged edges of his voice.
I nodded. “That’s what the kids call it these days.” I paused, scared to admit the truth to not only him, but to myself. “I suffered from an eating disorder from the time I was a sophomore in high school to when I graduated law school.”
Something passed over his face then, dark and chilling, down to the bone.
When he didn’t say anything, his eyes compelled me to tell him more. “I think about food all the time, calories always in the back of my mind, what I need to do to burn them,” I rambled. “I haven’t done it in a really long time, but I used to binge eat, feel immense guilt over all the food I consumed, and then…I would—um—force myself to throw it back up.”
He was still silent, a shadow over his rugged features. My heart thundered in my ears, the beat of my pulse amplifying my anxious thoughts.
“I don’t…I don’t do it anymore,” I finally pushed out, my voice cracking at the end. “I haven’t in a long, long time, and when you mentioned me losing weight, I didn’t lose it by doing that.”
“How did you?” he prompted gruffly.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Calorie deficit.”
“And at the rate you lost all that weight, baby, I can only assume it wasn’t a healthy deficit.”
Now it was my turn to say nothing. He looked down at our bodies. “You’re soft, Diana, in all the right places. If anyone makes you feel like that’s a problem, you call me. I’ll take care of ‘em.”
Panic slithered between us, around my neck, down my spine. “You can’t kill someone because they think I’m fat,” I argued.
“Sure, I can.”
“Mags!”
“Diana,” he returned, his thumb going to my lip. “Been my woman for over a fuckin’ decade. I don’t tolerate that shit.”
I blinked. “We just got together this morning,” I reminded him. His hips flexed against me, the ball at the tip of his cock pressing into my thigh.
“You’ve been the only woman on my mind, which means, to me, you are, and have been my woman,” he stated.
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.
“You need to establish a healthy relationship with food.” My cowboy’s voice was soft, gentle, everything I needed it to be for this conversation.
“I’m working on it.”
“A healthy relationship with food includes not writing down which days you’re allowed to have a fuckin’ cookie in your planner,” he deadpanned.
“I—how did you—I don’t—”
His nose was against mine then as he growled, “Dropped that damn thing on Denver’s porch three years ago. It popped open, and when I handed it back to you, I saw it. Wednesday. Six PM. Two Oreos. Written in damn lime green ink.”
“I—”
He cut me off again, sharp but gentle. “That shit stops now.”
“But—”
His eyes scanned over my face, brow furrowed. “You want a fuckin’ Oreo, eat a fuckin’ Oreo.”
“The problem isn’t eating one Oreo, Mags. The problem is, I want a whole row of them. I have no self-control,” I admitted, heat climbing up my cheeks.
“Then eat a whole row, Diana. Just don’t do it every fuckin’ week.”
I shook my head, frustrated tears burning in my eyes. He pulled back slightly, his fingers weaving through my hair, his arms on either side of my head now. “Tell me why you’re crying,” he commanded softly.
My eyes drifted from him to the window, the rain finally coming to an end, only leaving a thin sheet of sprinkles now.
“Firefly,” he called.
“This was supposed to be a nice day. We agreed to have a nice day during breakfast, and I’m trauma dumping.”
He rubbed his nose up the column of my neck, his beard tickling my skin. “Yeah?” he whispered, “And I love it.”
My eyes shot back to him, wide now as the tears fell down the sides of my head. “You love this?”
He nodded, his face serious. “Being your safe space is the only thing I ever want to be. What you’re telling me isn’t great, and if I’m being honest, it’s making want to go hunt your fuckin’ parents and Lucas down—”
“You’re worse than, Denver,” I muttered, looking away from him again.
Slowly, his hand came to the front of my throat, his fingers manipulating my head to face his again. When he spoke, goosebumps scattered across every inch of my body, leaving no room for doubt. “Let me make myself clear, beautiful. Someone hurts you, they answer to me. Someone crosses you, they answer to me. Someone disrespects you, they answer to me. Someone insults you, they answer to me. There are many ways I can handle them, twenty that would make you want to puke up your breakfast, fifteen or so that would make you want to call a fuckin’ priest, and two that would make you want to run.”
I stared up at him, heart pounding.
“But I just got you, and there is no way in fuck I’m letting you go, so I’m not telling you the last two. Also not telling you the others because one, I don’t do religion, and two, I don’t want to see you sick,” he concluded.
“You’re worse than Denver,” I repeated on a breath.
A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes then. “Firefly, I’ll be the damn devil if necessary to keep you safe.”
“This conversation took a turn,” I whispered.
His eyes dropped to my lips, his cock hard against me once more. “It’s about to take another one,” he decreed.
My nipples tingled, pebbling just below his chest. He looked down, a rare but rough chuckle coming from somewhere deep in his massive chest. “Fuck, but you’re addicted to me too, aren’t you?”
His mouth was on mine before I could answer...
“Mags,” I gasped, my fingers gripping his sheets.
He groaned, the sound vibrating against my clit as he devoured me, his fingers fucking my pussy from behind. It was our third round, both of us slick with sweat, and he was about to make me come on his tongue for the fifth time. We’d spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon in his bed, catching up on all we’d missed.
“Taste like fuckin’ honey,” he growled as he pulled his fingers from me, his hands spreading my cheeks open, exposing me as his fingers dug into my flesh. I knew that tomorrow, I would wake up with his marks on me, and my heart fluttered.
I was on my hands and knees at the edge of the bed, my cowboy’s knees on the floor. He dragged his tongue from the tip of my clit, over my entrance, up to my ass. His tongue circled the sensitive hole, and my eyes rolled back, my breasts swaying as my hips moved, grinding back against his face.
He pulled away, leaving my body begging for more. “Please, Mags,” I whimpered.
“Goddamn— fuck .”
Then, I was twisted and in the air. I landed on my back close to the head board, a gasp leaving me. I was ready, so, so ready, for him. I needed it. I found him standing at the end of the bed, eyes on me, his thick, glorious cock in his hand, the silver ball shining in the light.
He pumped it twice, his eyes on my face, then two more times when they landed on my breasts.
“Mags,” I begged, curling my knees and spreading them open. “Please.”
Those dark eyes dropping to my core, flashing with hunger, and before I could stop him, his face was buried in my pussy again, his tongue flicking my over sensitive bundle of nerves. My back and neck arched as a guttural cry left me, my hands reaching for him, my fingers tangling themselves in his unruly hair. My hips moves on their own accord, my body needing release anyway it could get it. His hands wrapped around my thighs, holding them down and open as he feasted, low growls coming from his throat.
“Mags, babe, I need your cock,” I rasped, feeling my climax build.
“Call me ‘babe’ again, Firefly,” he begged on a groan, licking my clit lightly.
I let out a sound of frustration. “Give me your cock.”
“Call me ‘babe.’”
“Not until you’re inside me,” I pushed out, pulling his hair.
“Not done with my meal, gorgeous,” he grunted before he latched onto me again.
I whimpered, my thighs shaking, my orgasm nearly there. This one was going to be stronger than the last four, and I didn’t know if I would survive it. My eyes closed as I lost control, fucking his face erratically as I gasped for air, one hand going to my breast, kneading it. He grunted against me, and I bent my head, finding his eyes, the wicked gleam within them, and I was gone.
My head shot back, sinking into the mountain of pillows as I rasped, “Yes, yes, yes. Babe, yes!”
I was still floating, my body still trembling when I felt his heat hovering over me. A second later, I felt his piercing against my overstimulated clit, causing my body to jerk. I lifted my eyelids open, finding my cowboy staring down at me, my cum all over his short beard. “Could eat that cunt for a lifetime and I still wouldn’t be satisfied,” he rumbled, shifting his hips.
I whimpered, lifting my sore ones, seeking him out.
“Put my cock in your pussy, Diana,” he ordered.
Without hesitation, I reached down between us, my hand eagerly searching for his length. My fingers wrapped around it, feeling it’s hard weight as I moaned, bringing it to my entrance. He held himself there, not moving, and my eyes shot up to his. “Please,” I pleaded, lifting my head to brush my lips with his.
Suddenly, my head was back down, his hand wrapped around my throat, his lips at my ear. “When I fill you, you tell me how much you love your cowboy.”
“Yes,” I gasped, his fingers flexing.
“You tell your cowboy how much you love his pierced cock, yeah?” he growled, his teeth nipping my ear lobe, and goosebumps scattered across my flesh.
I nodded.
He slammed inside, sliding all the way home.
I gave him what he wanted. “I love you, Mags,” I breathed, my arms going around his neck. “I love you so much.”
Another harsh growl left him, his hands going down to my hips, pinning me in place. He pulled out and slammed back in again. “You love me, Firefly?”
“So much,” I pushed out.
Thrust . “You love my body?”
“Yes.”
Thrust. “You love my cock?”
“Yes!”
“You love all of me?” he asked, his voice shaking as he pulled back, meeting my eyes.
“Every part of you,” I whispered, his hips moving steady now. “Even the parts you haven’t shown me yet.”
He dropped his face back into my neck, but I didn’t miss the look in his eyes. His hands moved up from my hips, snaking underneath me as I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling this scar on the left side against my thigh. I turned my head, pressing my lips to his ear. “I love you, all of you, Mags,” I whispered, emotion clogging my throat.
His hips moved faster, chasing his own climax as I held on, telling him how much I loved him, stroking his hair. When he finally reached his peak, he gave me the words I’d been longing to hear.
I love you, Firefly.