Chapter 5
five
Sloane
I get my hands in his shirt and pull him in. He makes a low sound against my mouth and walks me back against the kitchen wall, one hand flat beside my head, and I feel the full solid length of him against me and think: finally.
"Bedroom?" I say, against his jaw.
"Upstairs," he says. "Yeah."
He doesn't rush getting there either, his mouth on my throat the whole way up, and I drag him through the door by his shirt.
His room is plain: white walls, bare wood floor, a window looking over the east garden. He turns me to face him and takes the hem of my shirt in both hands, a question in his eyes. I lift my arms.
Everett takes my shirt off, folds it and sets it on the chair. I would have dropped it and that small careful thing does something to me I don't expect.
His hands come back, warm and certain, running from my shoulders down my sides. He reaches around and unclasps my bra, drops it and then he just looks at me, all of me.
He's broad and brown from working outdoors. I get my palms flat on his chest and feel the heat of him, the specific roughness of his skin, and I pull him toward the bed by his belt loops.
"Sloane," he says.
"I know," I say. "Come here."
He tips me back onto the mattress and comes down over me and I reach for him and pull him in, and his weight settles and his mouth finds my throat.
I let out a grumble because I am done being patient about any of this.
But, he is not done being patient. This man is determined to make me beg.
He takes his time at my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder, his stubble dragging against my skin in a way that makes me dig my fingers into his back.
When his mouth closes over my nipple I make a sound that echoes in the bare room and he does it again until I've got both hands in his hair and I'm pressing up into him and grinding against face.
"Everett." I barely recognize my own voice.
"Mm." Against my skin. Not stopping.
His hand slides down my stomach and past the waistband of my underwear and his fingers find me and I stop making sentences. He strokes me through the cotton — slow, deliberate, already reading exactly how worked up I am — and I make a sound into his shoulder.
"Already," he says. Like he's noting something that pleases him considerably. "Don't say already, you've been…?" He moves his fingers.
He gets my underwear off and comes back and this time there's nothing between his hand and my pussy and I can't be quiet about it.
He parts me with two fingers, slow, and I feel exactly how wet I am and so does he and then he slides both fingers inside me and curls them and just holds the pressure there, completely still, watching my face while I clench around him.
He fingers me with slow, deep strokes, his thumb finding my clit with unerring accuracy and working it in tight circles, and I'm gripping his wrist and rocking against his hand before I've decided to.
He adds more pressure. He doesn't speed up.
He holds the exact pace that has me halfway out of my mind and stays there, watching every second of it, until I'm saying his name on a loop and my thighs are shaking.
"Tell me," he says.
"Don't stop," I say. "Right there, don't — don't stop!"
He doesn't stop. He works me open with those broad, calloused fingers, his thumb relentless on my clit, and I come with my back arching off the mattress and a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a scream.
He holds me through it. Then his hands slide down my thighs and he puts his mouth on me and I stop breathing, helpless in the best way.
His tongue moves slow and certain and I've got both hands back in his hair and I'm saying things I'll be embarrassed about later, please and there and his name over and over, and when I come again it's quieter and deeper and I'm shaking when it's done.
He presses a kiss to the inside of my knee, then climbs back up and looks at me.
I pull him down by the back of his neck. "Your turn."
I get his belt open and his jeans off and wrap my hand around his cock. He's thick and already hard and the low sound he makes when I stroke him goes directly through me.
"Sloane." A warning. "Give me a minute."
"You didn't give me a minute."
I pull him between my thighs and feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against my entrance, and I exhale and tilt my hips up.
He pushes in slowly. I feel the thick stretch of him opening me up, the heat, the slow relentless slide and I make a sound that isn't a word and he stills halfway, watching my face.
"Still with me?" he asks. Completely steady.
"More," I say. "Don't stop."
He goes the rest of the way and I wrap my legs around him and he stills again, both hands framing my face, forehead pressed to mine, breathing.
Everett groans and sets a pace that is exactly designed to take me apart — deep and measured, each stroke hitting somewhere that makes my toes curl, and I'm gripping his shoulders and talking before I know I'm doing it.
There, like that, don't change it. He listens.
He doesn't change it. His cock fills me completely with every thrust and I feel it everywhere and his hands are braced either side of my head and his eyes are on my face, not looking away, not anywhere else.
"Faster," I say.
He gives me what I'm asking for.
The pace he sets then is not patient. His hips drive into me and the headboard finds the wall and neither of us is quiet and I am completely, entirely nowhere but here: this man, this bed, the slick heat of us together, the fullness of him inside me with every stroke.
I feel myself tightening around his cock and he feels it too because his rhythm stutters and his breath goes ragged.
"Christ," he says, rough. "Sloane!"
I come with my thighs locked around him and his name in my mouth and my whole body arching up, clenching hard around him, and he follows immediately, one deep thrust and then his whole body going rigid, his face buried in my neck, my name on a rough exhale as he shudders and comes inside me.
He rolls to his back and pulls me into his side without asking, and I go, which is not something I usually do.
I'm a retreat-to-my-own-side person, always have been.
Except apparently right now what I need is the weight of his arm and the sound of his heartbeat slowing down and the smell of him all around me, because I settle against his chest and feel immediately, completely right.
Neither of us talks.
The window is open and the rain has stopped.
I'm crying. Quietly, barely — two or three tears tracking sideways into my hair. I notice them and Everett notices them too. I feel it in how his arm tightens around me, just slightly, and he doesn't make a thing of it.
"Sorry," I say.
"Don't apologise for it."
"It's not sad," I say. "I just—" The sentence doesn't have an ending I can reach. "I don't think anyone's ever—" I breathe out. The tears stop. I feel scraped clean in the best possible way, like the garden after rain.
Then there's a thud at the foot of the bed. A pause. Fig materialises from nowhere, walks up the duvet like she owns every inch of it and sits directly on my feet.
I laugh.
"She never comes up here," he says.
"She's making a point." I reach down and scratch her ears. Fig begins to purr like a small engine, entirely unembarrassed. "She's right. This is also her bed."
I lie with his arm around me and his cat on my feet and the post-storm light going warm on the walls, and I think: here. This is what here feels like.