27. TWENTY SEVEN
TWENTY SEVEN
GARRETT
“Please tell me you aren’t throwing rocks at my window like in a really cheesy romance movie.” Her shouted whisper carried down to me, humor lacing her tone. Just hearing it soothed the steady ache that had taken residence since our fight in her living room.
I let the pebbles fall to the ground and whisper-shouted back to her. “Okay. I’m not throwing rocks at your window like in a really cheesy romance movie.”
Her eye roll wasn’t visible from where I stood in the grass below, but I didn’t need to see it to know she did it.
“What are you doing here? It’s almost two in the morning! I thought you’d be sleeping!”
“I haven’t been sleeping all that great. Can I come in?”
I held my breath and waited for her response. To be honest, I had no idea where Cory stood with her thoughts or feelings toward me at the moment. But to be even more honest, I didn’t care. A week had gone by and I hadn’t heard from her once, good or bad. She forwarded all of my calls to voicemail and ignored all of my text messages. And I knew she’d read them due to the fact that the little hellion had her read receipts on because she was the type of person that didn’t care if you knew that she was ignoring you or not. It was torture, and I was tired of going through the motions every day with a Cory sized hole in my chest.
I’d given her space, now I was going to be selfish.
“Yeah. Go to the front. I’ll be down in a second.”
I waited at her door for only a moment before she unlocked and swung it open. Seeing her in person calmed me, as if I needed to confirm with my own eyes that she was okay for myself to be okay.
Her hair was a disheveled river of black, stopping just above her hips. She had dark circles under her eyes as if she had slept as little as I had.
“I was going to call you tomorrow,” she said, closing the door behind me once we were both inside.
“I couldn’t wait any longer.”
She looked sheepish, and the part of me that had been iced out and left wondering if we were going to make it past this or not, kind of enjoyed her discomfort. The other, much larger part of me that wasn’t a petty ass, felt guilty I was causing her more pain than she was already in.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready to talk to you yet, and then Levine called and I just—” She cut herself off and looked at me with a strange expression. “Why are you in your work pants? ”
I looked down, noticing for the first time that I was, in fact, in my uniform pants. That explained why my pants felt heavy; I hadn’t emptied all the pockets of my work things.
“I grabbed the closest pair of pants I could find when I made the impulse decision to come over here.” I shrugged, not giving a damn about what pants I was wearing. I wasn’t here to talk about my late night wardrobe choices.
“Right. Well do you, uh, want a beer or something?” she asked, already walking toward the kitchen. She was nervous, barely making eye contact with me.
“If I wanted a beer, I would’ve gone to a bar. I came here for you, Cory.”
A heavy sigh left her lips and she pulled a stool out at her kitchen island, motioning for me to take the other. I swung a leg over and turned to face her, but her eyes were glued to the granite countertop. Seconds ticked by while I waited for her to say something, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion.
“I’m sorry, Garrett.” She looked up to me, her brown eyes filled with a sadness that twisted my heart. “I am so sorry. I never should’ve spoken to you like that—yelled, really. I never should’ve yelled at you. You were only trying to help and do your job, I just really, really didn’t want to believe you.”
I opened my mouth. “Cory, it’s—”
“Don’t tell me it’s fine. It is so far from fine. You want to know what the most embarrassing part about it all is?” The chuckle that left her lungs was sharp and humorless. “It took me all of thirty seconds after you told me your suspicion to dismiss you and defend her. Her. The woman who has been nothing but spiteful, manipulative, and unsupportive for most of my life. I chose to believe the best in her even though she’s only ever shown me the worst, and yet you . . . I told you my dream of opening a tattoo shop and you called it beautiful. Beautiful. No one has ever called it that, but you did. You’ve seen me at my worst and still chose me. Me. Not as I could be, or as I might’ve been, but as I am.”
Her eyes pooled with tears, and she looked away for a moment. I placed a hand on her knee, gently rubbing soothing circles with my thumb.
The next bit was directed at the kitchen counter. “I didn’t want it to be her, you know? She’s a bitch, and she can be cruel, but she’s still my mom. She was the one that used to put my hair into a bun for my recitals. At one point, she cared. She cared about me.”
Cory wiped at a tear that slid down her cheek, sniffled, and then sat up straighter, turning her attention back to me.
“Anyway, that’s where my head was at when we had our fight. That’s why I lashed out at you. It’s not an excuse for what I said or how I acted, but I had to explain. I’m so sorry, Garrett.”
“Are you finished?”
Shock colored her expression at the gruffness of my tone, but I softened it with a smile.
“Cory, I didn’t come over here tonight for an apology. I knew the second I pieced it all together that it was going to be a tough pill for you to swallow. Part of me didn’t even want to tell you what I was thinking until I knew for certain it was the truth, but I figured that would’ve gone over worse. ”
She nodded in agreement, a small smile dancing across her lips.
“If the situation was reversed, I probably would’ve been equally heartbroken and angry. The fact that your mother did something like this to you fucking tore me up inside, and she’s not even my mom. I can’t even begin to imagine how much that hurt you. I shouldn’t have started our morning with that first thing, and I definitely should’ve waited until your hangry ass had eaten first.” The joke gets the laugh I was going for. “What I’m saying is, you don’t need to apologize to me.”
“Then you just came over this late to . . . what?”
My hand came up to cup her face. “I came over to, one, make sure you were okay. And two, because I missed you, Cory. The last week without seeing or talking to you, without knowing where we stood, wrecked me.”
“I missed you, too. I’m sorry I kicked you out.” Her voice was a soft whisper, and her eyes dropped to my lips.
I bent down so our faces were just breaths apart, humming my agreement. “For that, I will actually take an apology.”
“I really am sor—”
I silenced her with a kiss. Our mouths moved slowly at first, as if we were reacquainting ourselves with the familiar touch of the other, but then my restraint snapped. The fire in my blood had me deepening the kiss, wanting more. I bit at her lower lip before pulling away and tipping her head further back, my hand sliding from the side of her face to the front of her throat. I squeezed lightly and watched as she squirmed in her seat, her eyes darkening .
“Oh, I don’t want your words. I want you to show me how sorry you are.”
A mischievous smirk curved her lips, and she pulled out of my hold, preparing to sink to her knees, when I stopped her by the wrist. I pulled her into the space between my legs, not letting go of the gentle hold I had on her.
“Do you remember what I said to you after we slept together?” I asked, my cock growing hard from the memory of that night and her proximity to me.
When she didn’t answer, I pulled her arm behind her back in a swift motion and snapped the handcuffs I’d pulled from my pocket around her slender wrist before doing the same to the other.
Her eyes flared wide, and she twisted to look at where she now stood handcuffed. When she turned to look at me again, her expression was pure lust.
“I said no running. I said you had to let me in. That you were mine,” I said the words in a low voice. “And what did you do, Cory?”
Her teeth tugged at her lower lip as she fought a smile, trying to play along. “I pushed you away.”
I shook my head slightly, attempting to conjure up disappointment when my need for her was begging me to stop messing around. “Failure to obey an officer.”
I trailed slow kisses over the jut of her collarbone and up the side of her neck, stopping just below her ear.
“What should your punishment be? ”
Her pulse was erratic under my mouth, and she moaned as I sucked on her neck hard enough to leave a mark. A savage part of me liked that—that she was marked as mine.
My thumbs slipped past the waistband of her sweats, but I stopped, giving her a look that asked if this was okay. When she nodded, I shoved them down her hips, helping her step out of them, and then took her in.
She was beautiful.
Absolutely fucking gorgeous.
She stood before me in a T-shirt and nothing else, her cheeks tinged red and her eyes wild with desire and anticipation. And her legs. Those legs starred in every single one of my fantasies.
It was that thought that determined her punishment. I needed her thighs wrapped around my head like a vice.
I stood wordlessly and lifted her up onto the counter. She watched as I dragged a stool over to sit directly between her legs, and then I lowered myself onto it, hands sliding up and down her smooth skin.
I locked eyes with her. “You don’t come until I say so. If you do, we start over until you learn to follow an order. Do you understand?”
Bossing Cory around in any situation other than the bedroom, or the kitchen as it were, would never fly, and I wouldn’t dream of trying it.
But here?
Here it drove her wild.
She nodded again, but when I quirked an expectant eyebrow at her she amended in a breathy voice. “Yes, sir. ”
“Good girl.”
I didn’t waste any time before I lowered my head and swiped my tongue through her folds roughly, her tangy sweetness making my erection throb.
She gasped, hips jerking toward my mouth.
“So fucking good, baby,” I murmured before repeating the motion again.
I swirled my tongue around the tight bud of her clit and then sucked it into my mouth, alternating between stroking and flicking. Her moans filled the room as I slid a finger into her wet heat and then quickly added a second, her pussy clamping down around them.
“Fuck, Garrett! Oh my god, like that,” she whimpered, falling backward against the island, arching her back so the cuffs didn’t dig in.
“Don’t even think about coming. I only just started,” I growled before continuing to devour her, my fingers pumping in and out of her at a faster pace.
Her head thrashed from side to side on the granite. “I can’t. I need—”
“You can, and you’ll take exactly what I give you.”
I slowed my ministrations, purposefully edging her, letting her ride the overload of sensations at being denied her release. Then I’d eat her and fuck her with my fingers the way I knew she liked, only to do it all over again. Her needy moans were mixed with desperate pleas, her thighs quivering on either side of my face, but to her credit, she didn’t give in .
In the end, it was my own selfish need to be inside her that had me taking mercy on her. I plunged my fingers in and out of her as I lavished her clit with my tongue.
“Come for me, Cory.”
My thumb brushed against the tight hole of her ass, and she exploded.
“Garrett!”
The warmth of her orgasm coated my fingers before I pulled them out abruptly, hauling her up over my shoulder and carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom.
Setting her down, I reached into my pocket with one hand and pulled out the cuff key. I unlocked the handcuffs and let them clatter to the floor. Our hands were on each other in an instant, pulling at each other's shirts, her undoing the button on my pants.
With our clothes discarded, I grabbed her wrists, placing gentle kisses over the red marks the handcuffs had left, and then gently lowered her to the bed. I hovered above her, our eyes locked on each other.
“I need you inside me, Garrett. Now. Please.”
I claimed her mouth with mine, lining myself up at her entrance and burying my cock to the hilt in one hard thrust.
Our moans were silenced by the kiss we refused to break, her tongue dancing with mine as I slid in and out of her pussy. I tried to start slow, but her walls gripped my dick so tightly I lost all control, slamming into her over and over. She was so tight, so hot and slick, and with every stroke, her perfect tits bounced tantalizingly.
I lowered my head to her breast, capturing the hard peak of her nipple between my teeth. Her nails dug into my shoulders and she let out a whimpered, “More.” My tongue swirled around the cool metal of her piercing, toying with it as her cries got louder.
“You beg so fucking pretty, Cory.” My voice was gravelly.
I pulled out completely, and in one fluid motion, flipped her over, slipping an arm around her midsection to pull her up onto her knees. I rubbed my cock along her slit once, twice, before shoving forcefully back into her pussy.
Sex with Cory was always mind-blowing, but this? This was something else.
The way my hips slammed against the rounded curve of her ass, the sounds she made as she clawed at the sheets. It was ecstasy.
Winding her hair around my hand, I pulled back on the silky strands until her head was against my chest, her face upturned toward mine.
“Garrett, please!”
My other hand reached around, fingers strumming her clit with the right amount of pressure to have her orgasm tearing through her moments later.
I silenced her screams, crashing my lips into hers. Her walls clenched and spasmed around my cock as I drove into her over and over again, chasing my own release that followed a moment later.
We collapsed onto the mattress, gasping for breath and staring at each other. I brought my hand up to cup the side of her face and she turned into it, eyes closing for a moment. When she opened them again, I brought my lips down to capture hers in a tender, lingering kiss. It was worlds away from the kisses we’d shared only moments before, but it was just as heated.
She broke away, eyes roaming my face before settling back on mine. “I love you.”
I smiled deeply. “You sure this time?”
“Yes. I’m very sure.” Her quiet laughter made my heart feel lighter. “But you should know that I’m probably going to screw up a bunch. I’m terrible at letting people in and I’ve got a bad temper—”
My laughter echoed in the dark of her bedroom. “You don’t say?”
She swatted at my chest playfully, ignoring my dig. “But I want you. I want you more than anything. Life is just outlines without you in it. You fill every part of my day, every part of me with color, and I don’t ever want to lose you again.”
I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and pulled her firmly against me. “I’m yours, Cory. I’ve been yours since that first night. Nothing you do will ever scare me off. I’m so in love with you, I might actually be worse than Hayes.”
She snorted out a giggle. “No one is worse than Hayes.”
That might’ve been true, but as I held Cory in my arms, both of us drifting off to sleep in the early hours of the morning, I couldn’t see how someone could feel anything more than the immense, all-consuming adoration I had for her, and still have a heart that fit in their chest.