Chapter Thirty-Five
L andon carried me to his room, and as soon as the door closed behind us, I tugged at Landon’s shirt.
My eagerness grew with the added privacy. The separation between his room and the others. Even if one day it’d be gone. Even if one day I’d want this with each of them—all of them—for right now, in this moment…I just wanted him.
And that meant his clothes needed to go.
I yanked the fabric up, needing it gone. Needing to feel his skin on mine. Needing him .
I writhed in his hold, but his hands ran over my body, gripping my ass, seizing the back of my neck as he plunged his tongue into my mouth. He wouldn’t let me go long enough to free him from his shirt.
So, I did the only thing I could.
I pulled my top up and over my head. Reaching behind my back to unclasp my bra, our eyes locked as I removed it and tossed it away.
Memories of that night filled the space between us.
Play your cards right, and I might let you get to second base… His lips twitched with a smile, and he palmed my breasts, kneading and stroking his thumbs over my nipples.
They hardened under his touch, and he groaned, reclaiming my lips before kissing his way down my neck. Nipping at my collarbone, he sent shivers up my spine.
Until he couldn’t go farther without letting me go.
“Landon,” I panted, rocking my hips. “I need you.”
He whispered against my lips , one hand stroking up my spine to bury in my hair. “As you wish.”
He rushed over to the bed and gently dropped me onto it. Admiring me as I settled onto the mattress.
And as he stared hungrily at my bare breasts, I couldn’t resist. “See anything you like?”
His half-smile made my heart flutter. “Such a sexy bunny.”
My pussy clenched as he covered my body with his. His hands wove in my hair. His mouth crashed into mine. Flooding my body with desire.
I thought I wouldn’t feel it again. I thought we wouldn’t get to have this again. And I hooked my legs around him and pulled him close.
Refusing to let him go.
Savoring every inch of me, taking his time, he explored my bare skin. He slowly worked his way to my breasts. And when his lips sealed over my nipple, I cried out.
His tongue, every urgent lick and wet pull, sent me into a frenzy beneath him. My heart raced, my core tightening as desire pulsed through me.
I needed his skin on mine.
Yanking his shirt up and over his head, I freed him and trailed my fingers over the tattoo on his hip. Tracing between the lines of his abs. Before I quickly undid his pants.
“Quinn,” he groaned against my lips, teeth sinking into my lower lip as I took him in my hand.
His cock throbbed in my palm. He hardened more with every tight pass of my hand. The need to make him come undone strengthened my grip.
Squeezing him tightly as I stroked, I stared up at him. “Come here or flip us over.”
His brow dipped in confusion.
“I want you…in my mouth. I want to taste you.”
A feral growl tore from his throat. He pulled back. Tearing my leggings off my body, he threw them on the floor. Staring down at me with hooded eyes, lust— love —swirled in his dark amber gaze.
He crawled up my body and knelt beside my head. Stroking my cheek as I turned toward him, he gave me what I wanted. Sliding his cock past my parted lips, I swirled my tongue over him. He stroked my clit.
I moaned, sucking him in deeper. Twisting my upper body, I grabbed his hips and urged him to give me more. To thrust harder. With every expert strum of his fingers, my core tightened. And I wanted more.
He pistoned his hips as I swallowed around him. His hips jerked, and he hit the back of my throat. My throat clenched and squeezed tight.
Muttering a curse, he pulled back. Breathing hard, staring at me like he wanted to drive his hips inside my mouth over and over until he came.
And I wanted him to.
“Are you?—”
“I’m okay. Don’t stop.”
As I reached for his cock, he drove two fingers into my pussy. He held his hips back and out of reach. Panting, I grabbed his wrist. I tried to tug him toward me.
He pinned my wrists above my head, holding me down as my hips bucked into his hand.
“Does my Lady want to come?”
His voice was sinful, the taunting tone lighting up my body.
“Yes,” I panted. “I want to come. But only if you come with me.”
A small smile tipped up the corner of his mouth. “Then, be a good girl and don’t move those hands.”
He pressed my wrists into the mattress as he bent forward. Kissing my lips once before descending my body.
He tugged my clothes off my feet and threw them off the bed. Every open-mouthed kiss he trailed up my calf, my thighs, before slowly making his way to my pussy pooled desire between my legs. I wanted his touch, his mouth on me, so badly I ached.
My breaths came out in ragged gasps as he hovered, his face inches from my clit, and he released a soft exhale. It fluttered over my pussy, tightening everything inside me. Lifting my head and unlocking my hands. Instinctively, I tried to reach for him.
He nipped my thigh with his teeth, and I yelped.
His eyes anchored to mine. “Don’t be a bad girl.”
My voice came out breathless, needy and taunting. “What if I want to be punished, oh gallant Knight of mine?”
At that word, he sealed his mouth over me. Licking one hot path up my slit, he latched onto my clit and sucked.
“Oh, fuck!” I rocked my hips toward him. I couldn’t keep them on the bed.
He flipped us over, his hot, wet mouth never leaving my pussy. Hands gripping my thighs, he held me there on his face.
My pussy throbbed. Arousal pulsed through me, and I arched my back. Taking his cock in my hand, I stroked in time with the movement of his tongue.
Every kiss and rush filled me with the need for more. “Landon, I need you inside me.”
He only worked harder.
And when I came apart, he didn’t stop. He slipped his fingers inside me, crooking them to stroke my deepest inner walls until I cried out again.
When my body shuddered through the final wave of climax, he released me. Unlocking my thighs from around his neck, he kissed my leg and sat up.
He reached for the bedside drawer and grabbed his wallet, holding it in his hands and glancing back at me. “We can wait, Quinn. I’m not leaving you again. I promise. There’s no rush.”
I pushed up onto my elbows while he stared at the foil wrapper. With the slight dip between his eyebrows as his jaw worked furiously, I sensed where his mind had gone, but I had to be sure.
“Landon, we don’t have to if you want to wait, too. If you don’t want?—”
“I want you more than anything,” he said fiercely, his eyes instantly back on mine. “I just don’t want you to regret?—”
I pushed up farther, rising so I could reach him and take his hand. “I don’t regret anything that happened. I told you?—”
“You don’t hate me, but still your first time…it was supposed to be different. After everything that happened with the accident, I never wanted you to feel like it was a mistake. You were supposed to have a choice, and you didn’t ask for what I did that day.”
“No, I definitely didn’t,” I laughed.
Because, that one, I couldn’t sugarcoat.
“But that doesn’t mean I regret choosing you. You gave me everything I wanted in one moment, things I never imagined wanting again. I couldn’t regret that even when my heart was broken over what you did. But I’m obviously way smarter than you all gave me credit for because…you watched me all the time. You saw me. But I saw you, too.”
His dark amber eyes had changed the minute the word no had left his lips. How he’d stared at me, agony etched into his features so deeply that, even as I stared past him and pretended I couldn’t see, I did.
How his hands shook then, as he took his place by my side.
How they still shook now.
“I want us to let it go and move forward. So, you can put that condom on, or I can do it for you. But I’m warning you, I haven’t done that before, so chances are it breaks, and then I’ll be pissed at you.”
He fought a smile, but I got him to cave. “That won’t do.”
“What?”
Handing me the foil packet, he ordered softly, “Open it.”
Holding his gaze, I ripped it open and pulled out the condom. He swallowed deeply as his erection jutted toward me. Taking it in his hand, he stroked up and down as he watched me.
I wet my lips and stared, transfixed by the slow glide of his hand, wrapped so tightly around what I wanted. Tearing my eyes away, I searched his face for what to do next.
“Squeeze the tip there, on the condom, and hold it while you roll the end over me.”
I swallowed. Lining up the condom, I did as he said, rolling one end over the head.
“That’s it.” He bit back a groan when I didn’t release him, sliding his hand down to the base to give me room to work the condom over his length. “Fuck. That feels so much better when you do it.”
I squeezed him, just slightly, as I went. He hissed and sucked in a breath as I worked it all the way down. He checked the condom, explaining something about how to make sure there wasn’t air trapped, and all of that sounded interesting and super important, but he’d have to explain it again later.
Now that the condom was on, my attention was elsewhere.
“Lie back, beautiful.”
He kissed his way up my body and stole my lips for one breathtaking kiss as he notched his cock at my entrance, teasing my clit before he lined up.
I tensed reflexively and he froze.
Pulling his head down, I pressed it to mine. “Ask me.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m ready. I’m yours. I?—”
He sank in slowly, filling me up in one gentle thrust. I cried out at the fullness, clutching his neck. Clenching around him as he held himself steady above me.
Arms straining with tension, he gave me time to adjust… He braced over me as I breathed in deep and let it out slowly. When I nodded that I was ready, he drew nearly all the way out before gliding back in.
My walls clenched around him.
“That’s it. Breathe, beautiful.” He kissed my lips, then my cheeks, whispering, “Such a good girl, taking me so well.”
He set a steady pace, his hips moving fluidly to connect us over and over again. I held onto him as each deep stroke coiled pleasure low in my belly.
And he never stopped whispering in my ear, feeding me affirmations of his love as urgently as he filled my body. “Our bodies were made for this.”
A tear escaped the corner of my eye but not because it hurt. Because I knew he didn’t mean it the way he said it to me once before. I felt it, too.
“But I was made for you.”
And I believed him.
He kissed me, his tongue driving past my lips to explore my mouth. Coaxing a moan from my throat. “Made to draw those sounds out of your perfect mouth.”
He snaked his hand under my ass, hitching my hips up higher as he drove deep inside me. Bottoming out with each thrust, he struck my clit at this new angle.
I clawed at his back. “More.”
“Made to test every limit you think you have.”
Smoothing his fingers over the curve of my ass, he pressed between them. Slow, tight circles urged me to relax. Silently asking me to let him in.
And I did.
His words and the rush of his breath against my ear, the way he filled me completely made my walls flutter around him, rippling tension through my core.
“And made to make you come apart.”
I whimpered. “Landon. Kiss me, please.”
He complied easily, all too willingly. The stroke of his tongue against mine matched the thrust of his cock. He touched places no one had reached, shattered walls no one had broken through, but him.
And it didn’t feel like failing to let him back in, it didn’t feel like weakness.
It felt like the fault had been whatever tore us apart. But it hadn’t been enough to keep us from finding a way back. Nothing could.
Because he wouldn’t stand for it.
And my faith hadn’t been misplaced.
Joined together, as our bodies moved as one, we’d found our way back to each other. No matter what came next, I knew.
We’d find our way out of the dark.
As he maintained his steady pace, my legs tightened around him. Arms looped around his neck, I pulled him close. Lifting my hips. Urging him to move faster. And crying out with pleasure as he fucked me into the bed.
Snaking a hand between our bodies, he strummed my clit with his fingers. Pressure built where we aligned.
I had to release it.
“Let go, beautiful. I’ve got you.”
I screamed, everything tightening to a crest before breaking apart. My heart raced as my orgasm coursed through me. My walls clenched and fluttered around his cock as he sank in for one final thrust.
He groaned into my neck. Burying his face in my hair, he shuddered through his climax. As he collapsed on the bed beside me, his arms banded around my back and held me tightly. His lips pressed against my head, my skin, murmuring words I couldn’t hear past the rush of blood in my ears.
But they soothed me just the same.
We lay there for a long time, holding each other and trying to catch our breath before he reluctantly withdrew. He left my side only long enough to remove the condom and grab a washcloth from the bathroom. My lips twitched with a smile at the familiarity of it.
When he came back into the room, he took care of me the way he always did. Making sure I was okay, asking if I hurt anywhere, and cleaning me up while I got to lie there and bask in the afterglow. And before he climbed back into bed with me, he gave me a surprise.
A piece of me he’d held onto.
While I’d been holding onto him.
He pulled it from his top drawer and carried it over to me. Scratching behind his ear, he held it out for me with a sheepish grin on his face. “This…might belong to you.”
My jaw dropped, and I snatched it from him in my surprise. “You didn’t burn it!”
He shook his head, sitting beside me. “I found it flung up on top of the bookcase, of all places. I told myself I’d give it back to you, but…I couldn’t.”
I loosened my death grip on the grumpy cat sleep shirt and held out my hand. He took it, squeezing it as he slid back under the covers and pulled me into his arms again.
“You secretly loved it the whole time, didn’t you? Just admit it.” I smiled, and with the shirt snuggled between us, I burrowed into his chest.
“Of course, I did,” he murmured into my hair, kissing my head as he squeezed me tight. “How could I not?”
Happiness filled my face and my heart—so big, it hurt in the best way. It blocked out any room for fear with hope—any room for darkness with its light.