Chapter 82
JORDAN
Bea stays at Holly and Jeff’s that night, and when we get home, Tate’s lips come to my neck as he leads me upstairs to his room.
“Thank you for being there tonight,” he says between kisses, yanking my dress off as we cross the threshold of his room.
Moonlight streams in through the windows, the stars sparkling in the dark sky.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” I’m breathless as I unbutton his shirt. My bra is somewhere on the floor, and his hands are on my breasts, weighing them and toying with my nipples, tugging a line of sensation that goes straight to my center.
“I know.” He kisses me hard, moaning into my mouth. “But it meant a lot, that you were there.”
I try not to think about what this all means, that Holly and Jeff were so welcoming, that everyone clearly knows something is going on between Tate and me, Bea included, and that celebrating her tenth birthday made my heart explode into tiny little pieces of happiness.
“Didn’t it?” he asks, pulling back to study me, his hands coming to my face as he searches my eyes.
The realization grows inside me, unstoppable and illuminating.
I’m falling in love with Tate, and I think he’s falling in love with me, too. All of this feels so different and easy, like I’m where I’m meant to be. Like I belong with him and Bea.
I don’t want to walk away at the end of playoffs. I don’t see how I could. I want to stay with them and be a part of their family.
He could change his mind, though. People do that. People don’t show up when you expect them to. People let you down.
“Didn’t it mean something?” he asks again, softer this time.
I don’t want to think about the scary stuff, right now. I just want to enjoy this. I just want to fall a little deeper. At my core, I know I’ll never feel like this about anyone again.
And I don’t want to waste a moment of it.
“Yes,” I whisper. “It meant something.”
Satisfied, he kisses me before his lips move across my jaw, down my neck, sucking on the sensitive spot where my neck and shoulder meet.
Even though I know his body, I explore it again, every toned muscle, every ab, the trail of chest hair leading into his waistband.
When I tug his pants down an inch, his breath catches, and when I slide my hand over the straining ridge of his erection, he groans against my skin.
“I need your mouth,” he begs.
I’m already on my knees. His pants are already off, erection jutting out as I run my tongue up and down his length, watching his eyelids grow heavy and his expression of disbelief and pleasure.
“Yes,” he hisses, head falling back as my cheeks hollow out from suction, and he grows even harder.
Tate doesn’t need encouragement to take his pleasure this time, and within a minute, his hands come to my hair, his hips begin to thrust, and curses fall from his lips.
His eyes are impossibly dark, as he stands above me like a god, and he alternates saying my name like a prayer and praising me for how good I am, how perfect, how beautiful.
How spectacular my mouth feels, how he’s going to come so hard and how he’s going to make me come so hard in return.
It doesn’t take long to get him there, and to my relief, he doesn’t try to stop. His orgasm seizes him, hard and fast, and he fucks my mouth, moaning as he releases. My gaze stays glued to his as I swallow, arousal gathering between my legs, pounding through my blood, prickling across my skin.
This is what I am for—making Tate Ward come.
“Holy fuck,” he mutters, catching his breath, looking at me like I’m an angel sent from heaven as I swallow the last of it. “It just keeps getting better.”
His arms come to my waist and he swings me onto the bed, two thick fingers sinking into me easily from how turned on I am, and a high, startled moan scrapes out of me as heat arcs up my spine.
Tate lowers his mouth between my legs and latches onto my clit.
My entire body seizes, my hands fisted in his hair and my toes curled.
“Wait,” I gasp. He pauses, meeting my eyes, and I bite my bottom lip, an urgent, aching feeling pooling between my legs. “Not this. I need more. I need all of you.” I take a deep breath, holding his eyes. “I don’t want to wait anymore, Tate.”
He’s been holding back, never letting us go all the way, but I can’t wait anymore.
I glance down at his erection and raise an eyebrow at him. “I thought old guys had a long refractory period.”
He laughs. “Not with you.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
He runs a hand through his hair and I worry he’s going to deny himself yet again, but he stands and opens the nightstand. He pulls a box of condoms out of his bedside table and tears it open before unwrapping one and rolling it over himself.
I give him a teasing look. “Did you check the expiration on those?”
He smirks. “I bought them the week you moved in, so we’re good.”
Another wave of heat moves through me. Even back then, he was thinking about this.
“How do you want it?” he asks, climbing over me.
“I want you on top,” I admit. “I want you to take me however you need.”
His jaw tightens and he exhales hard, like he’s struggling. “I’m going to fuck you into the mattress, honey.”
I smile, a rush of relief in my veins. “I want that, too. That’s exactly what I want.”
Tate Ward, uninhibited. Feeling safe enough with me to let himself enjoy me.
He laughs helplessly before looking down between us and rubbing the tip of his cock down my center. My breath catches, my lips part, and I make an embarrassing oh whimper as he presses delicious friction to my clit.
The noise breaks the last remnants of his control, because he lines himself up with me. With heavy eyelids and a frown of concentration, he studies my face as he nudges inside.
An intensely full feeling spreads through me as he pushes inside, half-pleasure and half-pain. Slowly, he pulls out and presses back in.
“Too much?” he asks.
“Yes,” I manage, arching. “Too big. Way too big.” But when he starts to pull back, I tighten my grip on his back, my nails digging into his skin. “It’s good,” I rush out. “It’s so good, Tate.”
“Your nails,” he groans. “That alone is going to make me come.”
“Keep going,” I beg, and he nods, breathing hard like he’s struggling.
Slowly, way too fucking slowly, he pushes inside me until the feeling of his cock is so overwhelming I can barely breathe.
“Still okay?” His voice is hoarse, and I nod, tilting my hips to get him deeper. “You are so fucking tight,” he says, swallowing, his eyes on me. “So fucking tight and warm and wet. Better than I even dreamed.”
His words send more electricity through my blood, more heat pooling around the base of my spine, and he shudders as my muscles clamp around him.
Tate spends a few agonizing minutes letting me adjust to him—he won’t go fast no matter how hard I plead or try to spur him on by squeezing around his length—and finally, when I’m a begging, breathless, desperate mess, when my thoughts are scattered and my skin is hot and my release is so fucking close, he begins to fuck me harder.
His hand drifts to where we join, fingers swirling against my slick nerves, and the pressure inside me grows.
“Jesus Christ,” he groans against my temple as he finds a faster rhythm. I can see his control slipping in the way his jaw flexes, the way he clutches me harder.
He pulls my leg up over his shoulder, his hand returning to my clit, and suddenly, he hits that much deeper, stimulating a spot that shoves me over the edge and into a free-falling, full-body orgasm.
Pleasure tightens through my body and I’m gasping Tate’s name as he fucks me through it, memorizing all the things he says about me, how good and wonderful and perfect I am.
His orgasm follows, and he tenses as his face falls to my neck, groaning against my hot skin, his arms wrapping around me to hold me tight while he lets go.
After, Tate pulls me against his chest, and I listen to his steady breathing, staring at the stars through the windows as he falls deep asleep.
I’m falling in love with him. I don’t know what the future looks like, but I know Tate needs to be in it. And Bea. Of course Bea.
And probably that stupid cat.
Now, I need to find the courage to ask him if I can stay.