Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
Devon
It was almost nine o’clock by the time everyone left her place.
I was in the kitchen putting away the rest of the leftovers when Blakely finally closed the door and slumped back against it. She glanced over at the couch where Tato was completely passed out. He wasn’t lying in his usual tight ball, he was on his back, sprawled across two cushions with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.
He was just as exhausted as we were.
I braced my hands on the countertop as Blakely dragged her tired eyes to mine. My favorite smile tilted her lips, and she pushed off the door.
“Our friends are exhausting,” she said as she took slow, measured steps toward the kitchen.
When she was within reaching distance, I grabbed her waist and tugged her forward until she was pinned between me and the counter. “That they are.”
I reached up and twirled a lock of her hair between my fingers. I loved the way it had dried from her shower earlier in tousled, messy waves that shaped her face. “You’ve got to be exhausted,” I said. I brushed her hair back and gripped the side of her neck, tracing the smile that still sat on her lips.
“I am,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to go?”
She sucked my thumb into her mouth and twirled that skillful tongue around it. My already thickening cock was appreciative, especially of the devious glint that shone in her eyes.
Around my thumb, her smile turned dirty and playful before she bit down hard enough to hurt but not enough to injure.
She released my finger, and the impressions of her teeth were deep under my second knuckle. “Leave now, and I’ll never forgive you.”
With a warning like that, I wasn’t going to argue. But she’d had a long, emotional day, and I didn’t want to push her to do anything that she didn’t absolutely want.
“I won’t leave, but we don’t have to?—”
Her palm covered my mouth before I could finish my sentence. She shook her head and raised a dark eyebrow. “Don’t say it. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, Devon. Okay?” When I didn’t say or do anything, she warned, “I’m not removing my hand until you agree.”
So, I nodded, and she let her palm fall and settle on my chest.
“I’m not broken, Dev. Remember?”
My hands slipped into her soft, unruly hair, and I ran my thumbs down the sides of her neck. “Remember?” I asked, brushing our lips together. Her quick intake of breath was so soft I could barely hear it over the pounding of my heart. “Sweetheart, I could never forget.”
She fitted her mouth to mine, and any hesitation I’d had was burned away at the warmth of her tongue over my bottom lip. We both moaned as her hands slid around my back and flattened against my shirt.
God, there were too many layers between us. I needed her naked and moaning with my cock deep inside her .
“Bedroom,” she muttered against my lips. “There are innocent eyes out here.” She glanced back at Tato, who was still dead asleep on the couch and laced her fingers through mine. With a knowing smile, she tugged my arm until I followed her down the hallway.
I closed the door behind us, and the room descended into darkness. The only light was filtering in from the cracked bathroom door and from the moonlight between the parted curtains. The door clicked shut, and I turned only to stop in my tracks.
Standing in the middle of the shadow-filled room, it struck me how beautiful and strong Blakely was. And I couldn’t move until I fully appreciated it. That was until that flirty, tempting smile slipped over her lips once again, and I couldn’t not touch her for another second.
I strode across the room, prepared to place a bruising kiss on those lips, but when I reached her, Blakely dropped to her knees.
The sight of it was enough to do me in. Her gray eyes looking up at me through dark lashes, waiting and expectant.
Frozen in place, I’d stopped too far away, so she reached forward and hooked a finger through my belt loop and tugged me forward another foot.
“What—what are you—” Words were hard when all the blood that was supposed to be in my brain had swiftly pounded south.
Her hands carefully pushed my shirt up and loosened my belt. “Well, I really love my new barstools,” she said. She stared up at me as she popped the button on my jeans and slowly lowered the zipper. “Like really love them.”
She pushed my jeans down just far enough to expose my black briefs. All I could do was watch in shock and awe as her fingers danced over where the fabric was pulled taut over my dick. My hands flexed at my sides, vibrating with the urge to push them through her hair as she leaned forward and pressed a wet, open-mouth kiss to the fabric.
A broken, whimpered sound broke from my lips as I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. Fuck , it was already too much.
Too caught up in trying to keep myself together, my eyes popped open when I felt a bite of pain and a sensation very different to Blakely’s warm mouth. I glanced down to find her nails dragging down the fabric over my shaft.
“If I’m going to be down here, I need you to watch every second.”
The warmth in her low voice did little to help my slipping restraint. “Bossy,” I quipped with a groan as she replaced her nails with the palm of her hand. She rubbed it over my erection while teasing the waistband of my briefs with her other hand. “All of this over some barstools,” I muttered.
I combed my fingers through her hair and fisted it at the back of her head. Her eyes fluttered at my touch, and she kissed my cock again.
“All over some barstools,” she repeated with a smile that told me it was anything but.
“Guess I should build you things more often.”
“You’d build more for me?”
A possessive need clawed up my chest, and I tightened my hand in her hair. The soft strands against my calloused palms were the perfect combination as she continued to tease me through the fabric.
“I would build you anything, beautiful girl. Do anything for you.”
Her eyes widened, and her movements faltered. There was a split second where I thought I might have gone too far or said the wrong thing and fucked it up already. But Blakely’s finger dipped beneath my briefs and slid against my skin. She tugged them lower and lower until my cock sprung free.
It almost hit her in the face, and we both let out a quiet laugh. But when she looked back down, her smile morphed, and she licked her lips like she was genuinely looking forward to having my cock in her mouth .
With another glance up at me, she leaned forward and placed her mouth at my base, dragging her tongue up the underside in one slow sweep. A shiver whipped down my spine at the warmth of her mouth.
“ Fuck ,” I muttered into the quiet room. She repeated the motion, tilting her head to the other side and flicking her tongue over the head. But thankfully she didn’t stop there, she suctioned her lips around the crown and sucked lightly. My hips jolted at the pressure, and the movement pushed my cock deeper into her mouth.
Her confident, stormy gray eyes held mine hostage as she took me deeper. In one easy movement, she’d swallowed almost my entire length. The groan that ripped from me was guttural. The tip of my cock nudged the back of her throat, and I felt the muscles constrict. She gagged and let up just enough that her glassy eyes cleared.
Then she set a toe-curling rhythm with both her mouth and her hands. Methodically, she fisted my shaft in both of her hands and twisted up and down, following the pace her mouth set. My eyes momentarily closed as I tried to control the release that was quickly approaching, but the second my eyes closed, the softness of her lips was replaced by the scrape of her teeth.
I gasped and snapped my eyes back open. She released me with a pop and sat back on her heels, still working her fist over my drenched length.
“I love the way you feel in my mouth, down my throat.”
My thumb traced her wet, swollen lips and cupped her flushed cheek. “Your mouth is perfect,” I mused.
Blakely chuckled and kissed my cock like it was the most precious thing. “You’re only saying that because your cock has been in it.”
I brushed her hair over her shoulder and gripped a handful at the back of her head. Directing her mouth back over me, the relief was euphoric. I used my hold on her hair to guide her up and down my shaft. She held my gaze and willingly took every inch. I was fascinated by the way her lips stretched around me and how she hummed when I bumped the back of her throat yet again. Her eyes watered, but she breathed through her nose.
“Your mouth is perfect, whether empty or full, but I can’t deny that you are really fucking good at sucking my cock.”
Her eyes closed, and I tightened my grip on her hair. Eyes popping back open, I smiled until she took control. She bobbed and sucked, shuttling her fist. My hand became more of a way to keep her hair out of her face than it was anything else.
She lifted her free hand and, in a move I didn’t expect, cupped and tugged on my balls. Two more seconds, and I would’ve shot down her throat.
“Oh, fuck. Wait, wait—” I stepped back, and she let me go. I dropped my head back and tried to control my heavy breathing. When I felt like I had some semblance of control back, I dared to look down. Blakely was still on her knees, wiping at the spit collecting around her mouth and eyeing me with a knowing smile.
“Get on the bed, Blakely.” My voice was a low rasp, one that was drenched in need. Blakely shot to her feet and crawled to the center of the bed as I stepped out of my jeans and tugged my shirt over my head.
I was standing in the middle of her room, almost completely naked, but for the briefs that I still wore. I reached for her, set on getting my head between her legs as soon as possible, but stopped when she raised her hand. The playful look in her eyes had been replaced by one that appeared as unsure as I suddenly did.
Glancing down, I realized the hand she was holding out was shaking. Unease twisted through me, and I straightened with a knee on the edge of the bed and a few feet between us.
“Blake, what’s wrong? Do you want to stop?”
She immediately shook her head and gave me a hesitant smile. “No, the opposite, actually. I just want…I need to show you something. And it may not make a lot of sense at first, but I pr omise it will. And this is probably the worst possible time to do this, but…you’re going to see it, and I want a chance to explain first, okay?”
My brows dipped in concern and confusion as she chewed on her bottom lip, but I eventually nodded when I realized she wasn’t going to continue without my agreement.
She fingered the hem of her T-shirt and tugged on the fabric as she said, “I’ve done a lot of work to get to where I am now. Things were never easy, and some days were worse than others. I hate to say it, but for a while, there were more bad days than good ones. And those bad days—” Her voice dropped and shook. “They were really bad. There were days— weeks— where I didn’t want to exist anymore. Waking up but wishing you hadn’t is something I hope no one else ever knows.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, and instinctively I reached for her again, but she shook her head, peering up at me with tear-filled eyes. Her pain radiated through me, and it went against all my baser instincts not to comfort her or try to take it away.
“But that feeling finally passed. I could breathe without feeling like the air was killing me, and when I saw you all again—when I saw you again, it felt like time had started back up.”
Blakely wiped her eyes and lifted her shirt off over her head. Her black hair fluttered back down around her as she tossed the shirt aside.
“And I knew that’s exactly what would happen, too.” There was a hint of a smile on her lips, and I held my breath. “Because you already saved my life once.” Her words rocked me, and I sat back a little. But she didn’t let my reaction deter her.
“When I was at my lowest, I was sitting in my childhood bedroom surrounded by all the things my parents had packed up from my apartment here and had shipped back there because they didn’t know what else to do with it. I’d been there for about two weeks, and I was…spiraling. I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking now, but it wasn’t good. I know that I couldn’t see the future. There was no future in my mind because I refused to li ve like that anymore. There wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel, and I ended up getting in my car and driving. Only I wasn’t driving with a destination in mind; I was driving with a purpose.”
Like she was lost in the memory, her eyes grew distant and unfocused as she looked past my shoulder. I pressed further onto the bed, and the brush of the covers broke her out of the trance. She shook her head.
“It was warm, so I rolled down all the windows and put my foot on the gas. I was driving my mom’s old Kia, though, so it wouldn’t go as fast as I wanted it to. As fast as I needed it to. I didn’t really have a plan in mind, but that didn’t matter. Because I didn’t plan on coming back from that drive.”
She said the last sentence so quietly that it took a moment for the words to reach my ears, but when they did, I didn’t think I’d ever felt heartbreak like that. Like my heart had been shredded and burned. Like not even the charred remains were left. Like nothing else was real.
My beautiful Blakely. No, not her. She’d been through so much and had come out the other side. I’d glimpsed the darkness that still lingered in her mind, but knowing she’d contemplated that, I wanted to hold her and never let her go. I wanted to spend every waking second of every day reminding her that life could be better. That the darkness didn’t have to win.
“But obviously, that didn’t happen,” she said, reaching out and brushing her fingers over my hand. I clung to those two fingers like they were my lifeline. “The wind whipped around the car, and there was a large gust as I passed an eighteen-wheeler. And that large gust tore open the bag I’d been carrying around. I’d forgotten that I’d thrown one of my old journals in there. It was a therapy technique I’d read about on the internet. Journaling to work through trauma and PTSD, and when I found that journal with a few random pages of thoughts from college, I decided why not? It hadn’t really been working, but I hadn’t gotten rid of the journal yet. ”
I climbed further onto the bed, and I was relieved when she didn’t try to stop me. I just needed her a little closer.
“Anyway, the wind picked up, blew my bag open, blew the journal open, and pages started flying. It was filled with a ton of loose paper. Most of it was useless stuff, and knowing what I was about to do, I didn’t even try to stop it from happening. Except one piece of paper plastered itself to my windshield, directly in my line of sight. And it changed everything.”
Blakely abruptly stopped talking and removed her hand from mine. She straightened and reached behind her to unfasten her bra. She carefully slid the straps down her arms and watched me.
She threw the bra near her shirt and took a shaky, uneven breath. Then she turned around until she was facing the back wall. With her hair draped down her back, I was grasping at anything to try to connect the dots until she collected the mass of dark waves and pulled it to one side.
She swung it over her shoulder, and what I saw knocked the breath from my lungs.
Down her spine was the sword I’d drawn for her in perfect detail. I blinked several times before I trusted my eyes and believed what I was seeing.
The hilt was poised between her shoulder blades, the pommel starting at just the base of her neck. It was thin and graceful, vines twisting around the grip and the guard and growing out from the base of the blade.
The blade that followed the column of her spine was simple, yet the subtle, mended cracks I’d added were still there.
I sat there for a long time, just taking in the whole picture and assessing every detail in the faint light filtering into the room. Blakely sat perfectly still while I memorized the art on her skin.
Slowly, I moved closer until I was only inches away. She tensed slightly when my fingers brushed against the spot between her shoulders, but she didn’t remain that way. She relaxed and watched me from over her shoulder .
Like it was sharp enough to cut me, I carefully dragged my fingers down the blade. I appreciated the shading and the detail, but occasionally, beneath the tattoo, I felt a blemish in her skin. In the little light that filtered into the room, it was hard to determine what they were, but I quickly realized by shape and length and feel that they were small, raised scars that also traveled the length of her spine.
There was no rhyme or reason for their location, and they had been healed for some time, but I knew they hadn’t been there when she left.
“They’re from a brick wall,” she said quietly, knowing exactly what I was seeing.
Then she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and spun to face me. She pressed up onto her knees and flattened her palms against my chest.
“You saved my life, Devon. And you didn’t even know it.”
I had no words. What was I supposed to say? That I was glad I had unintentionally saved her life? That my sketch from ten years ago had done it? That didn’t feel right. None of the few words I could think of felt right or big enough.
So, instead, I kissed her like it was both the first and last time I would, hoping like hell that I would never know what the latter felt like.
I poured everything into that kiss, and the way she clung to me, I knew she felt it, too.
Her naked chest pressed against mine, and I wrapped my arms around her. But when my hand brushed down her spine, my fingers lingered over the tattoo I now knew was there.
A possessive need wound through me. Shifting closer, I gripped under her ass and picked her up off the bed. I guided her back until her head hit the pillows, and I was poised over her. My hands slipped down her sides, and I tugged off her shorts, dropping them off the side of the bed.
I looked back down at the woman beneath me and was stunned by her smile. Completely unfettered and pure, she brushed her hands into my hair and licked at her lower lip. Her legs dropped open, and suddenly I was the one who was overdressed.
I pushed up onto my knees and somewhat awkwardly kicked my briefs off. But before I laid back down, I took a moment to stare and take her in. Black hair spread around her like a dark halo, and her hands fisted the sheets at her sides. I ran a finger up the inside of her leg, and she shivered.
Fuck, I was the luckiest man alive. And that was when it hit me.
I was in love with her. Desperately and completely. That was the only explanation for the new, foreign feelings. I was so fucking in love.