Chapter Eight #2
I deepen the kiss, angling her mouth beneath mine, tasting the faint hint of honey on her tongue. She meets me, stroke for stroke, a quiet hum vibrating in her throat that I swallow greedily.
The blanket shifts as she moves closer. Her knees bump my thigh. Heat pulses from her body. The world narrows to the press of her against me, the catch of her breath, the way her fingers clutch at my chest like she’s holding on.
I break the kiss only when I have to breathe. My lips trail along her jaw, down the line of her throat, finding the rapid pulse flickering there.
“You don’t know what you do to me,” I whisper against her skin. “You never have.”
She shivers at my words. Her hands move up my neck, fingertips brushing the hair at the nape. “I can say the same thing about you right now,” she admits, voice raw with want.
I pull back just a little to look in her eyes. They’re blown wide, pupils dark, but clear and steady. No haze, no panic.
“You’re sure?” I ask, needing it. The part of me that isn’t a selfish bastard needs it on record. “If we keep going, it’s not going to be like last night. I’m not stopping at your thigh, Meredith.”
A pink flush climbs up her neck. “I don't want you to,” she whispers.
“Then give me your words.” My thumb brushes her bottom lip. “Tell me.”
She swallows. The Christmas lights flicker above us, reflecting in her eyes. “I want you,” she says simply. “I want you to touch me again. I want…” She bites her lip, gaze dropping. “I want all of you.”
Every fantasy I’ve ever had collapses under the weight of those words.
“Okay,” I say, voice rough. “Okay.”
I move slowly, giving her every chance to change her mind.
My hands slide to her waist, easing her back against the pillows.
The blanket slips away, pooling around her hips and revealing the soft, worn T-shirt she’s wearing—mine, because she was in a sweater and work slacks and boots, and I wasn’t about to let her sleep in that.
She looks down at the shirt and back at me, realizing it at the same time. Her fingers toy with the hem.
“You put me in your shirt?” she asks, half scoffing, half shy.
“It looks better on you,” I say softly. “I promise I didn't linger, I just wanted you to sleep comfortably.”
Color rushes to her cheeks. “You’re ridiculous.”
I lean in and kiss the curve of her flushed cheek. “Obsessed,” I murmur. “There’s a difference.”
She lets out a shaky breath that could almost be a laugh, and I drink it in like air.
“Lie back,” I whisper. “Let me look at you.”
She hesitates a split second, then sinks fully into the pillow, hair spilling like dark ink over the white case. Her hands rest open at her sides—palms up, not clenched. Another small miracle.
I kneel beside her on the mattress and trail my fingertips from her collarbone down the center of her chest, brushing over the thin cotton.
I didn’t really get to look at her last night when I stripped her out of that sweater and those slacks—untie, retie, don’t wake her, don’t stare—just a blur of cold fingers and panic and the zip tie cutting into my conscience.
Now I get to see her. Really see her. The girl I used to dream about, wearing my shirt in my bed on Christmas morning.
A groan catches in my throat. I can’t hold it back. I dip my head and press my mouth to hers again.
The kiss starts soft, but it doesn’t stay that way.
It deepens, stretches, turns into ten years of swallowed want poured into one slow drag of lips and tongue.
I kiss her like I’m memorizing her, like I’m trying to make up for every night I lay awake wishing I’d had the guts to do more when we were younger.
She answers me with this small, desperate sound that shoots straight through my chest. Her mouth parts under mine, inviting, trusting, and I take my time tasting her—coffee and honey and something that’s just Meredith.
My hands map her under the thin cotton, relearning what time stole from me—the rise of her chest, the narrow dip of her waist, the curve of her hip.
Every inch I touch feels like proof that she’s really here, not a dream I’m about to wake up from.
“Nick,” she breathes. My name sounds like a prayer on her lips.
My hand drifts higher, grazing the soft skin of her stomach. She shivers beneath me, goosebumps rising in the wake of my touch.
“Lift your arms,” I whisper against her mouth.
She hesitates just a moment, then lifts them above her head in a gesture of surrender that makes my heart stutter.
I pull the shirt up slowly, revealing her body inch by precious inch, the gentle swell of her ribs, the delicate curve of her breasts, the constellation of freckles across her sternum I never knew existed.
When the shirt finally clears her head, her hair tumbles back across the pillow. I toss the fabric aside, too entranced to care where it lands.
“God,” I breathe, taking in the sight of her nearly naked beneath me. “Look at you.”
Her cheeks flush deeper, but she doesn’t cover herself. Her breasts rise and fall with each quick breath, nipples pebbling in the cool morning air. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times, but nothing — nothing — prepared me for the reality of Meredith, bare and wanting, in my bed.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs, vulnerability in her voice.
“I’m worshipping,” I correct softly, trailing my fingers along her collarbone.
I lower my mouth to her throat, kissing the hollow beneath her ear.
Her pulse is fluttering against my lips.
I press open-mouthed kisses between her breasts, lingering at the curve of each.
Her fingers thread through my hair, tentative at first, then tightening when my mouth closes around one pink nipple.
A soft gasp escapes her and heat rushes straight to my groin.
“Nick,” she breathes, arching slightly.
I give her nipple the attention it craves, sucking gently, then with more pressure as her fingers twist in my hair. My other hand cups her other breast, thumb circling her nipple until she squirms under me.
“So responsive,” I murmur, switching to the other side. “Always so perfect.”
Her legs shift restlessly under the blanket, thighs pressing together as if seeking friction from the ache building between them. I smile against her skin.
“Patience,” I whisper, nipping lightly at the underside of her breast. “I’ve waited ten years for this. I’m not rushing.”
She makes a frustrated sound that’s half laugh, half whimper. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about wanting you has ever been fair,” I reply, trailing kisses along her ribs and stomach, dipping my tongue into her navel. Her muscles jump beneath my mouth. “Lift your hips for me, Sugarplum.”
The nickname slips out before I can stop it.
I tense, waiting for her to flinch, to remember where we are and what I’ve done.
Instead, her eyes just go darker, heat flooding her gaze as she complies, lifting her hips off the mattress and offering herself up like she doesn’t realize she’s playing with a live wire.
For a second, a voice in the back of my skull hisses that I don’t get this. Not after taking her. Not after dragging her here and locking the door. You don’t get to have her like this, soft and willing and looking at you like you’re anything but the problem.
I shove it down. If I start listening to it, I’ll put her wrists back in zip ties just to prove myself right.
My hands slide beneath her, cupping her ass, thumbs brushing the edge of her panties. I feel the curve of her, the tension in her muscles, the tremor beneath her skin. She’s scared. She should be. But she’s still here. Still choosing this. Still choosing me, at least right now.
“You’re overdressed,” she points out, voice a little breathless.
“This isn’t about me,” I say, but my hands are already at the hem of my shirt. I strip it off in one quick move, tossing it aside.
Her gaze drags over my chest, taking in the muscle, the scars. Her fingers reach for the one that curves along my ribs—a pale, raised line from a different night I decided I was done being a victim.
“What happened?” she asks quietly, tracing it with the tip of her finger.
I catch her hand and press a kiss to her palm. “Later,” I promise. “Right now, all I want is to make you feel good.”
She lets out a soft, shaky laugh and shivers as my mouth finds hers again. My bare chest presses against hers, skin to skin, and the heat that slams through me is almost painful. The twisted part of me that knows I don’t deserve this, but I take it anyway, greedy and starving.
I trail kisses down her throat, between her breasts, across her stomach, until I’m settled between her thighs. My hands slide under her again, palms full of her ass, imagining the red prints my hand left there last night and fighting the urge to leave new ones.
“I want to taste you,” I murmur against her hip bone, looking up at her from between her legs. “I need to know how you taste on my tongue.”
Her breath catches. “Nick—”
I press my mouth against the thin cotton of her panties, feeling the heat and dampness beneath. “Say yes,” I whisper into the fabric. “Let me worship you properly.”
She swallows, eyes burning into mine. “Yes.”
That one word slices straight through the noise in my head.
I hook my fingers in the waistband and drag the cotton down her legs, slow on purpose, revealing her completely. The sight of her—wet and pink and open for me—nearly knocks the air from my lungs.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee, then higher on her inner thigh. “So fucking beautiful.”
Her thighs tremble as I move up, alternating gentle kisses with sharp little nips. When I reach the slick heat of her, I pause, breath ghosting over her most sensitive skin.
“Oh,” she whispers, the word trembling.
I drag my tongue through her folds in one long, slow stroke. She tastes like salt and musk and everything uniquely Meredith, and I groan at the taste of her on my tongue.