Chapter Twenty
PHOENIX
The Next Day
Afternoon sunlight filters through my bedroom window, casting warm shadows across Clover’s peaceful face as she sleeps curled against my chest. It’s well past noon, but after the hell I went through yesterday with the battle, losing Hurricane and Nickel, all the brothers injured, everything with my mother, we both needed this.
However, I haven’t exactly found the words I needed to tell Clover everything that happened at the prison with her brother in the wee hours of this morning.
The deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion somehow seemed more important.
We have time to talk all that shit through.
But through my foggy haze, something feels wrong.
I blink awake, immediately alert, my internal clock screaming that it’s too late. Too quiet.
Clover’s breath is steady against my neck, but there’s a stillness to her that sets my nerves on edge.
Shit.
Her eight a.m. glucose check. She never sleeps through it. Ever. Her smartwatch should have been buzzing hours ago, and if it has been, she’s been too deeply asleep to notice.
“Baby,” I whisper, gently shaking her shoulder. “Clo, wake up.”
She makes this adorable grumbling sound, burrowing deeper into my chest like she’s trying to hide from consciousness itself. “Urgh! Sleep!”
Despite everything, the lingering trauma from yesterday, the weight of what Maverick and I had to deal with when it came to my mother, I can’t help but smile. Sleepy, grumpy Clover is fucking adorable, even when she’s being stubborn about her health.
“Come on, beautiful. You missed your morning check. I need you to test your levels for me.”
“Don’t wanna,” she mumbles, but I hear the slight slur in her words that tells me her blood sugar is probably low. “You’re warm. And snuggly. And I love you.”
My chest tightens with emotion, but I force myself to stay focused. “I love you, too, which is exactly why you need to check your glucose. Right now, Miss.”
She finally cracks one eye open, glaring at me with the intensity of a very irritated kitten. “You’re the worst husband ever.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re the most beautiful wife ever. Especially when you’re being a bratty little princess about taking care of yourself.” I reach over to the nightstand, grabbing one of the juice boxes I always keep stocked for moments like this. “Drink this while you check your levels.”
Clover sits up slowly, her hair an absolute disaster of tangles, and her face still creased from sleep.
She looks like she wants to argue, but the slight tremor in her hands tells me her body knows what it needs even if her brain is being stubborn.
“Fine,” she grumbles, taking the juice box and immediately stabbing the straw through with more force than necessary.
“But I’m only doing this because you’re annoyingly persistent, and I don’t have the energy to fight you. ”
“Smart girl.” I watch as she pulls up the glucose monitoring app on her phone, waiting for the reading from her continuous monitor. “What’s it say?”
She squints at the screen, frowning. “Sixty-two. That’s lower than ideal.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Drink your juice, sweetheart.”
“You just looove being right, don’t you?” She grins, taking a long pull from the straw, making a face. “Apple juice is gross when you’re half asleep.”
“Apple juice is life-saving when your blood sugar is in the gutter,” I counter, settling back against the headboard before Dracula jumps up onto the bed, immediately claiming the warm spot between us.
Clover continues drinking, but her eyes are clearer now, more alert. The glucose is already starting to work its magic. She’s still grumpy, but she’s my grumpy wife, and watching her take care of herself, even reluctantly, fills me with this fierce protective love that threatens to overwhelm me.
“There,” she says after finishing half the juice box. “Happy now?”
“Getting there.” I lean over, brushing her hair away from her neck, pressing a soft kiss to the sensitive spot just below her ear. “But I can think of a few other ways to make sure you’re fully awake.”
The change in her is immediate. Her breath catches, and I feel the subtle shift as her body responds to my touch. “Phoenix…”
“Keep drinking,” I murmur against her skin, lifting off her T-shirt, then trailing kisses down her neck. “I want you to finish every drop while I take care of you.”
She shivers as I guide her back against the pillows, my hands gentle but insistent while I start kissing down the middle of her body.
“If being a good girl and drinking juice means you’re gonna go down on me…
” she says, her voice already breathless, “… then I’m going to start every day being a good girl for you. ”
I chuckle against her stomach, the sound vibrating through both of us. “Is that a promise?”
“Maybe,” she murmurs, arching into my touch as I kiss my way down her thighs.
My hands find the waistband of her panties, and I slide them down her legs, and off, her hips instinctively bucking with need. I chuckle at how needy she is as I duck my head up through the sheets. “You better still be sucking on that juice for me, baby.”
She raises her brow. “I’ll suck on that juice, and you get to work, down there. We both have our parts to play right now, Presley,” she teases, signaling for me to get back to work.
Saucy little bitch.
Grinning widely, I wink and duck back under the sheets, my lips trailing kisses along her thighs, her hips pressing up, making no mistake where she wants me right now.
Sliding into position, I will never get sick of looking at her beautiful pussy and knowing that I am the only man who will ever be able to touch her here.
“All mine,” I whisper, then lean forward, flicking my tongue out against her clit.
She moans, her thighs instinctively locking against the sides of my head. The sound is raw, almost startled, like I’ve stolen the breath from her lungs, and it drives me wild. She tastes like sweetness and heaven with a sinful twist.
I slide one finger inside her, slow and deliberate, curling just right until her hips lift off the bed.
And I don’t stop. Her moans deepen, ragged and delicious, her hips rolling up to meet my mouth in pure, unrestrained want.
Her thighs tremble around me, the muscles flexing with tension.
When I add a second finger, then a third, her moan cracks open, sharp, high, desperate.
I glance up, and she’s a fucking vision, head thrown back, hair messy and wild across the pillow, one hand tangled in the sheets while the other grips my hair like a lifeline.
“Jesus, Phoenix,” she gasps, her voice breaking apart. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I growl against her soaked heat. “Let go for me, baby. I want to feel you fall apart on my tongue.”
She whimpers, that sound turning guttural as I wrap my lips around her clit and suck, hard.
Her entire body arches, bowing off the bed when her orgasm hits, violent and intense, crashing through her.
Her cry is loud and uncontrolled, followed by broken moans as I work her through it, refusing to stop until she’s wrung out and wrecked.
Only when she goes boneless beneath me do I pull away, my mouth wet with her release, and I fucking love how she tastes on my lips.
Rising slowly, I deliberately crawl up the bed until I’m hovering above her. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and glassy, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling fast.
“You’re insatiable,” she pants, reaching up, curling her fingers around the back of my neck. “Come here.”
I crash my mouth to hers, tasting her, devouring her, letting her feel exactly what she does to me. My cock throbs painfully hard between us, but I don’t rush it. I kiss her like she’s oxygen, like I need her to breathe with me.
When I finally pull back, I press my forehead to hers, grinning. “You want more?”
She lets out a breathless laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I smirk, standing, slide off my underwear, then reach into the nightstand beside us. She raises an eyebrow, curiosity flickering in her expression, until I pull out a small, curved pink vibrator and flick it on, the gentle hum filling the room.
“You kept it here?” she asks, breath catching as I slide back onto the bed.
“I was hoping we’d get the chance to play.”
She smiles mischievously as I trail the vibrator along her inner thigh, teasing, not quite touching where she wants me most.
“You game, Mrs. Evans?”
Her grin is wicked, and I love seeing her open up to this more playful side. “Always.”
“That’s my girl.”
I press the tip of the toy to her inner thigh again, watching the way her muscles twitch under the soft vibration.
She’s already so wet, glistening, begging without words.
But I don’t give in just yet. I drag the curved tip higher, brushing the edge of her pussy, circling her lips without dipping between them.
Her breath stutters, thighs parting wider, chasing the pressure. “Phoenix…” she warns, voice breathy, pleading. “Stop teasing.”
“I’m not teasing, baby,” I murmur, eyes locked on hers. “I’m building anticipation. You remember what that’s like, don’t you?”
She lets out a sound that’s something between a whimper and a laugh, then a full-throated moan when I finally bring the toy between her folds and press it directly against her clit. Her whole body arches off the bed, the shock of stimulation making her curse and grab the sheets. “Oh fuck—”
“There she is.” I grin, watching her fall apart already. “Look at you. So sensitive. So responsive. You love being played with, don’t you?”