22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
KAT
M y cheeks burned. Everything in me urged me to look again. I thought I’d been subtle when I first noticed Bernie shifting uncomfortably and caught onto why he was, but apparently not. His friend had seen my reaction, and here we were, suddenly alone, and my mind seemed to have forgotten why I was upset at him in the first place.
“I didn’t choose to get a fucking boner, okay? You just…” Bernie grumbled, his eyes looking at everything but me.
“Don’t turn all bashful on me now,” I replied, shocking myself with the little bit of flirtatious sweetness in my tone.
“All I am is average to you, so excuse me while I go wallow in self-pity.”
“I can take care of it for you, if you want.”
His eyes snapped to mine as the flames in my cheeks heightened even more. I slapped a hand over my mouth. “I didn’t—That wasn’t—You don’t—”
“Kit Kat, as much as I appreciate the offer, there’s no fucking way the first time we do something like that, will it be me getting a handie from you,” he immediately inserted, saving me from the rush of embarrassment.
And then through the curtain of shame came a crash of anger. “Excuse me? Why not? Because you don’t think I’d do as good of a job as you can do yourself? Or as good as some other girls or guys have done before?”
He inhaled deeply. “That one’s on me. I walked myself into this,” he muttered under his breath to himself, and then gave me a smile, closing the space between the far counter and the kitchen island.
Standing across from me, he leaned forward against the counter and raised his brows. “Kat, if your hands end up in my pants, I’m fucking you, and I am not about to let your first time having sex be some shameless five-minute romp because of me. Okay?”
My mind spun, the heat rising in my core from hearing how absolutely blunt he was. Part of me wanted that, not caring at all how amazing or not it ended up being. My body wanted him. As simple as that.
“So, that’s it? All or nothing from you?” I quietly asked, my voice squeaking.
His gaze darkened, and a smirk caressed his lips that I suddenly wanted smashed against my own again. “No. I’ll gladly give you any pleasure you want or need. In whatever way. Because you’re in control of all of this.”
“You’re saying you’re going to not have a single orgasm until you can…you know…put it in?” I cautiously questioned. “Yet you’ll give me some…if I wanted?”
He nodded once. “Yep. Pretty much.”
Raising a brow, I switched my tactic. “Even by yourself? ”
He pursed his lips with a teasing glare. “Now that’s just cruel.”
Giggling, I leaned forward and closed most of the distance between our faces.
“You still left without a word, asshole,” I whispered, quickly wiping the smile from my lips.
His eyes darted down to my breasts briefly, then returned to my gaze. “I had some things I needed to do that required cell service, and it was easier than announcing I’d be leaving.”
“Why?”
“Questions, Kit Kat. All of the damn questions from your family and Wyatt that I wasn’t going to answer.”
“What were some of these ‘things’?”
He sighed and pushed away from the counter. “The situation with Wyatt, your brother, and the drug gang they’re caught up in.”
“Gang?!” I shrieked, shooting up.
He nodded. “Come here, I need to show you something.”
Calloused fingers clamped down around my wrist, and suddenly I found myself following without protest or restraint behind Bernie. Around the dining table and up some stairs, he walked with the silence of a ghost. An apparition that wasn’t ever meant to be here, but he was all the same.
Rounding a corner, something brushed against my bare ankle, and I jumped sideways as Muffin quietly slipped ahead of us. I heard a soft chuckle leave Bernie’s chest, but he made no other move to indicate that he saw my momentary squirmish .
I studied his back, involuntarily attempting to memorize every valley that rippled along his muscles as he walked. It was art itself, the way they bunched and coiled, then loosened and relaxed with the casual swaying of his arms. The familiar silver chain holding his dog tags sat around his broad neck.
Sturdy. He may have been built for a world of violence, but he’d fare well in mine as well. Maybe I could make a cowboy out of him yet. Filling my lungs with fresh oxygen, the spin of Earth slowed. Each step we took moved as if time had completely stopped.
The random littering of ink across skin that knew hardship in a way I didn’t, drew my gaze. Scars, faint but there, were splotched across the single barrier that I just knew often became his last line of defense. A cut here and there, a few shallow burns along his forearm I’d hardly noticed before and would’ve never seen if I hadn’t found myself studying him in such a quiet casual moment. He mindlessly lifted his free hand and scratched at the back of his neck, the veins rippling with the movement as if they were rivers guiding me down a pathway that I shouldn’t have taken but had stepped upon long ago.
My heart twinged, half in excitement and half knowing that at some point, whatever dance we were dueling, would fade away.
He would leave.
It shouldn’t have hurt me as much to finally admit that to myself as it did now, but it ripped at the scars I too carried on my soul. He was my last moment of freedom. He was the final requiem I would play before succumbing to the solitude of a cage I was destined for.
And he’d warned me .
I’d warned him, reminded him as frequently as he had me that we were destined for an implosion created by our hands.
As he took the next step, I wriggled my wrist enough that his fingers loosened, and I slipped mine into his. A soft, shaky inhale came from him as I tightened my hold on his hand. With every final fervency that I could muster, I pressed my palm against his.
“Bernie?” I whispered as time whirled back to its usual plunder forward, drawing me closer and closer to a death I’d never imagined would be mine.
He paused in front of a door that Muffin slipped around. “Hmmm?” He glanced over his shoulder at me, mossy green eyes piercing through me like the sword coming the moment Bernie left.
“Show me after,” I said.
His brows pinched together, the faint freckles on his cheeks twitching with confusion. “After what?”
With a final swallow of resolve, I took a single step closer to him and slipped his hand entangled with mine to my lower back. “After this,” I quietly replied and tipped onto my toes.
My lips brushed so gently across a kiss of velvet. His skin beneath my palm I placed against his waist erupted in goosebumps as my bones prickled with desire.
Simple. Innocent.
“But…what about what we just talked about?” he asked against my mouth, his fingers digging into my back as I removed my hand.
I smiled, his silky kiss hot with each wave of breath. “We’re already on borrowed time, you know that. ”
A calloused palm pressed against my cheek, tipping my head sideways, and I glanced at Bernie through slitted lids. There was an indecipherable emotion upon his face, something split between understanding, disdain, and desire.
“Are you sure? You only get your first, once,” he asked, slipping a thumb across my cheek. I closed my eyes again, feeling another brush of his lips against mine.
“Yes. Because at least this is my choice, and mine alone.” I placed my other hand against his waist, the warmth of his bare skin slithering into my palms. Reassurance as well as a rush of erotic craving pulsed through me all from that simple touch.
“Ford will know.” His lips pecked mine, speaking a protest, but the pressure from his large hand deepened against my back, and he guided us a step closer to his bedroom.
“He already thinks we have.” I ran my fingers across the hemline of his sweats. The divot of his V-line prominent beneath my touch.
“You sure you don’t want it somewhere crazy with a crazy story to join?” His chest bumped against mine, and every beat of his rapidly pounding heart melded with the rising pulse of my own.
“This isn’t some story for me to tell.” As I cracked my lids open, we took a step, in tandem, and passed through the door frame into his room. “The only two people who need to know are the two here.”
His brows twitched and a tender smile full of simple adoration caressed lips that brushed like butterfly wings across mine. “You are aware of…of the shitty playboy stuff I’ve done before, right?”
I nodded as his hand briefly left my back and the door thumped closed behind me. With a click, I knew the lock had been engaged, and then his touch was against my back once more.
“And you’re still okay with it being me?” he asked.
“You’ve been more honest with me from day one than anyone else in my life. That’s all I care about.” I raised a hand and brushed at the wavy strands of his hair that seemed untouched from his sleep. A flash of guilt so quickly crashed across his face and then left, I almost didn’t notice it.
And immediately forgot about it as his hands trickled down my sides and slipped beneath my thighs. My eyes widened as he hoisted me from the ground and out of instinct I hooked my legs around his waist. The expected grunt from the effort of lifting someone as heavy as me never came.
Not a strain etched across his face as he spun around and carried me to his bed. Soft linen brushed against my shoulder blades, the mattress dipping as he laid me down. His eyes connected with mine again as he slid me further onto the bed with one arm, and he crawled between my legs.
With every sense of mine trained on him, there was nothing left but this moment. There wasn’t a thing except for the man who gently laid me down onto pillows that smelled just as he did. His shadow engulfed mine, a symphony of ease and excitement roaring warm within my body. The very marrow of my bones held no apprehension for what I knew was to come.
For someone who seemed sometimes overly crude, his touch was anything but. Fingers whispered across my collarbone, his gaze tracking the movement as he slipped the first strap of my dress from my shoulder .
My heart jumped into my throat. An ache rose between my legs as hot breath washed upon the newly exposed skin, and then his wet lips followed. Deliberate. Soft. Delicate. He seemed in no rush.
And for the first time in my life, I was more than the girl next door. I wasn’t someone’s friend. I wasn’t that teenage girl who’d looked into the mirror and begged to be the one someone noticed.
I hadn’t begged him once to see me.
Bernie had given himself to me long before I’d opened up to the idea of him.
And that was something I should have known long before this moment.
Lips found mine. His lips. Needy and desperate, yet patient. His hips leaned tighter against me as he slipped his tongue between my teeth. I wove my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, widening my legs for him.
Heart racing, with each passing touch, each desperate feel of his skin against mine, I grew hungry for more of him.
Words spoken in a way I’d never heard before escaped his own mouth as he let me into secrets that, at least for this moment, I’d chosen to believe were only shared with me. His hands inched along my thighs, slipping beneath the hem of my dress.
Goosebumps prickled upon my skin as a soft moan left his lips the higher he trailed. With a subtle buck of my hips, I urged him on. Dancing past the thin straps of my thong, he dug his touch into my hips, his fingers creating dents in my skin as he pulled me up onto my knees. As I straddled his waist, feeling every pulse of excitement roaring hard between his legs pressed firmly against my own wet center, his hand found the zipper to my dress.
The fabric fluttered to the ground as he lay me back down against the bed. The restraint upon his face flickered as if he were some character glitching on a video game. All I had to offer him was a simple smile and he shed whatever binds had held him back.
Not an ounce of insecurity flitted through me as he explored every single inch of my body. His tongue. His teeth. His hands. My skin, coated slick in sweat that mixed with his own, roared as hot as the feel of his tongue swiping across my exposed peaks. Every breath of his, every desperate moan and whimper elicited a rush of unfiltered desire.
I didn’t stop him, there was no fighting as he found his way across a body long since hidden beneath fabric. There was not a curve he didn’t devour, not a single crevice, dimple, stretch mark, or imperfection that his fingertips didn’t find.
And I knew I was cursed as he turned my world into a flurry of stars and roaring pleasure in ways I’d have never imagined myself. Shedding his own clothes, my heart raced, everything but the here and now mute.
All I wanted was to feel his touch. To feel him. As he ground his hardened length against me, inviting another rush of warmth, there was no stopping my own rock of my hips against him. One set of his fingers found mine, entwining with them and he shoved me harder into the bed, guiding himself between my legs.
Involuntarily, my eyes opened as his panting breaths washed across my lips. “I’m on birth control, so we’re good,” I whispered.
His gaze met mine as he finally eased himself in with a gasp that matched my own.
He was enough. Whatever happened after this, wherever I went, this was all that I wanted. This was something that no one could take away from me.
And this was something worth fighting for. He was worth fighting for. He was the autumn breeze before the winter storm. And it was as he guided me through mine and his own whirlwind of pleasure and desire, did I realize I’d all but given up fighting.
The strong woman he seemed to believe I was, had disappeared when I’d accepted the fate that didn’t have to be mine. No matter what Bernie said, he was enough. He was who I wanted and more than anything.
Maybe it was because of something he said, something he’d done, but I’d never dreamt of someone like him. I’d heard of those stories of a romance that only came once in a lifetime, and this was mine. This had been mine.
He’d sought me, despite every reason to run, despite being the one to say that we were destined for destruction, he’d still given himself to me. And with a final thrust of his hips, I met his gaze and never felt more alive, never more painfully exploding into absolute relief.