Chapter Fourteen #2
“I didn’t have any right to be,” he continued, his voice low, his face serious. “Still don’t. But I didn’t want you to want him. I wanted you to want me. Us.”
That idle, lazy arousal was rapidly becoming more urgent. “I did. I did want you. I just didn’t think I could have you, or Jesse.”
“You can have me. You can have us.” He cupped her face, water beading on his lashes, dripping off his face. “You’ve got us. However you want, whenever you want. You’ve got us.”
Oh my, oh my. “Knox.”
“What, baby?” His thumbs stroked over her cheeks, her mouth. “What do you need? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
She couldn’t think, could barely breathe. Steam had filled the shower, great clouds of mist rising up, wrapping them in a hot, wet cocoon where nothing existed but the two of them. Following her gut, her heart, she opened her mouth and gave him the truth. “You. I need you.”
“You’ve got me,” he promised and kissed her.
It was soft and sweet and hot and deep, and everything inside her rose up to meet it. There was no flash of heat, no spike of sensation, but a slow rise, a steady climb. Her head felt light, her limbs heavy, and desire flowed like thick, sweet honey.
His mouth left hers, trailing down her jaw to her neck, and her head fell back. Her hands rested on his ribs, but she had no memory of putting them there. “Knox,” she murmured.
“I’m here.” He sipped at her throat, lapped at her pulse. “I’m here.”
“Touch me,” she begged, hearing the plea in her voice but not caring. It didn’t matter if she begged, because he’d never deny her. “Knox, please.”
“Where, darling? Here?” he murmured, stroking his hands over her breasts. Her nipples were hard little nubs, tight and swollen in the steam, pulsing with sensation when he plucked and stroked and rubbed.
She sighed. “Yes.”
He slid his hands down her belly, sluicing water. “Here?”
Her muscles quivered under his hand, and she dropped her head forward to rest on his shoulder. “More.”
“Here, then,” he said softly, one hand delving between her legs while the other slid around to brace on her lower back. Her pussy was soft and wet, slick under his fingers.
“More,” she said again and shifted her thighs apart to drive the point home.
“God, you feel good,” he whispered, his voice weaving through the drumming of the water, the pounding of her heart. “So hot, so wet. So soft. God, Chloe, you’re so soft.”
She shuddered when he slid a finger inside her, shivered when he stroked gently in and out.
Sensation piled on top of sensation, building layer by layer until her knees threatened to buckle.
Overcome, yearning for more, she turned her face to his neck, opened her mouth to taste him there. “Knox. Please.”
“Tell me,” he urged, stroking faster, harder. The hand at her back urged her closer. “Tell me.”
“Inside me.” She fumbled one hand down to wrap around him. His hitching groan was music, was joy. “Here, now. Please.”
“I’ve got you,” he promised, turning her, shifting her. She followed without hesitation, trusting him to lead.
He carried them out of the spray of water and sat on the low bench that ran along the shower wall.
She might have shivered a little, but there was too much steam, too much heat to worry about being cold.
She stood while he rolled on a condom—no idea where that had come from, but who cared—then climbed into his lap and with a happy hum, grasped his penis by the root.
“Easy,” he warned, bracing his hands on her waist, fingers clenching when she wedged him into place.
She looked up, into his misty eyes, and took him in.
She sank down slowly, moving her hand when she bumped into it, looking into his eyes, the pleasure she felt reflected there.
Felt her body spread to take him in, clasp him tight to hold him.
He shuddered with pleasure, his big body shaking under hers, and the power of it was heady as a shot of whiskey.
Right now, in the still and the steam, this beautiful man was hers, a gift of unimaginable worth, and she knew if she lived a hundred years, she’d never forget this moment.
“Chloe,” he sighed, and there was such yearning in his voice, an ache that called to her to soothe, to comfort. Following instinct, following need, she kissed him, giving him all she could, all she had, and began to move.
Slow, because she couldn’t bear to rush, she lifted herself up, lowered herself down.
The air was thick, the steam and the heat wrapping around them, a cocoon of want and need.
His arms wrapped around her, big hands stroking, soothing and enticing in equal measure.
Her blood quickened, urgency built, but still she moved languidly, unhurried, wanting to wring out every last drop of pleasure she could.
But eventually need overrode the desire to linger, and she started to move faster. But Knox tightened his hands on her waist, held her back. Panting, she tore her mouth away from his.
“Knox.” She strained against his hold, but it was implacable. “What are you doing?”
He shook his head, hair dripping, eyes piercing. “I want to come like this,” he insisted, using his grip to keep her to the same low pace.
She shook her head, scattering water. “But I can’t,” she protested.
“Yes, you can.” Up and down, the pace that had once felt languorous and tender now torturously slow. “I can feel your pussy squeezing me. You’re close.”
“But I can’t go over.” Her voice was a whine, a plea. “You have to go faster.”
“Uh-uh. Like this.”
Steam gave way to sweat, ease to desperation. She clung to his shoulders, fingernails digging in as she fought to regain control. But her strength was no match for his, and the orgasm remained frustratingly out of reach.
“Please,” she begged, the tension in her belly so heavy, so much, it felt as though she might burst. “Please.”
“You can do it, baby,” he murmured, nuzzling her temple, licking at the sweat that trickled.
“I feel your pussy clutching at me, rippling, wanting to come. You feel so fucking good, you know that? So hot and wet and tight. Your ass felt amazing last night, like a fist around my dick, but your pussy is fucking heaven. I could spend hours fucking you like this.”
Hours? She’d never survive. “No.”
His laugh was soft and wicked. “No, baby, not now. But someday. Someday I’m going to spread you out on that big bed and fuck you, slow and easy like this, until you’re begging me to come.”
“You’re a sadist,” she breathed even as her pussy clutched at the thought.
“No, baby, not a sadist. I just want to make you feel good.” His teeth scraped her earlobe, her jaw. “Then when I’m done making you feel good, Jesse can have a turn.”
She jerked in his arms. “Oh, God.”
“He doesn’t have as much control as I do,” he went on, “so that’ll probably go fast. But then I’ll be back, fucking you slow and deep, so deep you’ll feel it everywhere, for days, and when you finally come it’ll be so hard, so good, your pretty pussy squeezing and pounding my dick, and then I’ll come—”
She cried out as the flutters started. “Knox.”
“—and it’ll be so fucking good, Chloe, coming inside you, the best thing I’ve ever felt—”
“I’m coming,” she gasped, tensing in his arms, shaking and jerking while her pussy clutched and squeezed.
“—I’ll never want to fucking stop,” he finished on a tearing groan, his big body jerking under hers, and they were both coming, together.
And when the pleasure was done, they sat there on the bench in the shower, wrapped around each other in a cloud of steam, and held on.
* * * *
Chloe smiled at Knox across the booth. She knew it was a dreamy, dopey smile, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
She felt good, relaxed and loose and almost ridiculously happy, a state she had decided to attribute to sleeping late and a spectacular orgasm, ignoring the nagging thought that something had happened back there in that shower.
Because something had, something important, but she didn’t know what, and she didn’t know what to do about it. So she buried it under the smile and said, “That’s the biggest omelet I’ve ever seen.”
“I know.” Knox eyed it dubiously. “I may have overestimated myself.”
She picked up her fork and stabbed one of the fat sausages on her plate. “Looks good, though.”
“It does.” Evidently deciding to give it a go, Knox picked up his knife and fork. “Fuck, I’m hungry.”
“Me, too,” she mumbled around the sausage. “And tired. I’m taking a nap after this.”
“Wish I could, but I promised Jesse I’d help at the restaurant.” Knox took a bite of omelet and closed his eyes in pleasure.
“Good?” she asked.
“Very.” He cut another bite. “What are your plans after your nap?”
“Work,” she admitted. “I need to put some new pieces up on my Etsy site, it’s almost sold out.”
“How’d you get into that?” he asked. “The jewelry making.”
“I’ve always been interested in it,” she said with a shrug and continued to eat.
“Played around with beads and bracelets as a kid, you know how you do. Never thought I’d do anything with it, really.
” She picked up her water. “Then in college, I needed a science credit to graduate. Why you need a science credit to get a marketing degree is beyond me, but that was the requirement. There was a gemology class, and I thought, well, that’s better than having to dissect something. ”
He stopped chewing to grimace. “I had to do that. It was gross.”
“Right? Anyway, I thought it was fascinating. After I graduated, I got a job and did the whole eight-to-five office thing.”
“You weren’t working at the bar?”
She shook her head. “Not then. I’d spent all that money and time on my degree, I was going to use it.”
He nodded in understanding.
“So anyway, I’d come home after these long, stressful days, and I’d sketch jewelry designs. Earrings, rings, necklaces, even diadems and tiaras, just fun stuff. And it was soothing, and satisfying. Much more satisfying than being a junior marketing executive.”
She stabbed another sausage. “One day Bailey told me she’d heard about a class at the community college she wanted to take, Jewelry Making 101. But she didn’t want to take it alone.” She looked up at him. “Which was, of course, a big fat lie.”
“She tricked you into taking the class.”
“She burned herself twice and stabbed herself once the first night we used tools.” Smiling at the memory, Chloe chewed sausage. “She’s great with a pair of scissors, but with anything else she’s a disaster.”
“How long did it take you to quit your job?” he wanted to know.
“Eight months. It would’ve been less, but I’m stubborn,” she admitted. “And I was getting some Mom-guilt about not using that degree.”
“But you are, aren’t you?” He gestured with his fork. “You’re just marketing yourself now instead of someone else.”
“Took me a while to come up with that argument,” she admitted. “And Mom came around. She wants me to be happy, she was just worried I wouldn’t be able to feed myself.”
“Mothers do worry about that kind of thing.”
“Mmm.” She took a long drink of her water. “Anyway, Mo and Carrie offered to let me work in the bar and live above for cheap, so Mom stopped worrying about me starving to death.”
“Good. Do you mind if I ask how the jewelry business is doing?”
“I don’t mind.” Deciding she was full, she set her napkin on her plate. “It pays for itself, which at this point is enough. I’m funneling most of the profit back into it, buying better stones and materials.”
He jerked his chin. “Are those yours?”
She reached up to finger the earrings she was wearing. Long columns of rose gold, twisted around rough-cut rose quarts stones. “Yes.”
“They’re pretty. And they suit you.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, then set down his fork with a sigh. “I can’t eat any more of this.”
Half the omelet sat on his plate, oozing ham and cheese, onions and mushrooms. “Can I try a bite?”
He nudged the plate over. “Help yourself.”
She cut into it, forked up a bite. “Okay, that’s really good.”
“I know.” Knox raised a hand to signal the server. “Jesse’s going to be really happy when I bring it to him for lunch.”
Chloe toyed with her fork while Knox got his to-go box and a refill on his coffee. When he was sliding the omelet into the container, she asked, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said absently, angling the plate to keep the omelet from hitting the table. “Dammit, get in there.”
“Need a hand?”
“No, I’ve got it.” He set the plate aside and closed the lid. “You were saying?”
“Right.” She fiddled with her fork. “Have you guys done this before?”
“Done what?”
“You know.” Feeling foolish for asking, she waved a hand. “Me.”
“Oh.” Understanding dawning, he picked up his freshened coffee. “We have, before.”
“Are you…” she had to search for the word. “Polyamorous?”
“Not how you’re thinking,” he said and put the coffee down. “It’s not something we seek out. We’re committed to each other, Jesse and I. We love each other.”
“I know that.” Forcing herself to relax, to breathe, she worked up a smile. “I can see that.”
“But I guess you could say we’re…open,” he decided. “To the possibility of more. With someone else.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest, echoing in her ears. “Complicated.”
He nodded, the movement slow and thoughtful. “But worth it, with the right person.”
Her breath caught in her throat. There was something in his eyes, something that reminded her of that moment in the shower, in the still and the quiet when she’d felt so whole, so at peace.
“You want anything else, hon?” the server barked, her nasally voice tearing through the moment like claws through tissue paper.
“I’m good,” Chloe managed.
“Just the check, thanks,” Knox said, his eyes still on Chloe.
The server slapped the ticket onto the table and hurried off, and Knox picked it up. “Chloe? You okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Forcing a smile, Chloe reached for the check. “I’ll get that.”
“No, you won’t.” Check in hand, Knox slid out of the booth, his expression amused. He picked up his to-go box while she scowled at him. “You brought dinner last night, remember?”
“Does that mean you’ll let me get the next one?” she asked.
“No,” he said and strolled up to the register to pay, leaving her scowling after him.
And wondering.