Chapter 10
chapter
ten
Leo
I’ve only been back in my room for about twenty minutes when the knock comes. I open it to find Juniper.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes. I just… I’m not tired. As it turns out and well, I thought we could, maybe—”
She doesn’t have to spell it out for me. I lift her up by her bottom and she immediately wraps her legs around my waist. I kick the hotel door closed behind me as I walk her to the King-sized bed.
“I’m really glad you’re not tired.”
“Me too.” She buries her face in my throat, then I feel the distinct dampness of her tongue on my skin.
“Juniper,” I breathe.
“Is this okay, Leo? I don’t want to pressure you.”
That makes me chuckle. I on the edge of the bed, her now straddling my lap. “Did you come up here to seduce me?”
My room is dim, just the lamp by the window on, throwing everything into soft gold and shadow.
“And if I did?” she challenges.
“Then I am prepared to be thoroughly seduced. Debauched, even.”
She laughs. “You are annoyingly likeable.”
My brows raise. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t feign modesty on my account. We both know that you’re pretty damn amazing.”
I shake my head. “You’re the amazing one. And I should thank you. For tonight. For not giving up on me after I gave you every reason to.”
“You didn’t give me every reason to.” She wraps both arms around my shoulders, leaning closer to me. “You gave me one bad reason and about a hundred good ones. The math worked out in your favor.”
“I’m not sure I deserve that math.”
“That’s not really your call to make.” She says it gently, but there’s a firmness underneath it.
It’s the same mettle she displayed in the vendor hall when she tore Eric apart without even meaning to defend me.
“I get to decide what I think you deserve, Leo. That’s the whole point of trusting someone.
You don’t get a vote in how generous I am. Or how stingy.”
And just like that, I know I’m all-in with this woman. I could search the entire world, cross universes and dimensions and never find anyone I want more. I kiss her before I can find a way to mess up a moment that good with more words.
She kisses me back immediately, her hands finding my shirt, fisting in the fabric like she’s been waiting all night to get her hands on me. She bunches the fabric into her palms and I break the kiss long enough for her to pull my shirt off my back and head. She tosses it somewhere behind us.
Then it occurs to me… the other secret. I mentally roll my eyes at myself.
I should tell her now. Before this goes any further.
I’ve never had to say it to anyone before—never had to, because there was never anyone I let close enough to need the explanation.
And this is certainly not the thing I’d confide in to my cousins or even my father.
No, this is, as it turns out, a secret just for her.
“Juniper.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Before we—I need to tell you something. It’s not so much a secret. Just something about me that other people don’t really know.”
Her nails scrape up my bare back and I moan at the sensation. “God, that feels good. But you’re distracting me.”
She gives me a sexy little smile and puts her hands in her lap. “I’ll behave.” She goes carefully attentive. And I’m struck again by how there’s no artifice about her. She is completely and wholly herself without explanation or apology.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “I’m listening.”
I look down at where my hands are resting on her hips.
“I haven’t been with anyone,” I say, “in a really long time. Remember the girl I told you about earlier?”
“Rachel?”
He nods. “She’s the only partner I’ve ever had.
After everything happened with her, I just—stopped.
Not on purpose, exactly, not as some grand vow.
It just turned into the safest place to stand, and I stood there for over a decade, and it stopped feeling like a wound and started feeling like who I was. ”
Juniper’s face has gone very soft, very still, no trace of shock in it, just a kind of careful tenderness that undoes me a little.
“We only had sex a couple of times. Fumbling, teenage sex.”
“Leo. I’m honored you told me. And that’s a really long time to carry that by yourself. ”
“It didn’t feel like carrying, most days.
It felt like managing.” I exhale, some of the tightness in my chest easing now that it’s actually said, out loud, real.
“But I want you to know, before anything else happens tonight, that this isn’t casual for me.
I’m not capable of casual. I haven’t had the practice.
This isn’t a con-weekend thing for me. I need you to know that going in, because once we do this, I won’t be able to pretend otherwise. ”
She reaches up, cups my jaw with one hand, her thumb brushing slow along my cheekbone.
“Good,” she says simply. “Because I’m not capable of casual about you either, and I suck at lying. I don’t think I’ve been doing a very good job of hiding my feelings since we met, but after sharing a night together, there will be no hiding.”
“I might want to talk about those feelings,” I say.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to name them, but I can tell you they’re bigger than they have any right to be considering we’ve known each other less than seventy-two hours.”
“You’re sure?”
“Leo.” She leans back just a little and pulls her t-shirt off.
Her full breasts are encased in a pretty pink lace bra and I think I forget how to swallow. “Fuck,” I murmur.
“Am I sure?” She shifts a little. “Do you see this tattoo?”
I glance down and the ink rides her ribcage area. It’s a silhouette of all of the Scooby Doo characters running in a single-file line.
I laugh. “That’s the best tat I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, I was very certain I would love it and I got it when I turned eighteen. And I still love it. Once I make a decision, I lock in. So I know what certainty feels like. This is that.” Then she rolls her eyes. “That was a lame example. But you know what I mean.”
I kiss her, slow, deliberate. I’ve got nothing left to reveal.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands sliding up my torso, palms flat and warm against my stomach. “For what it’s worth,” she says, “I’m planning on making this very much worth the wait.”
“No pressure.”
“All the pressure. I take my responsibilities seriously.”
I laugh again, and she grins up at me, delighted with herself. Then we’re kissing again. Tongues, teeth and lips and it’s so sensual and erotic that it will be an actual miracle if I don’t come before we get to the main event.
I take my time with her. I want to memorize every part of this—the way she gasps when I find the spot just beneath her ear.
The way her fingers curl into my shoulders when I finally cup her breast, over her bra.
The weight of her against my palm is perfection.
The hardness of her nipple begging for more attention is exquisite.
I press my mouth to her collarbone, licking against her skin. “I’ve wanted to touch you, explore your beautiful curves since the first moment you kissed me.”
She gasps when I nibble at her throat.
“You’re allowed to touch me,” she says, a little breathless. “I promise I won’t break.”
“I know. I’m just—” I trail my fingers slowly down the curve of her waist, over the soft swell of her hip, watching her shiver under my hand. “I’ve waited a long time for you. I want to appreciate it.”
“You have my permission to fully appreciate me,” she says.
I grin. “I also need to switch positions. I’m not going to last long with the heat of your pussy resting against my dick.”
“Oh,” she breathes. She gives me a wicked little smile before grinding herself down on me.
“Juniper,” I warn.
She just giggles, but then she climbs off my lap.
And then proceeds to start removing the rest of her clothes.
Every creamy inch of her skin that’s revealed makes me even harder.
Which seems impossible at this point. Until she’s standing there, in nothing but her bra and panties.
They don’t match and somehow that makes it even sexier.
Because it’s a reminder of her. She’s so real, so present and all I can think about is marrying her.
Well, after I thoroughly fuck her.
She looks up at me to find me staring and snaps her fingers. “Hey, nakedness is an equal opportunity event. Strip and let me see the rest of those muscles you’ve been carefully disguising behind super hero costumes.”
I laugh again. “I think I might want to keep you.” Then I kick off my shoes and then my jeans until I’m there just in my boxer briefs. I tap on the cotton. “See? No tighty whities for me.”
“I am seeing that. Also seeing that muscles weren’t the only secret you were hiding in your clothes. Sir, do you have a license for that thing?”
I pull her to me. “Always with the sassy mouth.” Then we’re kissing again. I attempt to unhook her bra, but it’s embarrassingly more difficult than I remember. I pull back and spin her so I can see her back. “Do I need an actual engineering degree to get you out of this?”
“It just has a lot of hooks. Gotta have all the support for my girls.”
“Right now, I would like to support your girls,” I say.
“One hook at a time,” she says. “Or I can take it off for you.”
“No, I can see it now—looks like a damned torture device—but it’s infinitely easier now that I can use my hand-eye coordination.” I let the bra fall off her shoulders, then lean forward and press kisses to her bare skin. “You’re so beautiful, Juniper. And your skin is so soft.”
She leans back into my chest as I reach around to cup her tits. They barely fit in my hands they’re so plump. I knead them, plucking at the nipples and she moans in response. I slide my hands down her soft stomach and then peel her panties off.
“On the bed. On your back. Open your thighs,” I say.
She says nothing, simply follows my directions.
She arches into every place I touch like she’s been waiting for it her whole life, not just this weekend. The sounds she makes when I finally settle between her thighs and put my mouth on her will live in my head for the rest of my life.
Her fingers card through my hair as I devour her. She smells amazing, tastes incredible and I decide I could do this every day for the rest of my life.
I mentally record every gasp, every broken version of my name, every keening whimper. When I add fingers, sliding two inside her slick heat, I nearly come on the bed. I use my tongue to make circles against her clit and crook my fingers inside her.
“Yes,” she hisses. “Right there. Just like that, Leo. Please don’t stop.”
I don’t stop. I want the taste of her climax on my tongue. So I change nothing. I stay the course, doing exactly what she told me to do. Her body rocks against my face and her fingers tighten in my hair and then she crests.
She cries out my name and I lick up every last drop of her orgasm.
“Wow,” she says. Then repeats it a few more times.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m glad I didn’t muck it up considering I’ve never done that before.”
“Something tells me you excel at everything you do,” she says.
“Well, I don’t know about that. But I definitely want to excel at making you make those noises.”
“Come here,” she says, voice wrecked, tugging at my shoulders. “I need you. All of you. Now.”
I move up her body slow, kiss her deep, let her taste exactly how much I want her. She reaches between us, slides her hand inside my underwear and wraps her hand around me.
“Fuck,” I groan.
“Naked, please.”
I quickly remove my boxers, then we have the awkward conversation where I admit I don’t have condoms because, of course, I wasn’t planning on this. But after assuring me she’s on something and we know we’re both clean, I’m mentally preparing to take this woman bare.
Her hand finds me again, this time guiding me to where she’s slick and ready and waiting, I have to stop for a second, forehead pressed to hers, just to breathe through the sheer size of what’s about to happen.
“Leo.” Her voice is gentle. “You okay?”
“I’m perfect.” I mean it completely. “This is perfect. I just don’t want to go off to soon. Because despite my lack of experience, I know that this would not be this amazing with anyone but you. I want to be here for every second of it instead of getting lost in my own head.”
“Then be here. Eyes on me.” She presses a slow kiss to the corner of my mouth. “With me. That’s all I want.”
I sink into her slow, watching her face the whole way, cataloguing every flicker of pleasure crossing it. When I’m finally seated fully inside her, I go still. Her legs come up, wrap around my waist.
I understand, with a clarity I haven’t felt about anything in years, exactly why I waited. It was never going to be like this with anyone else. It was always going to be her. Because she is my person. My other half. My soulmate. Whatever you want to call it, Juniper is mine.
We move together slow at first, finding the rhythm with each other. Her nails leave half-moons against my shoulders that I’ll probably feel tomorrow. I whisper her name like a question, and she says mine back like a vow.
When she comes again, she shrieks my name. I follow her over almost immediately, burying my face against her neck.
There’s a part of me that wants to do a victory lap for making her come twice. Pretty good for someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a virgin going into this.
Afterward, we lie tangled together in the lamplight, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing slow, idle patterns over my chest.
“Wow,” she says again.
“Definitely a wow,” I agree.
I look down at her—hair a mess, cheeks still flushed, looking thoroughly, gorgeously pleased with herself—and feel something in my chest settle into place. I love her. I am in love with this woman and I don’t even know her last name.
“You were definitely worth the wait, Juniper.”
She smiles against my chest, tucks herself in closer, and I hold her a little tighter. Because as it turns out, she’s the answer to a question I didn’t know I’d been asking my whole life.