Chapter Ten #2
"Shit." I spin around to see her standing a few feet away, her face pale and her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. She does not look happy.
"Fuck," I mutter, taking a step toward her while my brother and cousins take a step away. Pussies. "Hey, Dimples."
"Don't," she whispers, throwing a hand up in front of her like she's trying to ward me off. "Don't hey me, Ridley. And don't even think about touching me."
I don't know how much she heard, but it clearly wasn't everything, not judging by the look on her face. That look breaks my goddamn heart.
"Dimples, let me explain."
"No, thanks. I heard plenty. God." A pained laugh rips from her lips.
It fucking hurts to hear it, almost as much as it hurts to see the stricken look on her face, as if she's cracking apart right in front of me.
Only, there's a whole lot of rage peeking through those cracks, too.
She's mad as hell. If looks could kill…well, she and Lucy would be borrowing a boat to deliver my pieces to the sharks. "I actually believed you."
"Dimples."
"Stop calling me that! Stop acting like you care! Just…stop!" she cries before spinning on her heel and stomping away.
Stop acting like I care? What the fuck?
I growl a curse before storming after her.
She fights like hell when I hoist her up into my arms, hauling her over my shoulder the same damn way I did the day she tried to walk back to the vineyard in the scorching heat dressed in sky-high heels. But she isn't walking away from me again. To hell with that.
"Put me down right now, Ridley Goodson," she shrieks, her little fists pounding against my back. "I swear to God, I'm going to strangle you if you don't."
The guys in the field look up, their eyes locking on us.
I smack Paisley's ass to settle her down…which only enrages her further. Jesus. Why is she so fucking sexy when she's pissed? She's got her teeth in my skin, and all I want to do is tip her over and plow into her until she's too exhausted to move.
"You're an asshole," she shouts as I storm toward her cabin. It's closer than my place. With half the fucking vineyard watching us and my dick pressed up against my zipper, close is a necessity right now.
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're leaving me again." Her teeth sink into my skin again, pulling a roar from my lips.
"I swear to Christ, Paisley, if you bite me again…"
"What?" she taunts. "You'll spank me again? So what?"
"No. I'll fuck you until you're so full of me, there's no way you don't end up pregnant with my kid."
"You're never touching me again."
Is that what she thinks?
"Bite me again and see what happens," I dare her.
I'm not really surprised when she bites the hell out of me. And I'm not surprised when my fucking cock throbs in response. Gabe and Haven are standing right outside the winery with a tour group, watching this shitshow unfold, but damned if that stops me from smacking her ass again.
She screeches my name, her fists flailing against my back again as I stomp up the steps, kicking open the door to her cabin. I kick it closed behind me, not bothering to make sure it actually latches.
In three steps, we're in the bedroom. In two more, she's on her back on the bed, and I'm on top of her.
"Let me go right now," she yells, trying to buck me off her.
"Hell no," I growl, ripping her shirt down the middle. "I warned you what was going to happen if you bit me again."
"I don't ever want you to touch me again!"
"Yeah? Is that why you're so upset at the thought of me leaving you, baby? Because you don't want me to touch you?" I rip her pants and panties down her legs, pissed off, turned on, and too far gone to stop now.
She has no response to that, so she rips my shirt instead.
I howl when her nails sink into my skin, raking downward.
"I'm not fucking leaving you, do you hear me?" I growl, ripping through the button on my pants. "I'm never fucking leaving you."
"That's not what you told your brother and your cousins."
"What do you think you heard?" I ask, slipping a hand between her legs.
And even though she swore she didn't want me to touch her, she's dripping for me.
She can't fight the moan spilling from her lips either.
Even now, when she's mad as hell, she wants me just as badly as I need her. She's just as desperate as I am.
That's what we are together. We're push and pull, and crash and burn. But goddamn if it isn't the best fucking thing in this world. It's worth the pain. It's worth everything.
Once upon a time, it scared the shit out of me to realize I could kill for her. Now? Shit, now it doesn't surprise me at all to realize I'd die for her if that's what I had to do. She's in my veins, pumping through my system like blood. I'm hers, every inch, every second.
There's no walking away from that. There's no recovering from it, either.
"You said you were leaving."
"What else did I say?" I jiggle my thumb against her clit, watching the way her eyes roll back in her head. God, she's everything. How does she not know that? How can she think for even a minute that I could leave her again? "Tell me what else I said, Dimples."
"That you didn't want me to know yet, and that you were afraid things wouldn't w-work out." Her bottom lip quivers, a tear spilling down her cheek. And that's when realization dawns. She heard plenty…but not enough. Only enough to make me sound like the world's biggest asshole.
"Baby," I whisper, sliding down her body. "You missed the most important part of that conversation."
"What part?"
"The part about where I'm planning to go."
"I don't care."
"Yeah, you do." I throw her legs over my shoulders. This is not how we should be having this conversation, but fuck it. When have we ever done anything the right way? We don't. That isn't us. We burn too fucking hot to go slow and do it right. We leap first and ask questions when we land.
I'm trying like hell to do it a better way this time—to do it the right way this time. But old habits die hard, I guess.
"No, I don't."
"Look at me, Paisley."
Her lips compress into a stubborn line, her eyes locking on the scratch marks she left dripping blood down my chest.
"Look at me."
"Fine. What?" She lifts her gaze to mine, still pissed.
Still hurt. But I see the hope fighting to break through it.
She's trying like hell not to let herself feel it, but she can't stifle it.
It's too big because she wants this too badly.
And that's all the proof I need to know that she's still right here in this with me.
She's still wild about me. She's just scared as hell that she's in it alone.
Well, fuck that. She's never been in it alone. Even when we were suffering on different continents, she didn't feel it alone.
"I'm not leaving you. I'm going with you ."
The way her face twists up in confusion, her lips parting, is so fucking adorable I almost laugh. But I don't dare.
I don't give her time to say anything, either. I bury my face in her pussy, ruining us both all over again. And goddamn, what a way to drown. In her honey. In bliss.
She screams my name, shattering apart on my tongue. I don't stop. I demand another one, thrusting two fingers inside her and curling them up to stroke her G-Spot while I seam my lips around her clit.
She wails my name this time, clawing the sheets loose from the bed, and then she detonates again, like a beautiful, fiery little bomb just for me.
I flip her onto her stomach before she even has a chance to come down, yanking her hips up high. We both shout when I slam into her, all the way to the hilt. Her head flies back, her hair flowing down her back.
I wrap my fist around it, smacking her ass with my other hand just to watch it bounce and jiggle.
"I'm not stopping until you're begging for mercy this time, Dimples," I growl, craning her head back to attack the side of her throat with my lips. "You doubt me? You'll see just how devoted I am, baby."
"Ridley," she whimpers.
"Nu-uh. Too late now." I drive into her, yanking her back on my cock. "You don't get to stop coming until I decide you've learned. And you get to listen to what I have to say while you do it."
She sobs wordlessly as I pound into her, forcing her right to the edge. I throw her over the side with a powerful snap of my hips.
She falls apart around me, babbling my name.
"I love you," I growl, fucking her through it. "I've loved you every goddamn minute since I met you. Three years didn't change that. Nothing will. You're in my skin, Paisley, branded into my fucking psyche."
"Ridley," she whimpers, already clenching and fluttering around my cock again. "Please."
"You think I could walk away from you again, baby?
I barely survived the last three years. I wasn't living.
I was in hell, imagining you happy with someone else.
Imagining you giving yourself to someone else like this," I growl, slamming into her again.
"And then I found out how badly I fucked it up.
I let you go for nothing. You weren't happy.
You weren't living. You need me the same way I need you. You know why?"
"W-w-why?"
"Because you're mine, the same way I'm yours. I love you . Every piece of you. You can't push me away, Dimples. I won't fucking let you." I nip her shoulder, my heart pounding. "Where you go, I go."
She shatters apart again, her legs giving out beneath her. I follow her down, still driving into her, determined to get her there one more time, to make sure she damn well knows that I mean every word.
"It doesn't matter how hard you fight me. It doesn't matter how scared you get. It doesn't matter if you bite and claw and try like hell to push me away. It doesn't matter if the whole state watches you throw a fit. I'm not leaving you. "