Chapter 22 #2
His hands trailed down to the waistband of my jeans; he lazily undid the buttons and slid my pants and undergarments off my hips torturously slowly.
As soon as they hit the floor, however, he hauled me into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he made his way toward the bed.
He laid me down and then took a step back, staring at every bare inch of me just like he’d promised.
“Beautiful,” he said in that low, rough voice.
I smiled wide, and those blooms in my chest felt like a whole damn garden.
I rolled onto my side, watching him undress further and blatantly admiring him as more of his lean, muscled body came into view. As he dropped his pants, I could see how much he wanted me.
“Have I ever told you,” I asked in a conversational tone, “that you are the most handsome man I’ve ever seen?”
He prowled back toward the bed, and I shivered at the heat in his gaze.
“I never had a chance in hell tryin’ to push you away. Especially when you look at me like that.” He grinned as he reached the bed, but he didn’t join me. Instead he gently but firmly grasped my ankles and tugged hard enough that I tipped onto my back and slid across the bed with a gasp.
“Have I ever told you,” he asked in a matching casual tone as he sank to his knees, pulling my legs over his shoulders, “that I have dreams about doing this.” He shifted forward, pressing a kiss to my inner thigh, and I shuddered.
“And when I wake up”—his lips ghosted across my opposite leg—“I can’t remember your taste.
” His teeth scraped the skin of my inner thigh, and a cry escaped my lips.
“Only that I couldn’t get enough.” The next kiss had me whining with frustration.
He raised his head and met my eyes, looking so fucking smug.
“Trey,” I pleaded.
His warm breath glided across my skin as he chuckled, but then his arms wrapped around my thighs and he pulled me even closer as his tongue flicked across my slit.
“Fuck,” I whispered, clenching handfuls of the blanket and bucking my hips, but he held me in place.
His tongue moved in slow, languid strokes like he had all the time in the world, and he hummed deep in his throat. My legs trembled, toes curling.
“Oh my gods,” I gasped.
His tongue delved inside, licking and swirling.
When his mouth moved upward, his fingers replacing his tongue, I cried out, straining against his hold on my legs.
I panted, trying to keep my moans quiet, but then his tongue swirled over my clit, and he sucked, and I dissolved into pleasure.
His fingers kept pumping, tongue flicking until my release faded.
He emerged from between my legs, that smug smile firmly on his face.
“Better,” he said.
“What?” I was still trying to catch my breath.
“You taste even better than I dreamed,” he rasped, crawling up my body to claim my lips again.
I could taste myself on his lips and tongue, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I wrapped a hand around his cock, and he groaned against my lips.
“I want you,” I breathed, stroking him and making him shudder.
“You sure?” he asked, meeting my eyes, and I could see his desire as well as restraint written all over his face. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable—”
“Trey,” I interrupted, a soft smile on my lips, “I love you.”
He went so still, I was half afraid he’d stopped breathing.
“I love you, Trey, and I want you,” I repeated in a whisper.
“I love you.” His voice roughened with emotion, and then he captured my lips in a desperate, bruising kiss that clicked our teeth together.
This time when I moved, he moved with me. His cock sank into me, and the pleasant burn made my breath hitch. He paused, looking worried.
“Are you—”
“Trey,” I demanded as I gripped his hips, “I want you to fuck me.”
His smirk crackled with heat. With one thrust, he sank fully inside me, and I dug my fingernails into his hips with a moan.
He began to move, rolling his hips slowly, and I wrapped a leg around him to pull him even deeper.
I wanted him, all of him. He drove into me harder and faster, our hips snapping together.
The coiling tension in my center built like a fire.
“Tell me what you want, Bones,” he rasped.
“More,” I moaned. I couldn’t get enough.
He hauled me up, his cock still buried inside me, as he kneeled on the bed with me sitting in his lap. The new angle came with dizzying new pleasure.
“Fuck.” My head tipped back as his hips set a rhythm.
“You’re so beautiful,” Trey said, and then his lips were on my breast, his tongue swirling around my pert nipple, and I careened over the edge again. The burning was both pleasure and pain until it built to the point where I instinctively let go.
“Bones, open your eyes,” Trey said, stilling.
I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them, but when I opened my eyes, I froze. I was glowing. All of me. Glowing. As though sunshine ran through my veins and beamed through my skin in a warm golden light.
“Oh my gods,” I whispered.
“Beautiful.”
I met Trey’s wide eyes, and in the light they looked like honey.
I could see my gaze reflected in his, wide with shock and fully glowing golden, no white or pupil to be seen.
My heart lurched at how jarring, how inhuman it looked.
I bent down, pressing a kiss to his neck so I couldn’t see my reflection anymore.
His breathing hitched, so I did it again, scraping my teeth lightly over his pulse point.
“Bones,” he groaned.
I slid my hands into his hair and he suddenly tipped us until my back hit the bed and he pushed my knees up against my chest. He pounded into me, reaching between our bodies and teasing my clit, and I cried out as pleasure barreled through me again.
Shortly after, Trey uttered a string of swear words mixed with my name and shuddered.
He dropped his forehead to mine, both of us gasping for breath and covered in a sheen of sweat.
“Am I still glowing?” I murmured, dazed.
He grinned. “A little.”
I held up a hand and stared. The light was faint now but still shimmering beneath my skin.
“What the fuck?” I breathed.
“Good thing you didn’t light up the forest like a beacon yesterday.”
“Oh my gods, this would happen to me when I’m trying to disappear.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’d be lying.”
“You will be sorry when you can’t have me again unless we’re in a windowless room.”
“Oh shit.” His smug grin vanished into a forlorn expression, and for some reason that’s what did me in.
I started laughing, and it wasn’t long before he joined me, both of us dissolving into wild laughter. By the time we managed to stop, the glow had faded, to my relief. I curled into him.
“I love you.” My voice caught.
His hands came up to cup my face, and he stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs. His beautiful eyes glimmered. “I love you, Bones.”
We lay there tangled together for a while, our hearts returning to a normal rhythm. I started to drift off when Trey shifted.
“You still want a bath?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
I heard him chuckle. “Only if you promise not to fall asleep and drown.”
“You better come in with me just to make sure.”
He grinned. “Safety first.”
—
Hot water poured from the faucet, sending steam billowing around the room. From what I knew, this used to be a mundane, normal thing in the Before, but to me, it seemed almost magical.
“Could the Vault have hot water?” I asked.
“Technically parts of it could, but we’ve never been able to get the water heaters workin’,” Trey answered. “There’s some parts missin’ or broken that we haven’t been able to jerry-rig with scavenged parts.”
“You ever think about what it must’ve been like in the Before?”
Trey leaned over the tub, one hand in the running water. I admired the way the warm light from the candles we’d found played across his lean body. His summer tan had faded, but I could still see the faint tan lines around his neck and waist.
“Oh, of course,” Trey answered. “I love lookin’ at any books from Before that I can find. Seems impossible this is the same place.”
“I saw one of those airplanes once. It had crashed in the desert. It was in pieces and gutted, but it was so fuckin’ big. I dunno how they built somethin’ that big.”
“I dunno how they got those things up in the air,” Trey said.
“Me either,” I agreed, thinking about how huge and heavy even the smallest piece of the plane had been.
“So what’s the story you were told?” Trey asked. When I stared back in confusion, he clarified, “Why the world ended.”
I made a face. “Divine punishment.”
Trey made a face too. “That’s what the Reapers believed?”
“No, the…place where I grew up.”
Trey gave me an inquisitive look, but he didn’t push. That made me feel more guilty. I’d told him almost everything, but the last few details stuck in my throat.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Oh, we heard all sorts of stories. They all started with the blackout, but nobody could agree why the blackout happened or what exactly happened after. I remember my dad telling me there was a war that destroyed all the tech and killed a lot of people. Then there was a real old lady in the Vault when I was a kid named Bugs. She seemed ancient so we were pretty sure she must’ve been there.
She told me that the gods called green lightning out of the earth, and the world went dark. ”
I wrinkled my nose. “Green lightning?”
“Yeah. Wild, right?” Trey chuckled.
When I climbed into the tub, I moaned. The hot water soothed my sore back and muscles. Trey climbed in behind me, and I settled in between his legs, leaning against his chest.
“Well, this is nice,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“This is amazing,” I corrected him.
“Does it feel okay on your back?”
“Yeah, it’s helping.”
“Here,” he said, coaxing me forward. He gently ran his hands across my healing scars, and I felt a tiny flash of insecurity. “Does it hurt everywhere?”
“The really thick scars seem to hurt the most. But after walking so much, pretty much everythin’ hurts.”