Chapter 8 River
River
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around all of this happening. None of it feels real. Too good to be true. Yet, here Daliah is, squirming beneath me because she’s too impatient for her own good.
Can’t she see that I don’t want to hurt her? She’s too innocent to realize how big a moment like this is.
She wants me to be her first. First, she gave me her lips. Now, she’s lifting her hips like she can’t wait to give me her cherry, too.
I keep getting lost in the desire to kiss her, and giving her what she wants will feel like it’ll take a lifetime.
Eventually, I’ll wrap my mind around the fact that she’s here. Right where I want her, beneath me.
When I press myself closer by rolling my hips between her legs, she gasps against my mouth like I’m the one giving her something precious instead of the other way around.
I take my time. Not just because I want to savor this, but because I need her ready. Need her wanting. Need this to be perfect enough that she’ll smile every time she thinks back to it.
My lips trace down her throat, and she tastes like honey and salt and something uniquely her.
I map the column of her neck with my mouth, feeling her pulse fluttering beneath my tongue.
Shifting lower, my mouth grazes across her collarbone.
Even further, I reach her chest. When I take her breast into my mouth, she arches off the bed with a sound that nearly undoes me—high-pitched and so fucking beautiful I have to pause, just to breathe through it.
It’s a miracle I haven’t already come. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Daliah could bring me to that point, even without touching me. That’s how bad I’ve got it for her.
I lavish attention on both, giving each its due, watching the way her head tilts back on the pillow, the way her hands grip the sheets tight enough to make her knuckles white.
By the time I work my way back up to her mouth, she’s a writhing mess beneath me, and I’ve never seen anything more perfect.
“River, please—” She doesn’t even know what she’s asking for. The way she says my name, desperate and breathless, makes me want to just fill her up with one solid, fluid thrust to put us both out of our misery.
I reach down between us, positioning myself, and the feeling of her heat against the head of me—fuck. I have to close my eyes for a second, and have to remember how to breathe.
It feels like a lifetime since the last time I’ve been with someone, and I don’t want to disappoint her. I want to be the best she’ll ever have. The only one she’ll ever have. To do that, I have to do everything right.
“I’ll be gentle.” I kiss her, soft and sweet, trying to pour everything I feel into it. “But tell me if you need me to stop. Don’t think twice about it. I won’t enjoy any of this if you’re in pain, understand?”
She nods again, and then I’m pushing inside before nearly doubling over at the intensity.
The heat of her. The tightness. The way she grips me like she was made for my cock—I lose my train of thought completely.
She gasps, fingers digging into my shoulders, and I freeze immediately.
Every muscle locks up with my worries. Every instinct screams at me to move, but I don’t.
I wait, even though I’m gritting my teeth, focusing on not spilling my seed right then and there. I give her time to adjust.
My forehead is already damp. My lungs are burning from holding my breath. I’ve never wanted anything the way I want this, want her, and holding still might actually kill me.
“Okay?” The word comes out strangled, barely recognizable.
She breathes. I feel it everywhere—the rise and fall of her chest, the way it makes her grip me tighter before fluttering.
Finally, she nods. “Keep going, please. It’s… wow.”
Knowing what she means, I do. Inch by inch, impossibly slow, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. When I’m finally seated inside her completely, I have to stop and fill my lungs with a mixture of fresh air and her.
With an iron grip on my cock, I’m left shoving a hand between us. Finding her clit, she jerks at my soothing circles.
“Need you to relax, sweetness. Keep this up, and you’re going to cut off my circulation.
” I’m panting, my brows furrowing in concentration.
Pulling back far enough to look between us, I’m amazed by the sight of seeing her wrapped around me.
Just like my fingers earlier, her slick has left my skin glossy.
When I pull back, my cock is in the same state—wet, shining, sliding against her with a sound that’s obscene and wet. Despite how dizzy it leaves me, I rock back into her clutch, watching myself disappear inside her over and over.
“Feels good.” She murmurs her pleasure, and her thighs tremble against my hips. “River, it’s okay. Please—”
She reaches for my wrist, squeezing tight as I press against her sensitive nub. Hearing her moan my name again, something shifts inside me. Unlocks. I make it my mission to hear her say it over and over until her voice has gone raspy, until she forgets every word except mine.
I take her words as permission. Permission to move quicker. To thrust deeper. To give her everything she wants and everything she didn’t know she needed.
I abandon her clit, but only to shove her thighs wider. To swoop in harder and deeper. My hips find a rhythm that has her head pressing back into the pillow, her mouth falling open on a silent cry.
“That’s it,” I growl, the words torn from somewhere deep within me. “Take all of me.”
I’m losing myself. The careful control I’ve maintained for months suddenly doesn’t exist, as if it never did in the first place. It all crumbles. Now there’s only the way she feels clenching around me, pulling me deeper, begging without words.
Her nails rake down my back. Her legs wrap around my waist. And when I hit something inside her that makes her cry out loud enough to bounce off the walls, I know I’ve found it.
“River, I’m—”
“Come for me.” It’s not a request. It’s a command, rough and demanding. “Come on my cock, Daliah. Let me feel it.”
Her body obeys before her mouth can. She falls apart beneath me, crying out my name like a revelation, like I’m the only thing in this world that matters.
Her inner walls clamp down so hard that my vision goes blurry, and the sound she makes, all broken up and perfect, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
I don’t last after that.
I crush her against the bed, burying myself as deep as I can go, and come so hard my hearing rings with it. White hot and endless, wave after wave, until I’m empty and shaking and still buried inside her, still connected, still hers in a way I’ve never been anyone’s.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. My heart pounds against my ribs, against her chest, a wild rhythm that slowly begins to steady. I’m draped over her like a blanket, probably too heavy, but she’s not pushing me away. Her fingers trace lazy patterns on my back, and I could stay here forever.
“I love you.” The words slip out before I can catch them. Before I can second-guess or try to take them back. They’re just hanging in the air between us, waiting for a response.
I should be terrified. I’m not.
I push up just enough to look at her, to make sure she heard, to make sure she knows I mean it. “Be mine.”
She laughs so soft and warm and full of something that sounds like joy—and pats my back like I’m ridiculous in the best way. “I’ve always been yours.”
The words hit me somewhere deep. Somewhere I didn’t know was still capable of being hit. I kiss her, because I can now, because she’s mine and I’m hers, and saying it out loud changes everything.
When we finally break apart, she’s smiling lazily at me, her hand coming up to stroke my face. Her fingers trace my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth, like she’s memorizing me.
“So,” she says, her voice still husky from crying out my name, “would you like to stay for dinner?”
I blink. The answer is obvious, isn’t it? My stare makes her grin.
“After that, I can actually show you the hive.” Her eyes light up with genuine excitement. “I want to show off what I love.”
What she loves. Bees. Honey. The work she’s poured her soul into. And me, apparently. Me too. Will she try to show me off from now on?
“Yeah.” The word comes out rough. I clear my throat. “I’d like that. A lot.”
She grins, and it’s like watching the sun come up.
“Can I stay tomorrow too?”
She laughs again, that beautiful sound that makes my chest ache, and pulls me down for another kiss. When she speaks, her lips are still brushing mine.
“You can stay forever if it means I get to spend every day with you.”
Forever. With her.
I kiss her again, deeper this time, pouring everything I can’t say into it. When we finally come up for air, I’m smiling too, wide and helpless and utterly gone for this woman.
“Dinner sounds perfect. Then the hives. Then tomorrow.”
She traces my bottom lip with her thumb. “Then forever.”
“Then forever,” I agree, and it feels like the easiest promise I’ve ever made.