Chapter 44
DELANEY
It all just . . . comes out. The throbbing emotion that’s clouded my thoughts distracts me from the fact that yeah, maybe it is too early.
It’s only been a few weeks, but I just think I’m ready.
I’ve been ready for a while now, yet I’ve kept myself away, too scared to fully recommit to the one person who’s always held the most power over me.
The one who can break my heart with a snap of his fingers or a shrug of a shoulder.
Deciding to be with him again is as good as writing my name beside his on a shared gravestone. There won’t be any take backs.
Darren’s hands have turned to stone on my hips, weighing them down as his silence lingers. The crinkle between his brows is worrisome, as if he’s trying to come up with an excuse to not take that step with me. I don’t know what I’d do if those words escaped the lips hovering against mine.
“Or maybe it is too soon?” I ask cautiously.
That snaps him out of his thoughts.
His hold on me heats as he runs his hands up my sides. I gasp when he uses that grip to pull me until we’re chest to chest, flush together. My stomach flips.
“It’s never been too soon. Not with us. ”
“You’re sure?”
“So sure, Elle,” he mumbles before his mouth meets my jaw and then its sensitive underside. “Already told you that I’m not letting you go again.”
My eyes flutter shut, threatening to roll into my skull as he sucks on my skin, teeth skimming, teasing. “So much lost time, Darren. I don’t want to lose any more.”
“We won’t. Not again.”
Letting those words soothe me, I roll my head to the side, offering him more space for his mouth. He takes it, scratching my throat and jaw and chin with his facial hair. I know it will leave marks, and I want it to.
“You’ll have to remind me how to do this,” I whisper-moan.
Darren nips at my throat before resting a hand at the base of my back and slowly leaning me backward. His lips work their way down my neck while I paw at the back of his, pulling him into me.
“Gotta remind each other, baby.”
My stomach jolts. “Yes, please.”
I push my knees into the mattress and straighten enough that I can look down at him. He drops his head back to look at me, the devotion blazing so brightly in his eyes I would have given in right now had I not already.
“Love looking up at you,” he whispers, pushing my hair back when it drapes between us. “You’re so beautiful.”
I hold him too tight, like I’m scared he’s going to turn into smoke and slip through my fingers. “Make love to me, Darren.”
He groans, eyes squeezing shut. When they flash open, I’m being flipped onto my back, gasping.
“You don’t know what it does to me when you say things like that.”
“So tell me,” I plead.
Crawling up the bed, I watch him follow, caging me beneath him. It’s a prison I could live with never escaping from.
Grabbing my thigh, Darren lowers his groin to meet mine. The hard ridge of his erection rolls over my core with a shift of his hips. Stars decorate my vision.
“You can feel what it does, Elle. What you do to me.”
I bring my other leg to curl around his waist, opening myself up to him. My skirt isn’t long, and I know he’s been looking at my legs all night. Now, he has all the time in the world to do far more than that.
“Darren,” I whisper, my gaze seeking his. Brown eyes focus on me, waiting. “Touch me.”
There’s a rumble in his chest when he brings his fingers to the pebbled skin beneath my skirt. Each glide of his fingers makes me shake, growing more desperate by the time he strokes the edge of my panties.
My mind shuts down, leaving me with nothing but white noise in my ears.
“I need them off. On the floor and out of my way,” he rasps, in warning or as a promise, I’m not sure.
I jerk my head in a nod and keep still as he peels them off me, not noting their dampness until they’re bunched in his hands. His throat jumps with a swallow as he drags his thumb over the wet spot in the silk.
“This is for me, Delaney.”
“My panties?”
He slips them into his jeans before stepping off the bed. Fingers pulling at the button of his jeans, he says, “Those, but also the sweet pussy they were hiding.”
I stop breathing, a deep, all-consuming shudder rolling through me.
He shucks out of his jeans and stands at the edge of the bed in a shirt and very thin, very tight briefs. The full outline of his erection is exposed, thick and proud. I clench between my partially spread legs and lean up on my elbows.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’ll have another early exit, baby,” he warns lowly.
I can’t help it. “You’re . . . bigger than you were. ”
“No, Elle. You’ve just forgotten.”
Fuck . I can’t wait any longer to get out of my top, the sensation of my bra digging into my skin too much right now. Darren watches in silence as I pull my top off and work on my bra, my heaving chest snaring his gaze.
Finally, I get it unhooked and let the cups slide, my breasts falling free of them. His jaw tightens, the tension in his muscles growing as he drops a hand to his groin and grabs his cock, massaging it.
“Come back . . .” I whisper.
He grips his erection harder. “Say it again.”
“Come back to bed with me, Darren. I want you.”
Releasing himself, he whips his shirt off and crawls up the bed. I spread my legs wider, still covered by my skirt but unable to care as he hovers his body over mine and kisses me. The slow pace is gone, replaced by one of fury. Of pain and pleasure and an endless ache that I feel echoed in myself.
I run my hands over his body, up his back and chest, exploring the new areas that I’ve missed out on touching all these years. The cool burn of his chain against my chest makes me moan, my hips jerking up to where he waits, bare and hard.
“Shit,” he hisses, slowing when he slides through my sex, parting me. “So wet, baby. Jesus.”
My entire body locks up, pleasure exploding in my belly. “Do that again.”
“This?”
The length of him runs over me, between my swollen flesh and over where I’m wet and aching. He hits my clit, and I claw at him, lifting off the bed.
“I need to taste you,” he declares.
Before I can reply, he’s between my legs, mouth running along my inner thigh.
He discards my skirt before getting back in position and pushing my knees up toward my stomach, covering me with his mouth.
His tongue finds my clit, lapping at it like he’s starving, craving this.
I cry out, hands slapping at the mattress as I quiver between my legs, gushing onto his tongue.
“Darren, Darren . . . Darren,” I mumble, mindless.
“That’s it, Delaney. Remind yourself what my name feels like on your tongue while I stay right here.”
I dive a hand between my legs to grapple onto his hair. “Elle. It’s Elle to you.”
Darren’s eyes flare hot before he spits onto my pussy and glides a finger inside of me. “My Elle. Only to me. Mine.”
My eyes cross. The breach is both familiar and foreign. It’s different this time—he’s different. A man . . . mine. The thought has me tightening around his finger. He pulls my clit into his mouth and sucks, tongue lashing with a ferocity that sends me toppling.
I buck up, my legs falling and snapping shut around him. He slips his finger free and drags his tongue over my entrance, moaning as he looks up at me, forcing my eyes to focus on him.
“Now, Darren. Please—more,” I breathe out.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and moves back up my body.
I wait for his kiss, but he waits, his hand moving between our bodies.
When something smooth and broad runs over my entrance, he presses his lips to mine.
I hold his shoulders as he pushes forward and sinks that first inch inside of me.
“Tell me if—” he starts.
I shake my head, our mouths rubbing. “No. No stopping.”
His eyes disappear as he squeezes them shut and jerks his chin. I kiss him again, tasting myself. Darren moves deeper, the stretch biting now after a year without being with someone. I gave up on penetration making me orgasm since I stopped being able to make it happen myself.
“Halfway there,” he murmurs.
“It’s so much already. I feel too full.”
“You can take it. You’ve taken it before, baby,” he soothes, a hand finding my chest and nipple .
Brushing his thumb over the tight peak, he jerks a bit further inside of me, grunting into my mouth. I tighten around him, pleasure sparking inside my core . . . the sensation making me cry out.
“Shit, you feel . . .” His words die when I clench again, on purpose this time.
“Slide the rest inside, Darren.”
He pinches my nipple, rolling it firmly before giving in to my demand. Bottoming out, he stays still for a moment, eyes flicking between mine, searching. I bring my hand to his cheek, stroking it. He turns his face into the touch, kissing my palm.
The ring I once wore on my finger drags across my breast when he starts to move, rolling his hips with soft, testing thrusts.
Adjusted now, I hold his vibrant gaze and rock with him.
My mouth parts on a silent moan that grows in volume with every glide of him inside of me.
He’s so deep . . . it’s like he’s found a spot that’s been forgotten and lost.
Pleasure coils low in my belly and spiders outward, zapping through my legs and up into my chest. I clutch onto him, feeling the raw strength in his body. Darren holds himself above me, the bulging of his bicep spiking the desire that also pools beneath us, wetting the sheets.
He’s so fucking hot that I’m going to find myself beneath him all the goddamn time.
Reading my mind in the way only he knows how to, he smirks, a groaned breath escaping him before he’s grinding down, pressing over my clit.
I whimper, a buzz rising in volume in my ears again.
I’m floating when he does it again, this time thrusting deep and hard at the same time.
I scrape my nails down his back and fill my hand with his ass.
“Again,” I demand, eyes wide and desperate.
“Again.”
He gives me what I need, over and over until I’m mindless, his name a repeated call on my lips .
“Inside or outside, Elle?” he spits, feeling the tightening of my walls as I?—
I wind my legs around him, trapping him in place, and keep him buried deep as I come. There’s a shatter in my mind as my previous conceptions of sex are broken, memories of Darren replacing themselves with new ones. Old highs fading beneath the light of new ones.
Splashes of warmth fill me. Darren’s sexy groans fill the room, intertwining with my cries.
“Fuck,” he curses, jerking above and inside of me.
I take a long, deep inhale and nod, releasing my nails from where I’ve buried them into his ass cheek. Softly, I rub the wounds I’ve left and smile coyly.
“Did I hurt you?”
He scoffs a laugh before kissing me again, his breathing heavy. “Not a chance.”
“Mmm,” I hum.
“Give me a minute and I’ll roll off of you. My head’s all shaken up, baby.”
“No rush,” I murmur, petting the expanse of his back. “I’m comfortable.”
“You’re the one woman I’ve been unprotected with.”
The subtle drop of that surprises me. I was aware he didn’t use a condom tonight, and I made the decision not to tell him to. I’m grown enough to be careful.
“I guess I just thought with Sasha . . . ?”
“Broken condom.”
Slowly, he pulls back and slides free before standing on his knees. His gaze drops to between my legs when I feel myself beginning to leak. There’s hunger in his expression, there and gone in a blink.
“Oh.” I pause, blinking. “ Oh .”
He chuckles and steps off the bed. Disappearing into the hall, he comes back a minute later with a cloth in his hand. I try to grab it from him, but he holds it above his head, winking .
“It’s my mess to clean, baby.”
“If you insist,” I drawl.
With a soft, careful touch, he cleans me up before tossing the cloth into his laundry bin. I turn onto my side and rub my cheek against the pillow, watching as he tosses a shirt and boxers on. The second shirt in his hand comes sailing at my face a beat later.
I catch it and give it a once-over. “Did you choose this one on purpose?”
“Why would you think that?”
He pads back to the bed and stretches out behind me, his arms coiling right.
“I’d say the Huntsly on the back of this would be a dead giveaway. God, I can’t believe you’ve kept this. Does it even fit you anymore?”
Nose pressing into my hair, he rubs my belly, melting me. “Nope. Fits you, though.”
“Maybe. I’d have to put it on to see, and you’re holding me pretty tightly,” I tease.
Slowly, he releases me but stays where he is. I slip off the bed and shake out the old Cherry Peak Wranglers football tee. The number seventeen on the front has me cracking a smile while pulling it on.
“Well? Is it everything you wished for when you decided to keep this?” I ask, giving him a twirl.
“Fuck, yeah, it is.”
I pull my lip into my mouth and contemplate giving him what I’ve been carrying with me for a while now. His stare burns into me as I search the room for my purse.
“What are you looking for?”
“My purse.”
“In the living room. We didn’t bring it to my mom’s. I can get it?—”
I shake my head quickly, already heading for the door. “Just stay there for a second. Don’t move. ”
“Alright,” he says with a laugh. “Consider me glued to the bed.”
Too focused to reply, I rush out of the room and to where I left my bag. It’s ridiculous how long it’s taken me to give this to him, but I guess I was just waiting for the right time. That hasn’t been until tonight.
When I get back to the room, Darren’s still in the same spot. His brows fly up when he sees me with my fist closed and nothing else.
“Should I be scared?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. “No.”
Taking a seat on the bed, I cross my legs in front of him and take a deep breath before opening my hand. The purple bracelet feels like it’s made from silver instead of elastic and tiny beads.
“Is that the bracelet Abbie was talking about?”
“It is.”
“Can I touch it?”
I almost laugh. “Take it. It’s for you, in case you can’t read anymore.”
“Darebear . . . I haven’t heard that in forever.”
“That’s because it’s only for us.”
He takes the thin bracelet and slides it onto his wrist. The beads spelling the name I gave him when we first met dig into his skin, but he keeps it on.
“I love it, Elle.”
Lying down again, I curl into him and stare at my ring. It stares back, daring me to slide it onto my finger again. Only, I can’t. Not yet. Moving forward is what I want, but the ring will have to come later. Once I’ve finally figured out what it is that’s keeping me from taking it back.