Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Dutch
My brain literally went offline. That was what she did to me.
Sharing my novel while I was fucking her short-circuited something else, rerouting the synapses to make it a pleasure instead of a terror. To feel every bit of her body wrapping around me from inside out leaving me hollowed out until there was no choice other than to let her inside.
Now, I wanted to offer more. But I didn’t want to be a burden either.
That she knew so much left me naked in a way I’d never been.
“Hold onto me.”
She did, but it was a dead weight. Thankful for all the rowing and kettle bells I’d been training with, I held onto her as I left my office and down the few feet to my room. I settled her on my bed, retreating to my bathroom to strip off the rest of my clothes and grabbed a washcloth for her.
She was stretched out on the bottom of my bed, her arms above her head with a soft look on her face. I sat beside her to stroke the warm cloth over her, washing away the sweat and my come that slicked her thighs. I lowered my mouth to her nipple and lightly drew on it until the tip tightened.
“I’m sorry. I left you hanging.”
She sifted her fingers through my hair. “I like feeling you come apart for me. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed with you that I can’t take it all in.”
I sucked a little harder until her back arched and a little moan purred through her. “Like this?”
She hummed out a sigh. “Maybe.”
I cupped her other breast, dragging the flat of my thumb across the tip until she was as tight as the one under my tongue.
“It’s okay if it was just you, Dutch.”
I wanted to correct her to Atticus. But I knew she wasn’t quite there yet. It was like a gift when she was so lost to me that the only coherent word was my name over and over.
I lowered my mouth to graze over her ribs and to her hip before I turned her over, urging her up the bed and stopping her when she was on her knees. She looked over her shoulder, those siren green eyes slumberous with need.
I trailed my tongue down the cleft of her ass to where she was still swollen from me. From where I’d taken her so roughly and without reciprocal care. Where she’d given me everything. Here and now, I could worship her in the early afternoon sun.
I gently brought her to the edge again and again until she was spread out for my fingers and my tongue. Until she was curled forward on her knees reaching for the headboard for purchase, and I held her still to take more. To reward her unending generosity until my name echoed through the room.
I tasted the mix of us on my tongue and it was more intoxicating than any bourbon or fancy champagne.
“Atticus, please.”
Only then did I kneel behind her and slip inside. The sweet, groaning timbre of her voice that changed to a curse as I stroked inside of her again and again—slowly and methodically keeping the orgasm just out of reach.
Finally she threw a snarl over her shoulder. “Fuck me like you goddamn mean it.”
The sweet warmth was a wildfire flame as she pushed back on me, and finally I was seated so deep inside of her that all I could do was stretch over her and pin her down. Our fingers intertwined. No space. No air. No way she couldn’t know how much I needed her.
I released one of her hands and tucked it under her to stroke her where we were joined. Slick, swollen, used. “Can you come for me, baby?”
She was incoherent as she turned her face toward my voice.
The angle of her hips gave me just enough space to give her the friction she finally needed.
Her cries fueled me and the way she screamed my name as she clamped down on me, squeezing me so perfectly.
I swallowed my name, tasting it on her tongue as I emptied myself inside of her again.
Her body shuddered as I pushed her to come one more time, my fingers dripping with both of us.
I collapse beside her, rolling us both onto our sides, her back to my front.
“Were you going for murder or something?” She gasped as she reached back for me with one arm. Her fingers tangling in my knotted curls.
I laughed and buried my face in her sweaty neck as I lightly stroked her swollen pussy. “No, but if you wanted one other—”
She slapped my hand. “I’ll kick you right out of this bed.”
“Is that any way to talk to me after I made you come so sweetly?”
“Sweetly?” She laughed and groaned as I stroked up her sweat slick body to cup her breast. Her overstimulated body jerking when I touched her nipple. “Not sure I want to ever see you mean.”
I chuckled into her skin as we both slowly calmed our breathing and the air cooled on her heated skin. I kissed her temple after a while. “Thank you for listening to me.”
She turned in my arms to touch my face. “Thank you for letting me know you.” She stroked her thumb over my shorter beard, then up to my lips. “For trusting me.”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
Her brows lowered into a frown.
I leaned forward and kissed the wrinkles away. “I’m not going to lose you.”
“You aren’t going to lose me.”
“If I kept shutting you out eventually even you couldn’t be that patient. But I feel better with you knowing. I haven’t told anyone other than you.”
She sat up. “Wait. No one?”
I shook my head. “Who the hell would believe me?”
“Your editor? Your publisher? You’re not alone, Dutch.”
“It’s my word against his.” I pushed myself up to sit against the headboard. “I literally don’t have a single copy of the book in my hands.”
“The internet is forever.”
“Not if your best friend knows where every single copy of the book is. He even wiped out my external hard drive somehow.”
She pulled the sheet up around herself. Spring was still flirting with the cooler temperatures off the water. “Why wouldn’t they believe you? Why would you lie?”
“It sounds like a thriller novel, Phoebe. It’s insane.”
“It’s too insane not to be true.”
“You don’t know authors. We spin a whole lot of shit.”
“That’s just an excuse and you know it.”
I slid off the bed and strode into the bathroom to clean up and grab a pair of sweats. I brought out a shirt for her. Nerves skittered down my back at the thought of telling Monte. I knew I was going to have to do it, but I wanted a finished book in hand when I confessed.
“Where do you think the end game is, Dutch? Never telling them? That’s crazy.” She snatched the shirt out of my hand and tugged it over her head, pushing her tangled hair out of her face.
“I want this book done before I tell them.”
She rose onto her knees. And just like that she looked impossibly young and so full of hope. “But if she knew she’d help. Maybe they could even get your book back.”
“The book is gone, Phoebe.”
It was the first time I actually said it out loud. I had to hold the dresser beside me. The actuality of it hit harder than a blow.
“You can’t know that. You have to fight for it.”
“How?” The word roared out of me. “How?” I raked my fingers through my hair, annoyed at the overlong curls. “Not only is it my word against his, but I literally have no proof.”
“Your voice is your proof. There has to be ways to—”
“No.” I gripped the edges of the wood, grounding myself with the steady weight of it. “It’s not mine anymore.”
“Dutch.” Her voice gentled.
“It’s his now. I’m sure he’s sold it to another author. Shopped it under another name. Hell, he could have shopped it under himself. But it’s tainted, Phoebe. I’ll never know exactly what happened to it. I can never prove it’s mine.”
“There has to be a way.”
“There isn’t.” My voice was hoarse with the pain of it. She threw herself into my arms and I caught her tight against me. “There isn’t a way,” I whispered into the top of her hair.
Her arms banded around me and I felt her tears drip down my chest. The unfairness of it washing over the both of us. What I already knew becoming a knowledge she had to live with too.
“I’m sorry, Phoebe.”
She buried her face into the space between my pecs. “I’m the one who’s sorry.” She turned her face to rest her cheek over my heart. “I’m sorry you’ve been carrying this alone.”
I folded her closer, my scent still on her. I bent down and hooked my arms under her legs and brought her into the bathroom. We both stripped down, then stepped inside and quietly washed one another. Letting the water flow over us and rinse away the heaviness.
There were no more words between us.
All of them had been said except the handful of ones I was too afraid to confess.
Would she believe that it was because I loved her that I was able to tell her the darkest parts of me?
I kissed her forehead and bundled her in towels to dry her off. Instead of more of my oversized clothes, I stacked a pile of things she’d left behind over the last few weeks on the counter. A paint speckled hoodie and a pair of the soft yoga pants she preferred in the evenings.
I tugged on a pair of sweatpants over my damp skin and padded out to the living room to check on Mouse. He was passed out in front of the dark fireplace. I gave him a quick rub behind the ears before starting a fire.
When she didn’t return right away, I let her be. Maybe she needed a little time to herself after all we’d discussed today.
I couldn’t blame her.
Maybe she was thinking twice about her kindness on the beach and the mess of a man she’d let into her life. Disgruntled by my thoughts, I busied myself in the kitchen by browning some ground beef. While that was cooking, I diced a pile of mirepoix for a simple Bolognese.
Had she fallen asleep?
I checked my room, but she wasn’t there. Knowing she was in my office put the first twist back in my belly. It was fine. She couldn’t hurt anything. I’d already shared all that was truly important.
I found her on the floor, chalk in hand again. She’d added a few flowers to the bottom of the black wall along the white trim and redrawn the dandelion seeds. This time adding more as they floated around my words.
She didn’t understand my shorthand, but her seeds reached for the most intriguing parts of my notes.
One by the jagged lines of my idea about the portal.
Another teasing the edges of my chaotic idea about how the monster came to be.
But it was the larger seed that floated above the last line that gave me the most pause. My throwaway line about how the monster could be defeated.
I stalked into the room and she dropped the chalk she was working with, her eyes wide. “Dutch, I—”
I swooped her off the floor and into my arms. She gave a startled yelp when I spun her around then captured her mouth in a drugging kiss. When I set her back on her feet and dragged my desk back into place, she quickly moved out of the way.
“Phoebe, I love you but you need to get out of my office right now.”
“You what?”
Her eyes widened.
I framed her face, the realization of the words that had tumbled free almost derailed me. But it couldn’t stop the flow of ideas that were tumbling free like stacked dominos in my mind.
“I started dinner. I’ll be right out. I just need to get something down.”
“You’re not mad?”
I lifted her off her feet and set her on the other side of the threshold of my office. “You’re my shining light as always. This time with a dandelion seed.”
“Yay?” Her eyes were quizzical and hopeful.
“Very much a yay.”
Then I shut the door in her face.