Chapter 29
Sutton
The key turns in the lock, followed by the alarm keypad beeping, reminding me to put in the code. I wince. After seventeen hours at work, every sound feels amplified. My back aches. My eyes burn. All I want is six uninterrupted hours unconscious.
I slip off my shoes and turn my back around, noticing the blanket and pillow fluffed and folded on the couch.
Someone laid them out for me, preparing my place to lay my head once I got home.
I don’t need more than one guess to figure out who would take the time to make my night easier.
It’s the same person who’s been making my life easier since she got here.
The refrigerator hums softly as I pass by the kitchen. Rather than taking a sharp right into the living room, I continue quietly down the stairs, swallowing hard over the lump in my throat.
I check on Nellie first. Her bedroom door creaks softly, not much more than a murmur in the dark.
I can just make out her messy brown hair atop her pillow in the sliver of moonlight shining through the window.
Her chest rises and falls with quiet, even breaths, her mouth open on a soft snore.
She’s completely zonked. I pull the blanket up over her shoulders, kiss her on the forehead, and carefully back out of the room.
On my way back to the stairs, I pause outside my door.
She’s in there.
Sleeping in my bed beneath the covers in one of her sexy little short sets, infusing my sheets with her flowery scent. I know, because I smell her in the evenings when I make it home in time to read before bed with Nellie-Jo.
The door is ajar. I press it open with my palm and lean against the doorframe, taking in her prone form diagonal across my bed. I smile despite the exhaustion weighing down my shoulders. Leave it to Alice to sleep like a wild woman, taking up that much space when she’s only five-foot-two.
“I can feel you staring,” she mumbles into the dark.
Embarrassment colors the skin above my scruff. I huff out a laugh. “You’re awake?”
“Barely.”
“You should be sleeping.”
She rolls over, clutching my spare pillow in front of her body. “I would be if you weren’t gawking.”
I shake my head. “You’re impossible.”
She props herself up on her elbow, hair cascading across her face, her eyes unreadable in the dark. “Maybe. You like me anyway.”
I study her form through the shadows obscuring her, searching for the right thing to say. An unfamiliar wave of affection kicks hard against my ribs. I spent years building my life into compartmentalized pieces based on routine, my work, my daughter, my solitude. I don’t quite know where this fits.
“You okay?”
The corners of my lips tick before falling. “Tired.”
Alice settles back on her side and lifts the blanket in front of her without a word.
That small invitation is nearly my undoing.
I stare at the empty space on my side of the bed, the side where I usually sleep alone, for a long moment. My heart taps out a wild rhythm. For the first time in a long time, I turn off my thoughts and peel my shirt over my head, shutting the door at my back with a soft click.
I slip into bed beside her, groaning quietly at the soft mattress cradling my aching back.
Without overthinking it, I reach for her, my hands colliding with her soft skin in the dark.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want.
All I know is she’s here in this bed with me, and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I’m not alone.
And I don’t want to be.
Soft, careful hands cradle my face, and suddenly, she’s there. Her eyes like two dark pools I could get lost in.
“Kiss me, Sunny.”
I nearly groan. If I wasn’t hard before, I am now. With those three words, my dick is like stone.
Sliding my fingers into her hair, I find her lips by feel alone. Softly, yet urgent. After three long days, kissing her again is like surfacing for air. She’s refreshing and new and exciting, seemingly wanting this as much as I do.
After the week I’ve had? I want this. I want her. Probably more than anything else.
She parts them for me instantly. The space allows her tongue to slip inside my mouth.
The soft stroke of hers against mine is like velvet.
Time seems to grind to a halt as we kiss languidly in my bed.
Lazily. Unhurried. Even a little sleepily.
Something I realize I’ve never done. Not in this house or this bed. Not with anyone.
Except her.
The thought is a match, setting me on fire, lighting the kindling of need in my gut.
My leg slides between her warm thighs until I’m pressed up against her center.
Fingers indent her skin at the small of her back as I haul her up and onto my bare chest. Her palms are like a brand, hot and solid against me, exploring my nakedness with a curious touch.
A groan vibrates my chest, rumbling into her mouth. Her hips shift, pressing her pussy snug against my thigh. Warm and needy and insistent.
I grip the hem of her light camisole. “Can I take this off?” I murmur against her lips.
Alice nods. “You can, but I’m not wearing anything underneath.”
I grin into the dark. “That’s the point, Firecracker.”
With exaggerated slowness, I pull the silky fabric over her torso. The shape of her is an alluring silhouette in the night, yet…
I lean over and click on the bedside lamp, bathing the room in a golden glow.
“Sutton!” she squeaks. Plastering herself against my chest, she shoves her face into my throat. I groan at the feel of her breasts smashed into me, and trail my fingers along the concave divots of her bare spine.
“Don’t get shy on me now, honey.” I find her chin and tilt until her sleepy brown eyes meet mine. Tucking her hair behind her ear, I tell her, “I want to look at you.”
I roll us both until she’s on her back. The duvet drapes artfully across our hips, leaving us both bare from the waist up. She settles into the pillow, one arm cocked by her ear, the other slung across her chest.
My brows dip together as I try to understand. “Do you not want me to?”
“I do. I just really want you to like it.” She laughs sarcastically in that way she does when things become too tense.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t like,” I growl, circling her small wrist with my fingers. She doesn’t resist as I pull her arm away, revealing her breasts to me for the first time.
“Fuck, Firecracker. Look at your pretty tits.”
They’re small and sit high on her chest, capped with rosy pink nipples and darker, small areolas that are tight in the cool air. She has the perfect handful. The perfect mouthful. Just the sight of them rising with her nervous breaths sends sinful images through my head.
Her skin is smooth and tan, reflecting the years she spent living in the Southwest. The sun-kissed glow speaks to days outdoors.
Below her rib cage, her waist narrows before gently widening at her hips, leading to what I know is a perfect pussy and a coarse triangle of hair I want to put my mouth on again.
A distinct dark freckle resides beside her belly button, and fuck, even her belly button is cute.
“I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman.” Reaching out, I run the pad of my finger over her nipple, making her gasp. The point beads further under my touch. “But then you go and make sounds like that, and all I can think about is getting my mouth on you.”
Leaning over, I hover just above her nipple. My warm breath wafts across her bare skin. “Would you like that?”
Nearly imperceptibly, she arches. I surmise that those same fucking exes that told her she was a bad lay also refused to let her ask for what she wanted. And if she did ask, they probably made her feel like it was too much.
Nothing she could ask would ever be too much.
I brush my thumb over the taut tip. “Tell me, Alice. Ask me. Beg. I don’t care how you do it. I just want to hear you say what you want.”
“Use your mouth,” she says sweetly. Blood surges to my cock.
“Where?”
“Everywhere,” she breathes.
Keeping her wrists pinned, I hold her gaze and reach out the flat of my tongue, tracing it around her sensitive tip. Beside me, her stomach muscles hollow. Her shuddering breath breaks the quiet.
I repeat the motion, pressing harder before wrapping her nipple with my lips.
“Sutton.” She cloaks my name in a heavenly gasp, neck arching in the pillow behind her head.
“Yes, baby?”
“Keep doing that.”
“Like this?” I hold her gaze and pull her tit into my mouth, laving her nipple with my tongue.
She fights against my hold on her wrists. “I want to touch you.”
But I don’t give in. I feel her writhe against me as I switch to the other side. The heat of her pussy emanates against my thigh. “You can touch me when I’m done.”
She scissors her legs around my quads, her hips seeking friction. “You’re teasing me.”
“I suspect your fuck-ass exes didn’t show you this either, but, darlin’, this is just foreplay.” I bite down gently around her nipple.
Her grunt transforms into a drawn-out moan when I chase the sharp sting with my tongue. “I know what foreplay is.”
“Then you should also know this is necessary to make sure you’re wet and ready, because I’m not going to fuck you until you’re practically begging.”
Her breath stalls, echoing around the room.
“Don’t make me wait, Sunny. I’ve waited long enough.”
My eyes snap to her face, finding equal demand in her heated stare. She looks at me as if I’m the last drink of ice-cold water on a deserted beach. Her last slice of salvation before all is lost.
Nobody’s ever looked at me like that.
“You think you’re ready for me?”
She nods into the pillow, her long dark hair fanning out around her. “I’m ready.”