Chapter 37 Avery
Avery
He’d kept her hairband for all these years. Worn one around his wrist to remind him of her. Avery knew it was true because how many times had she seen Tanner’s fingers go to his wrist, as if drawn there by habit? Over and over, she’d seen him pluck at something nonexistent but never wondered why.
The intangible bond had remained in place even when she’d been left behind. It meant more than she could explain.
Could she trust him, though? Would her heart be safe if she handed it over? Avery didn’t know and it scared her to death.
But for the first time ever, she wanted to try.
Summoning all her courage to take a step forward, she climbed onto the mattress and slid her arms around Tanner’s neck. Her damp hair was forgotten. Everything outside of this room, this bed, had ceased to exist.
“I love that a small part of me shared your journey.” Avery pressed her forehead to his, and the words had to force their way out of her narrowed throat. “I didn’t expect any of this and I don’t know what to do about it but you’re a really hard person to resist, Ace Face.”
She dipped her finger into the crater of his dimple, ran her thumb over the wide sweep of his smile.
If she could have licked the joy from his face without looking like a freak, she’d have done it in a heartbeat.
Tanner’s delight was a tangible, tactile presence and it wrapped her in its protective warmth, making her believe that this could all be OK.
“Come here.” The command was a growl and he lifted her bodily to sit astride his lap, torso to torso.
His arms were steel bands, his thighs taut beneath her butt as he fisted his hands in the t-shirt he’d given her.
“And get this off. I need to thank my girlfriend for her shower services. I’m competitive like that. ”
“Well, girlfriend might be a bit presumptuous . . .” Panic threatened to overtake the steady rising of desire in Avery’s belly as she felt the word cleave its way into her chest.
“I heard something about me being hard to resist.” Tanner leaned in the minute he had her naked, his mouth dipping to one breast as he dragged her nipple between his lips and rolled it with his tongue. “Maybe we could give it a try.”
He bit lightly, soothed, and bit again. Sucking on her until Avery felt the tug right through to her core, her muscles clenching, stomach tight. Tanner pulled away with a pop and she groaned at the loss of contact, reaching to draw him back again and losing track of what he was saying.
“. . . if it feels like less pressure, we could treat this as a trial run. Just an extended period of one nights.” He murmured his contentment against her skin as his mouth swept to her other breast and began to repeat the torture.
“You’re very persuasive,” Avery breathed, gripping his hair hard enough that it forced a groan from his lips. There was no way she could muster an argument right now with his erection twitching beneath her, pressing upward in search of her center.
But Tanner made no move to shift her. His teasing continued as if he was unaffected by the way she ground against his hardness while his chest exposed the lie, rising and falling with increased ferocity.
“I’ve already come in your mouth and I need you again,” he admitted. “I want to feel you around my dick but I’m gonna take my time and taste you first. It’s only fair.”
The hitch in his voice sent tremors tingling through Avery’s veins, and her fingers, a stark contrast to his dark ink, bit into the taut, smooth skin of his biceps.
“Get yourself up here.” Tanner tugged on her thighs.
“Up where?”
“I think you know.” His smile was rakish, his grip bruising as he lay back and slid her toward his chest. “I want you over my face.”
Fuck.
Everything tightened inside her at that. Avery wanted it, too. Needed his mouth on her, his tongue in her. Fingers, too.
She crawled further up his body and gripped the headboard.
With a groan she felt right in her sternum, Tanner dragged her into position, his huge hands cradling her hips.
And he ate her as if he was starved. Knees quivering, knuckles white, Avery closed her eyes against the rasp of his tongue and the heat of his lips.
There was no vanilla in this intimacy. It was raw and basic and . . . so . . . damn . . . good.
She was his plaything. He, her tormentor. She felt like a queen being cherished and adored. The power balance worked every way around.
Avery found herself hoping his fingers bruised her thighs, wanted Tanner’s mark on her to match how he’d inked her onto his skin. She was a breathless, pleading mess as he teased and tasted, bathing her with his tongue.
“No more,” she begged him eventually. “I swear I can’t—” Her body shuddered, tumbling toward a finish line he kept moving.
When Tanner’s thumb slid past his mouth and over her clit, the pressure sent her flying over the edge. He slipped his fingers deep inside her, his satisfaction rumbling from his chest, and Avery clenched around him as she came, her orgasm submerging her like a breaking wave.
Slumped against the headboard, she laid her forehead on folded arms. Tanner lifted her off his face as easily as if she were made of feathers, gliding her back down his body until she was level with the fierce grin on his lips.
“You’re my favorite flavor. My favorite everything.” His erection pressed like steel between her legs but he just held her to his chest.
Counting the beats of his heart beneath her ear as her breathing began to steady, Avery considered the terrifying, wonderful possibility of seeing if she could love Tanner Stone.