14. Veronica
Veronica
It’s Sunday night. I’ve been with Hawk for twenty-four whole hours. Other than a quick check-in to let my sister know I’m alive and a couple of texts to my dad, I’ve done nothing but orgasm.
I haven’t even been dressed since he took my clothes off this morning.
After we had sex twice more, Hawk left me alone to shower and make myself at home while he cabbed back to the bar to get his bike.
He made a pit stop for groceries and beer, but we’ve barely had our hands off each other since this morning.
It’s hard to believe that this is real. That I’m still here.
That I want this as much as I still do. I should want to go back to my condo and get ready for my real life.
This was only supposed to be one date. One drink.
But now? All I can think about is holding his hand under the moonlight and spending another night in his bed, but this time, with him beside me.
He walks back into the bedroom completely naked, a new box of condoms in his hand. “Just in case,” he teases.
He has two open bottles of beer in his other hand. “I thought you might be thirsty. You want to have dinner soon?”
I nod, but my eyes don’t meet his. I’m looking at his body. It’s sculpted like he spends hours in the gym.
My eyes flutter closed, and I shake my head. “What is this? What are you doing to me?”
He drops the beers on the bedside table and sets the condom box on the bed. “What do you mean?”
I climb onto the bed, and he gets in beside me. “Lie back,” I tell him.
He does, but as he settles against his pillows, he smiles. “You know, I don’t think—”
“Shh.” I lean forward and press a finger to his lips. “Don’t talk when I’m trying to seduce you.”
“No try required, babe.” A grin covers his face. “I’m all yours.”
Is he, though? Would he bring me home tonight, or will I be staying here again? Tomorrow is a holiday, a rare Monday when there’s no school for everyone, including the staff. Even as I’m naked, kneeling beside him on the bed, he tracks my change in mood.
“What is it?” he asks. “It’s like I can see your thoughts in a little cloud over your head.”
“I’m having an incredible time,” I tell him. “I just…”
The words escape me, and that’s probably for the best. I’ve never had tough talks with a man about anything. I’ve never met anyone I wanted to be this open with. One day with this man and it feels so right. I want this.
He reaches up, scratches his beard, and takes a deep breath. “You know what I told myself a hundred times before I picked you up for our date?”
I study his deep brown eyes and shake my head.
He licks his lips, holds up a finger, and takes a swig of beer.
When the bottle’s back on the side table, he nods.
“I was married once. We hooked up, shacked up, and broke up.” He snaps his fingers loudly.
“It was no great love story, but I wasn’t great at love.
I’d been told that all my life, and I believed it.
So, the first woman who seemed to want to settle down with me, I thought it’d be my only chance.
I wasn’t even sure I was the marrying kind, but I took to it.
Not because of her, but because it turns out I am not that bad at loving someone. At least, that’s what I thought.”
He clears his throat and grabs another sip of beer.
“Turns out my wife didn’t exactly agree.
She got really bored, really fast. Said she couldn’t take me to the company Christmas party because I wouldn’t blend in.
Didn’t want to integrate me into her family because they were not exactly fans of what I do for work.
” He pinches his brows between two fingers.
“After a while, it wasn’t just the big things like what I look like or what I do for a living.
Who I run with. It was how I dressed, how I talked.
How I kissed, cooked, walked. Fuck, you name it, and Sadie stopped liking it. If she ever did.”
As he talks, I watch the shadows flit behind his eyes. I can only imagine what that did to him.
“Hawk,” I say, reaching for his hands.
He shrugs. “Look, I’m no fucking saint, V. I know that. I’m hard to love, and when I care about someone, I do what I can to blunt those hard edges. But I’m like my name. I’ve got claws. I ain’t never gonna be a puppy. I’m better off with someone who’s not looking for a lapdog.”
The reality of what he’s saying hangs between us.
I run my fingers along the faint mark that he got from the hot curling iron.
“I’m not looking for a lapdog,” I tell him.
“I didn’t think I was looking for anything.
What I thought I wanted in life, what I thought I needed, I get from my job.
I need that. I don’t ever want to give up belonging to a community.
Serving people whom I sometimes cannot help.
But some days, I know that everything I have done matters.
I get what I need from what I have. I don’t have some man-shaped hole in my life that I’m looking to fill with anything. ”
“One of your holes is most definitely man-shaped now.” He snorts.
“And will be again, I hope.” I lean my face down to kiss the burn on his arm, a permanent reminder of how we met.
I straddle his hips and kiss my way to his neck. “I love the way you feel,” I tell him. “And taste.”
“Keep talking,” he says, and I can feel his erection growing beneath me.
I flick my tongue along the sharp stubble on his neck, then move to his lips and plant a soft kiss on them. “And fuck.”
His eyes cloud over like a storm over the ocean, and his nostrils flare.
I position myself to support my weight with my arms while I feed him my right breast. He flicks the tip, rolling his tongue around my areola, squeezing my entire breast firmly with his hand. He sucks me deep, his teeth nipping at my peak.
“Harder,” I whimper, “I can take more.”
I pull back to create more distance between us so he can roll his head slightly left and right, my nipple clamped between his teeth. A strangled cry breaks from my throat, something so erotic and real that I feel his cock jerk beneath me.
Pleasure floods every inch of my body, the epicenter the pressure point he’s got on my nipple. I slam my eyes closed and feel his hands cup both breasts, his fingertips kneading my left nipple, while his mouth continues to work the right.
I lift my hips so I can seat my pussy right along the length of his shaft, riding him without penetration.
He’s not wearing a condom yet, but I’m on the pill, and he told me he got tested a month ago after he had to make a trip to the club doctor.
He didn’t say what for, but if he’s good to go bare, I trust him. Again, I can’t say why. Men lie.
But Hawk hasn’t tried to get anything from me. If anything, it’s the opposite. He’s done nothing but try to give me pleasure, protection, satisfaction. Even safety.
The way he’s sucking me has me working my hips faster.
I feel my clit swell, and every movement of my hips brings that tender bud against the rock-hard velvet of his cock.
It’s teasing me, the pleasure, the friction, and I close my eyes, lost to stars and the darkness, where all that’s real is this.
The contact and connection. Electric, wild, and unrestrained.
I raise myself up on my hips and sink down onto just the head of his bare cock.
“Fuck.” Hawk sucks in air and drops his head back against the pillows.
I want to take my time. I sink lower. Clamp harder. I lift and pivot until, finally, my trembling legs are so weak I sink all the way on top of him. His cock is buried deep, and I bend slightly forward, planting my hands on his chest.
“Look at me, Veronica,” he pants. “I want to watch you come with me inside you.”
I open my eyes and lick my lips. I’m sweating. I’m weak, and yet I’ve never felt more beautiful. More powerful and alive.
I rock my hips forward, and his erection hits a spot inside that takes my breath away. I keep my eyes open, my teeth clamped down on my lower lip.
Again, I roll my hips, and with every motion, the way our bodies connect to each other feels like we’re two halves of the same whole. I’ve had good sex before, but this isn’t that. When I’m riding Hawk, it’s as if I’ve finally experienced what pleasure is.
All rational thought dissolves as I feel it.
The orgasm cresting, climbing from a deep, deep place inside me.
I give in to it, holding my eyes open like I’m afraid to look away, and lace my hands through his.
I rocket my hips back and forth, a frantic, animalistic energy that I can’t believe is mine tearing through my thighs and feet.
I pump him hard, rocking my pelvis against his so I feel everything.
When I finally come, I let the moans tear past my throat. I’m not shy. I’m a woman in control of her pleasure, and I’m giving all of myself to this man.
I shudder through wave after wave of orgasm, unable to keep my eyes open to the power that rages through my body like a Florida hurricane. I clench around him as he rocks his hips against me, his eyes closed now too as he lets out a guttural groan.
I don’t know if we both feel the weekend coming to an end, but after he holds me against his chest for what seems like an hour, I feel him grow hard against my thigh.
“Babe,” he growls. “You good to go again?”
How could I not be? I cannot even begin to explain what this man makes me feel. My body feels insatiable. My heart is like a bottomless pit that his words, his stories, and his life need to fill. I roll away from his chest, holding up a finger.
“I’m going to explode if I don’t pee.” I walk naked to the bathroom, feeling his eyes devour my behind as I go.
The bathroom hasn’t been updated, and it’s small but clean.
There’s a shower stall, no bathtub, and the toilet is so close to the door that if you sit down without closing the door first, you’ll bang your knee against it—I learned that the hard way.
I close the door behind me, take care of business, and then wash my hands.
When I look in the small frameless mirror that hangs over the sink, I see a version of myself I had no idea existed.
I look ravishing. My hair is messy, but it suits me.
I look fucked and loved. My lips are bright red and swollen, my nipples are hard, and my cheeks are flushed.
But it’s the look in my eyes that I’ve never seen before.
I look so fucking happy.
Something I never thought a man, a relationship, or, honestly, anything other than my job would ever bring me.
What I see on my face when I look into Hawk’s mirror is feral and raw.
Real and wild. Untamable. Is this the kind of feeling that leads to love?
I sure as hell feel like I’m falling. And it’s scary because I want more of it.
I want to keep it and have it forever. But I’m not in control of whether that happens.
“Babe, did you fall in?” Hawk’s voice travels from the bedroom, and I shake my head.
I can’t control much, but I can control where I am and how I’m feeling right now. And I’m going to give in to what I’m feeling.
“I look like someone who needs a hairbrush and a shower,” I say as I waddle back into his room.
He shakes his head. “You look like someone who needs to get into my bed immediately.”
I climb in beside him, and he cups my face with his hands. “You’re fucking perfect.” He kisses the tip of my nose.
I roll onto my side and stroke his semi-hard shaft with my fingertips. His answering groan is all the response I need. I lower my head to his thigh and flick long, lazy licks along the base of his cock.
I straddle his thighs and coat his dick with my tongue, lapping, licking, sucking, taking him deep. I stroke him and leave his cock dripping with my saliva, his thighs tensing and strangled moans coming from deep in his throat.
“Baby…” he murmurs and grips the sheets in tight fingers, before rolling out from under me, and planting me facedown on the bed. “Ass in the air,” he commands.
I do as he asks, turning my head to one side and kneeling with my butt as high as I can get it. He nudges his drenched cock against my pussy, and I open my legs wider. His strokes are long and slow, unhurried and casual.
He picks up speed, rolling his hips, and I press my ass up and back to meet his every movement. We bang together then, his thrusts and my needy hips working in perfect rhythm until all I hear are the slapping sounds of our thighs meeting.
“Hawk,” I beg, my face deep in the mattress now. “Hawk!” I scream again, my mouth wide open against the damp sheets, my entire body riding on another plane of existence where the only thing I feel is him pounding inside me like a heartbeat that has somehow become my own.
We come together, his fingers tight against my hips, and his cries are strangled curses. “Baby, fuck. My God, you’re…”
When we’re done, he stays inside me, like he’s frozen in place.
Maybe awestruck and empty. Just like me.
He rolls himself to his side and pulls me firmly against his chest. He strokes my hair and plants kisses against my head.
All I hear is that same pounding heartbeat, but I can’t tell if it’s his or mine.
We both lie there for a few minutes. His eyes are closed, his lips parted, but his arms hold me impossibly tightly against his chest. Whatever this is, I never, ever want to let it go.