Chapter 25
Cherry
SADIE
Walker makes quite a scene leading me out of Sutton's.
Not by being showy about it. Just by leading me by the hand through the crowd like it's the most natural thing in the world, like we've been doing this for years, like every person we pass isn't clocking exactly what they're seeing.
Of course, they are. This is Marble Falls. Walker Rhodes leaving Sutton's on a Saturday night holding my hand will be all over town by morning and we both know it.
Not to mention, I sat at a table with one man and now I’m leaving with another, and oh Lord, when I burn my reputation down, apparently I do it all the way to the cinders.
But I don’t care anymore. Not even a little.
I’m done caring what any of these people think of me. Caring about anyone else’s opinion never brought me any happiness or peace of mind. Quite the opposite, if anything.
Having Walker’s hand in mine makes me happy, though.
And I’m gone at summer’s end anyway.
Then we're through the door and out into the night air.
The difference between inside and outside is immediate.
The noise drops away. The air is cool and smells like pine and the parking lot gravel crunches under my boots.
Above us the Montana sky is strewn with stars, the kind of sky you can't see anywhere with too many lights, the kind that makes you feel very small and very lucky simultaneously.
He pushes me up against his truck and kisses me again, brief but deep. “Home, baby?”
Yes, I’ve been living with Walker for a while now. But the way he says home, like its ours…
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Let’s go home.”
We don’t talk on the drive. His hand finds mine before he's even shifted out of park. He holds it the whole way, occasionally bringing it to his lips.
I watch the dark fields roll past and think: this is really happening.
This is really, actually happening.
The truck slows as we turn onto the long drive, the house coming into view at the end of it, dark except for the porch light. The gravel pops and crunches under the tires. He pulls up in front and cuts the engine and the headlights go out.
And then there’s silence.
This is it. This is where everything changes.
We both know it.
More silence as he takes my hand again and leads me up the front steps. Through the door.
And then he’s kissing me again, backing me up until I’m pressed up against the wall. His hands slide from my face into my hair and tighten there, tilting my head back, and he kisses me deeper, the scruff of his jaw rasping against my skin.
He kisses me like he's making a point. Like he's making up for every night he paced the floor and every time he found an exit and every careful, cowardly inch of distance he built between us.
And I kiss him back with everything I have. All the weeks of patience and wanting and frustration, all of it, straight from my lips to his.
He kisses me all the way down the hall. He’s heedless of anything else, not the table he bumps his hip on the way there, not the light switch he’s groping for on the wall, too busy with his mouth of mine to want to break for a second.
Finally he manages to flip the switch and low, warm light illuminates the room. I'm grateful for it. I don't want to do this in the dark. I want to see his face.
I want to remember every second of this experience in full color.
His bedroom is the one room in this house I've never been in. I've stood in the doorway once or twice, glimpsed the king-size wood bed, the window that faces the mountains. It looks like him in here. Spare and considered. Nothing unnecessary.
He cups my face with his hands and just looks at me.
For once, we don’t talk.
His hands find the lacing holding my dress together. Slowly, achingly slowly, he loosens the laces, like he’s unwrapping a present he’s afraid of breaking. He gives it his full concentration, glancing up at me every so often the whole time. Giving me every opportunity to stop him.
I don’t.
He slides the laces apart, careful, and the dress falls.
I watch him forget to breathe.
Since I threw out those panties, there’s nothing underneath. I’m standing before him completely naked.
No sense in being shy, after all. He saw just about everything from the first second he laid eyes on me.
I watch him look at me and I feel, surprisingly, not at all self-conscious. Not at all shy.
I feel something closer to… powerful.
Because Walker Rhodes, who’s had his pick of women his whole life, who’s stood on stages in front of tens of thousands of people, is looking at me in the lamplight of his bedroom like I've knocked the breath clean out of him.
“Sadie,” he says. “My God.”
He rubs his cock through his jeans, just looking at me. His gaze lingers on my breasts. My pussy. My eyes.
“That first day,” he murmurs, “when I saw you in that soaking wet underwear… I pictured you like this so many times. In my bedroom, naked and ready for me.”
He reaches out and touches my face first. Then my collarbone. Then traces a slow line down my chest to squeeze my breasts. I shiver despite the warmth of the room.
He seems to savor touching me. Caressing me everywhere. It’s like he made a decision somewhere between the kiss against his truck and coming back home to take his time with me, to refuse to be hurried.
But I’m getting impatient. I’ve waited a very long time to get naked with a man. Especially since meeting this man, who’s made those few weeks of waiting seem longer than all the years that came before it.
I reach up and start on his shirt buttons.
My hands are almost steady. Almost.
He looks down at my hands working and then back up at my face. The tenderness is still there but underneath it something is smoldering. Something is catching fire.
When I finish with the buttons, he shrugs the shirt off his shoulders. I spread my palms flat against his chest, his skin warm over the solid muscle underneath. His heart is beating fast beneath my palms.
The knowledge that I did that, that his heart is going fast because of me, is the most thrilling thing I've ever felt.
He kisses me again. As his tongue slides against mine, I fumble with the button of his jeans. I’m too eager. Too clumsy.
Gently, he guides my fingers to do it right. He helps me slide the zipper down and get his jeans off. His boxer-briefs are tented with a massive erection, and I fumble with pulling the fabric over it too. And there he is.
For the first time, I see Walker Rhodes without anything to cover him up.
Seeing him in the pool showed me his body was honed and hard and incredibly sexy.
But that didn’t prepare me for seeing all of him.
For the sight of what was beneath. The happy trail of dark hair leading to his thick, long cock.
Fully erect, almost purple from how flushed and hard he is.
Veins going up the shaft to a plump head. A drop of precum at the tip.
I don’t need a lot of experience to tell Walker is particularly big. Beautifully made, too. Every single inch of him.
He lets me look at him. Lets me take my time as I close my hand around his length and give an experimental stroke. His skin is velvety-soft but the flesh beneath is hard and hot.
He sucks in a breath. The tenseness of his muscles makes me wonder if it’s driving him crazy to hold himself back so much. To let me explore him just like this.
But Walker always senses when I’m feeling vulnerable. And every time I’ve been like that with him, he’s infinitely patient with me. Just like now.
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
He does.
He kisses me soft but deep, hands roaming everywhere over my body, walking me backward until my knees hit the bed. Then he's laying me down and following immediately, his weight settling over me.
He kisses down my throat. Along my breasts. And then he closes his lips around one of my nipples and sucks. I don’t recognize the sound that comes out of my mouth. Am totally unprepared for the sensation of his hot mouth on me. It’s so intimate. So unlike anything I’ve ever known.
He takes his time licking and sucking until I’m squirming and panting underneath him. Then he switches to the other one.
Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, he shifts lower. Kisses down my belly. Spreads my thighs apart and kisses the inside of them too. My legs are trembling already and he hasn’t even touched me there.
As he glides a finger across my seam, spreading the wetness there to my clit, he looks up at me with a hungry gaze.
“You ever been kissed right here, baby?” he murmurs.
Mouth dry, I shake my head.
“Good.” His mouth against my thigh. “That's only ever going to be me.”
I don’t have the chance to wonder if he realizes what he’s just implied.
Because then his mouth is right there, tongue sliding along my pussy, circling my clit, and I had no idea anything could ever feel like that.
I fall back to prop myself up on my elbows, squirming, desperate for something I don’t even know, but Walker is taking his sweet time. Taking breaks to kiss the inside of my thighs. To stroke his fingertips along the curve of my ass.
He has the nerve to chuckle as my hips jerk upwards, seeking the heat of his mouth on my pussy instead of everywhere but there.
“You trying to drive me crazy?” I demand breathlessly.
“Turnabout is fair play.”
But he takes mercy on me, because then his mouth is on me, right there. Tongue licking up my slit, all the way to my clit.
“Been dreaming about this,” he whispers against my skin. “All those little shorts and dresses you wear, knowing this sweet pussy is right there for me. Knowing all I’d need to do is pull your panties to the side and slide right in. Make you mine.”
Slowly, he pushes a finger inside me. I bite down hard on my lip to keep from moaning.
“Yes, baby, just like that,” he says. “You like that, don’t you? Here, let’s see if you can fit one more.”
I gasp as he pushes another finger inside me.
“You’re doing so good,” he murmurs. “Such a tight little cunt, but you open right up for me. Good girl.”