Chapter 7 Angel
Angel
Grady kisses me like the first sip of heat after you’ve been cold for too long. He murmurs against my mouth, his voice like rough velvet. “Open for me, sweetheart. Let me taste what belongs to me. That’s it.”
I surrender to it, my lips parting for him.
His tongue slides in, hot, slow, and possessive, stroking against mine.
He groans into my mouth, pulling me closer, like he can’t get enough, like he wants to memorize the shape of my lips with his.
One hand cups the back of my neck, anchoring me, while the other presses into the curve of my lower back, guiding my body flush against his hard, unyielding frame.
There’s nothing soft about his kiss, except the way it undoes me. It’s hungry but controlled. Reverent and filthy. And so worth the wait.
I learn him in pieces: the hitch in his breath when I scrape my nails lightly up his back; the way his control feels like a gift he’s giving me, not a punishment he’s imposing on himself; his satisfied groan when I tilt my face and kiss him deeper, greedy and grateful at once.
By the time he pulls back, we’re both breathing hard.
“You sure?” Grady murmurs, his eyes locked on mine like I’m the only thing that matters.
I swallow, my heart crashing like cymbals against my ribs. “I want you.”
He inhales a rough breath. “You have the brakes. If you say stop, I stop. If you say slow, I slow. You say more—”
“I get more,” I finish.
“Good girl,” he says, and his praise is like a match to kindling.
He lifts the hem of my borrowed shirt and strips it away like he’s unwrapping something he intends to keep forever. The air kisses my skin as the oversized sweatpants follow, leaving me in just my bra and panties.
I flinch, instinctively trying to cover my stomach and thighs with my hands.
“I’m fat,” I murmur, eyes darting away.
For a moment, there’s only silence. Then his hand wraps gently around my wrist and draws it away. The other traces my cheek, grounding me.
“Angel,” he says, voice low and rough, “you are perfect.”
I shake my head, not believing him, not yet. “I’m not the kind of girl guys usually want.”
His eyes blaze as he looks at me. “No, you’re not,” he growls. “You’re so much more.”
Coasting his big hands up my sides, he mutters, “All this softness? This abundance?” He leans in and presses a kiss above my belly button. “It matches your smile. Your laugh. The way you pull people in. It’s you.”
His mouth trails to the curve of my hip. “This body,” he says roughly, “was made to be touched. Held. Kissed. Fucked. Damn, Angel, I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I want to fucking worship you.”
My breath catches. My heart stumbles. Tears sting my eyes, but he’s already moving, already kissing them away.
“Don’t even think about hiding from me again,” he murmurs, curling his fingers around the edge of my panties. “I want to see all of you. Every inch. Every curve of this lush body.”
His eyes meet mine, full of fire and certainty. “You're not too much. You’re exactly right. And I’m going to spend the rest of the night proving it to you.”
His hands are big and sure and gentle as he removes my panties. He reaches behind me, unclasping my bra. My breasts spill out, my nipples hardening under his heated gaze.
“Fuck,” he grunts, biting his lip. “Lie back.”
I sink into the blankets as he braces his weight over me.
He kisses my shoulder first, then lower, mapping me with his mouth and hands—collarbone, sternum, the soft underside of my breast. He closes his lips around my nipple and suckles me slowly, his palm cradling the other.
A sound tears from me that I didn’t know I could make.
My hands go to his hair, and I thread my fingers through the silky strands. Sliding down, he kisses along my stomach and licks a stripe to the dip of my hip that makes my thighs twitch open.
“Good,” he murmurs, settling between them. “Open for me.”
Heat floods me, and I instinctively try to close them again.
He stops me with a firm, patient grip. “No hiding, Angel. I want to see all of you. I’ve been dreaming of this. Of you.”
He parts me with gentle hands, and his gaze drops. His breath hitches, and for a long moment, he simply looks.
“Fuck, Angel.” His voice is ragged as he teases a finger along my slit and lifts it so I can see my juices glistening on his fingertip. “Is this all for me?” My sex clenches as he sucks it into his mouth. “Christ, so sweet. I could taste you for hours, Shortcake.”
“Why do you call me that?” I ask, face flaming.
“Because you’re soft and sweet and make me want to lick my fingers after I’ve had a taste.”
Oh. That’s hot.
He doesn’t give me time to overthink.
His mouth lowers, and when his tongue licks a slow, devastating line through my folds, I arch off the sofa with a cry. He groans like I’m his favorite flavor, hands locking on my thighs to hold me open as he feasts in decadent, teasing licks that build and build until I’m shaking.
Every flick, every swirl of his tongue is purposeful. Controlled and possessive, as if he’s branding me with his mouth.
“Grady,” I gasp, clutching his hair.
He groans again, and the sound vibrates through me. “Say it again,” he rasps between licks. “Say my name while you come, Angel.”
And when he wraps his lips around my clit and sucks, gently at first and then harder, I do.
I break apart, crying out his name like a prayer, like a promise, my body trembling as pleasure crashes over me in waves, hot and blinding and endless.
Grady doesn’t stop. He licks me through every aftershock, every twitch and whimper, like he’s making sure I know exactly who I belong to now.
Kissing the inside of my thigh, he rises.
His shirt goes first, then his belt, then everything else.
I forget how to blink. He’s big and rough and beautiful, muscles roped under sun-browned skin, a faint scatter of scars like a map of places I plan to learn by heart.
Those imperfections only make him more magnificent.
I follow the trail of hair down his sculpted torso that leads to his…
My cheeks heat and look away.
“Look at me, Angel. I haven’t been hard for a woman for years, but I’m hard for you. Only you.”
My gaze moves back to his cock, thick and angry looking as it curves toward his stomach. A pearl of liquid pools on the tip, revealing how much he wants me.
“I… haven’t done this before,” I blurt, my eyes widening as his cock jerks at my words. My gaze flies to his face, expecting hesitation or concern.
What I get instead is pure, unfiltered hunger.
His jaw flexes, and his nostrils flare. “Fuck.” His voice is a growl now, guttural, like something primal has snapped loose. “You’re mine.”
I can’t breathe. I’m too aware of the heat rolling off his body, the way he moves closer, like a storm bearing down.
“Was I the first to touch you?” he asks, cupping my jaw with one big, calloused hand.
I nod, barely able to speak. “Yes.”
He moves over me, palms on either side of my head, searching my face. “We can stop here,” he says softly. “There’s no finish line.”
“Grady.” I cup his jaw. “I need you. Please.”
Nodding, he slides a hand under my knee, opens me, and lines himself up. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”
I watch his jaw clench as he presses in—slow, thick, stretching me inch by inch.
“That’s it,” he grits out. “Take me. I’ve got you.” He groans like he’s losing his mind. “So fucking tight. So perfect. You were made for me.”
My hands find his shoulders, gripping hard as pain blooms sharp and bright.
“Breathe,” he soothes.
“Trying,” I grunt. “But you’re bigger than all the illustrations they showed us in Sex Ed.”
His laugh is half-humor, half-torture. His hips shudder as he holds himself still inside me, every muscle in his body straining. “Don’t say shit like that unless you want me to lose it.”
“You’re the one trying to park a yacht in a canoe,” I point out breathlessly.
Grady drops his forehead to mine, laughing hoarsely. “You're gonna make me blow before I even move.”
My thighs tremble around him, stretched wide, every nerve ending lit. “Then don’t talk. Just… please… move.”
He lifts his head, eyes locked on mine, and the humor fades to something molten. “You sure?”
I nod, clinging to him, trusting him. “I want to feel all of it. All of you.”
Grady groans like a man dying and pulls out, pushing back in with slow, devastating purpose. My breath stutters. He watches every flicker of sensation across my face like he’s watching a sunrise.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Let me give it to you, sweet girl. Let me show you what it’s supposed to feel like.”
And God, he does.
Each stroke is a lesson, every movement slow and deliberate, like he’s drawing out the pain and replacing it with something molten. Stretch becomes pressure. Pressure becomes heat. Heat spirals into something deeper, something that has my hips lifting to meet his without thinking.
“There you go,” he breathes, voice raw with reverence. “That’s my girl. Take me. Just like that.”
The ache doesn’t disappear—it transforms. I feel full. Stuffed. Claimed. But more than that, I feel seen. Every touch says I’m wanted, not tolerated. Cherished, not endured. For a girl who grew up in the system, it’s everything.
My fingers curl against the taut muscles of his back. I can feel how hard he’s working to hold back, to give me time, to make it right.
“Grady,” I whisper.
He groans, hips grinding down in a slow, perfect circle that makes my toes curl. “Feel that?” he growls into my ear.
I gasp because yes, I do feel it. Everywhere. Not only in the rhythm of his body, but in the rhythm of us. The way he reads me, answers the needs I didn’t know how to voice. The way he waits until my moan turns from shocked to shameless before he thrusts a little deeper.
“Christ,” he grits out. “So goddamn perfect, wrapped around me like this. I’ll never be the same.”
Neither will I.
I arch into him, chasing more. More pressure. More heat. More of him. I’m shaking, not from pain anymore, but from the intensity of the pleasure curling through me like a storm about to break.
My mouth finds his shoulder, biting down to keep from screaming as he moves faster and deeper. Every thrust hits something inside me that lights sparks behind my eyes.
“Grady,” I whimper.
“I know,” he pants. “Let me feel it. Give it to me, Angel. Look at me while you fall apart.”
I meet the gray I once thought was stone and find heat and care and quiet intent, and I swear something in him falls with me.
The pleasure is sharp and loud and utterly consuming. My body clamps around him, waves of pleasure crashing through me while he growls my name and drives me through every sensation.
He follows a heartbeat later, spilling inside me with a groan that sounds like surrender.
After, he doesn’t rush. He breathes me through the aftershocks, mouth at my temple, palm broad and steady over my ribs.
The praise gets quieter. The filth turns to sweetness without losing its heat.
He holds me close, still buried deep, his hand stroking my hair as if I’m breakable—but also his. His to soothe. His to keep.
“You’re mine now,” he murmurs roughly against my temple. “Every inch of you. Every breath.”
I nod, too full of everything to speak.
Because it’s true. I’m his. But he’s mine too.
We breathe together. He doesn’t crush me; he cages me with his arms like he knows what it is to miss the feeling of being held by someone that keeps you safe, gives you peace.
When he can move, he kisses my forehead, my nose, my mouth, and pulls out with a carefulness that makes my eyes sting.
He tucks me under the covers and disappears for a moment before returning with a warm cloth.
I shiver as he cleans between my legs, biting my lip as he drags the cloth against my sensitized clit.
He touches me so tenderly, like aftercare is part of the ritual and not an afterthought.
Then, gets me a glass of water and checks the bandage on my ankle because he is who he is: gruff exterior but soft for me.
“Okay?” he asks, climbing back in and hauling me half on top of him. His palm spreads across my lower back, thumb stroking absent circles.
I nod, a little sob caught behind my teeth. “Okay is so small. I feel… rewired.”
“Good,” he says, satisfied. “That was the plan.”
I nuzzle into his throat. “You have a plan?”
His grin is slow and devastating. “Yeah. Next time I’m going to put you in my lap and make you say please so many times you forget any other word.”
A laugh catches in my chest and comes out as something that might be a sob if I weren’t so bliss-drunk.
He goes quiet then, the good kind. I feel it, the peace in him I helped make.
Outside, the storm rattles the windows. Inside, the heat purrs. He kisses me again—lazy now, smiling into it when I tug him closer.
“You make me brave,” I whisper when he pulls back.
He taps my bottom lip with his thumb, eyes hot and tender. “You make me soft. But don’t tell anybody.”
“My lips are sealed,” I promise, and then open them for him anyway.