Chapter 8 Abel
Abel
I can barely make it inside our cabin before I’m on the attack. Tatum only giggles as she almost drops our leftovers just so I can get my hands on her, but her amusement doesn’t last for long.
As soon as we’ve kicked our shoes off, set down the aftermath of a shopping spree, and I find the nearest flat surface to abandon our food on, I’ve got her body hooked beneath my arms as I carry her to the only place that sounds reasonable.
The bed that I’m now going to call ours.
Tatum is mine. She said it herself. If she’s willing to leave the city behind, then I’m going to give her a reason to love the mountain. To love being here with me. Hell, to love me.
While I’m walking, she goes out of her way to make everything hard by cupping my face and kissing me like she can’t help herself. The way she’s sighing against my lips, I’m tempted to believe she needs these brief moments of contact more than I do.
Now that’s a bet I’m willing to take. I’m fucking dying here.
The door to our room pushes open with my shoulder, and she laughs against my mouth, a breathless, beautiful sound that I want to bottle up and keep forever.
I don’t bother with finesse. I cross to the bed in three strides and drop her.
She bounces on the mattress, her hair fanning out across pillows that suddenly look too plain, too boring to be touching her. But she’s smiling up at me, all flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and I need to be on her. Now.
My hands go to my shirt, and I’m tearing at the buttons as if they’ve personally offended me. One pops off, skittering across the floor, and I don’t dare pull my gaze from her for even a minute. The fabric parts, and I shrug it off my shoulders, letting it fall somewhere behind me.
The town. All those people. The noise, the stares, the press of bodies in shops and on sidewalks—it’s been crawling under my skin for hours. Making me itch. Making me want to retreat, to hide, to go back to my quiet mountain and never leave.
But now? Standing here, watching Tatum do the same, her chest rising and falling beneath that thin shirt?
Everything’s fine. Everything’s perfect. It’s just us here. Just her and me, and this room that is going to have her scent everywhere by the time morning rolls around.
Her eyes drag down my chest, and I watch her swallow. The sight of it, the way her throat moves, has my cock twitching in my jeans.
“Abel,” she breathes, and there’s a hint of disbelief there.
I get it, I do. I’m still trying to figure out how I landed such a beauty.
I move to the bed, crawling over her, and my hands find the hem of her shirt. “Lift up,” I murmur, and she does, arching off the mattress so I can pull the fabric over her head and toss it to join my shirt on the floor.
Her bra is simple, pale blue, and I want it gone. But first—
My jeans. They’re too tight, too restrictive. I sit back on my heels, fumbling with the button, and I must look desperate because Tatum props herself up on her elbows and watches me struggle with a soft laugh.
“Need help?” she asks, and there’s a teasing lilt to her voice that makes my fingers even clumsier.
I pause and look at her. Taking in the sight of her, half-undressed and smiling, something in my chest cracks open.
“Too fast?” The question falls out before I can stop it. I need to hear her say it’s okay. I need to know she’s sure.
She shakes her head, confirming her hunger matches mine.
And I’m smiling before I can help it. A curve of my mouth that feels feral, wolfish, like I’ve just been given permission to devour.
The button finally gives. I shove my jeans down my thighs, kicking them off along with my boxers, not caring where they land. Then I’m back over her, my mouth finding the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, and she gasps.
“Better,” I murmur against her skin. “This is better.”
My fingers find the clasp of her bra, and it takes me three damn tries before it’s off, and she’s bare beneath me, and I have to pause just to look at her.
I will never grow tired of this view.
She blushes in response, near instantly. That same blush from the diner, spreading across her chest, and I groan, dipping my head to press my mouth to the heat of it.
Her hands find my back, nails scraping lightly, and it spurs me on. I work at her shorts, shimmying them down her legs, and she lifts her hips to help me. The last of her clothes join the pile on the floor, and then there’s nothing between us. Nothing at all.
I settle between her thighs, and the feeling of her skin against mine—all that warm, soft skin—makes my eyes want to roll back in my head.
“Abel.” My name on her lips, breathless and wanting. She’s wiggling, already parting her thighs like she’s ready for a continuation of what we’d done earlier.
I prop myself up on one elbow, looking down at her, and I slide my free hand down her body. Past her ribs, past her stomach, until my fingers find the heat between her legs.
She gasps, hips twitching toward my hand, and I smile against her neck.
“Mine,” I murmur, and I press a kiss to the sensitive skin just below her ear. Then I suck hard enough to leave a mark. Hard enough that she’ll see it tomorrow and remember exactly who put it there.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders, and she makes a sound—half moan, half whimper—that goes straight to my cock.
My fingers work her slowly, enjoying the way she responds to each touch. She’s wet, and the knowledge that I did that, that she wants this as much as I do, has my hips pressing into her thigh.
“You feel that?” I ask against her neck, pressing my length against her leg. “That’s what you do to me.”
She turns her head, capturing my mouth in a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue and dripping with need. When she breaks away, gasping for air, her eyes are glossy.
“I want you inside me,” she whispers. “Please, Abel. I need—”
I don’t let her finish. I shift, positioning myself at her entrance, and I look her in the eyes.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” I say. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
She nods, and there’s trust in her eyes. Trust and want and something that looks terrifyingly like the beginning stage of love.
I push inside her, and she cries out, and I have to clamp my jaw shut to keep from embarrassing myself right here, right now. She’s so tight, so warm, so perfect. It’s a miracle I don’t spill just like that.
“Are you okay?” I manage, my voice wrecked. I couldn’t dream of hurting her, even in a moment like this.
She nods, eyes squeezed shut, and when they open again, they’re bright enough to dazzle. “More than okay.”
I start to move. Slow at first, letting her adjust, letting us both get used to the feel of this.
Of us. But it doesn’t take long before slow isn’t enough.
Before she’s wrapping her legs around my waist and pulling me deeper, before I’m losing myself in the slide of her body against mine, in the sounds she makes, in the way she says my name like I’m everything she needs.
“You feel—” I can’t even finish the sentence. There aren’t words for this. For the way she clenches around me, for the way her nails dig into my back, for the way her eyes flutter shut and her mouth falls open, and she just takes me.
“Harder,” she breathes, and I’m powerless to deny her.
I brace myself on my forearms, caging her in, and I drive into her with more force. The headboard starts knocking against the wall, a rhythmic thumping that matches the sound of our bodies coming together, and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything except her.
“That’s it,” I groan against her mouth. “That’s it, Tatum. Take all of me.”
Her inner walls flutter around me, and I know she’s close. I can feel it in the way her body tenses, in the way her heels dig into my lower back, in the way her breath comes in short, sharp gasps.
“Abel, I-I’m going to—”
“I know.” I reach between us, my thumb finding that sensitive spot, and I press down just the way I learned from watching earlier. “Let go, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
She falls apart in a matter of seconds.
Her back bows off the mattress, her mouth opening in a silent scream, and the feeling of her coming undone around me—it’s too much. It’s everything. My own release barrels toward me like a freight train, and I can’t stop it, don’t want to stop it.
I pull out just enough to shift, and then I’m lifting her hips. Angling her. Positioning her in a way that feels I’m moving on instinct. I don’t know why, I just know I need to be deep. Need to be inside.
“Abel?” Her voice is hazy, post-orgasm, but there’s a question there.
I thrust back into her, deeper than before, and her eyes go wide. I hold her hips aloft, tilted just so, and I pour myself into her as I come. Wave after wave, buried to the hilt, I let out the most strangled moan that’s ever left my lips.
When I finally go still, when the last tremor passes through me, I don’t move. Can’t move. I’m still holding her hips, still buried inside her, still trying to remember how to breathe. Then I realize what I’ve done.
Not only was I rough, but I didn’t even think to ask her how she’d feel if I…
Blinking, I look down at her glossy state and see she’s beaming. Not just like any smile I’ve seen her radiate with, but something far happier. Hardly giving me the chance to ask her if she’s okay, she’s already reaching out to pull me toward her chest.
Still locked deep inside her, I crash down like a tumbling building. Barely avoiding crushing her, I nudge her throat and confess the truth.
“I don’t want to leave. I just want to stay here for a little while.” Deep inside her wet heat, where it feels the best.
Another laugh leaves her as she wraps her arms around me.
Stroking the little hairs on the back of my neck, she wiggles her hips and clenches around me.
“It’s a good thing I don’t want you to leave, either.
But please, tell me you can still move.” Her breath tickles my skin and raises goosebumps against my skin. “I think I want more.”
Oh, this woman is going to put me through the wringer to make sure I can keep up with her. But I’ll do it. Even if it takes days or weeks, or even months, I’ll learn. Hell, I’ve got my whole life with her to sort out the fine details.
Not wanting to get ahead of myself by thinking of the future, I roll my hips and decide that from this point forward, I’m just going to enjoy every minute as it goes by. One at a time. Right here with her. My future wife.