Chapter 30
Tucker
You’re safe with me, too.
Autumn’s words echo in my head as I carry her back to the lodge, into the lobby, into the elevator, and up to our room.
It’s funny how you don’t realize what you need until you get it.
When we reach the room, I set her down so I can open the door. We step inside, and I reach for my bow tie, wanting to loosen it, but she says, “Let me.”
She steps into my personal space, reaches up, tugs the tie loose. I feel like she’s been undoing me for days, for hours now, and untying the tie is the last step in releasing me. I let out a sound that I think is a sigh until it becomes something more like a groan of relief.
She gives me an amused glance. Then she asks, “When was the last time you had sex?”
“What?”
“Just putting the pieces together. If you didn’t want to let me get you off, when was the last time you—”
Another lifetime.
When I was another person.
“Two and a half years ago.”
“Ohhh,” she says. It’s more a moan of pleasure than an acknowledgment of fact, and I feel it in my gut.
“You like that?” I’m surprised and not surprised. Autumn is a woman who knows what she wants.
“I like the idea of being the first in a long time,” she says. “I like the idea that you’ve been holding yourself back. I like the idea that I’m the one…”
She stops, like she’s said too much. She bites her lip and looks away.
I don’t want her to stop or to feel ashamed. I want her to know that I like it, too. The idea that she’s the first one in such a long time.
“Yeah,” I say. “All the things. Whatever you were about to say. That you’re the one who makes it impossible to say no. That you’re the one who makes me want something enough to go after it for the first time in years. That you’re the one who makes me feel—” Fuck it. “Safe.”
And then we’re kissing like it’s the key to survival, like we’ll never get enough of each other.
Her mouth is soft and yielding under mine, until it’s not.
Until it’s bossy and demanding. Until we’re taking turns demanding and giving, our bodies pressing close, closer.
She arches against me, practically climbing me, looking for contact.
And I’m eager to provide it, hoisting her up against the wall so I can press my nearly painful erection against the softness of her mound.
“That’s right, pretty girl,” I tell her. “You take what you need.”
“You, too,” Autumn says breathlessly.
“Oh, I will,” I tell her, meaning it. I have every intention of burying myself in her, but there’s no way I’m going to stop her now, not when she’s whimpering and rubbing and clutching at my clothes, her dress pushed up around her waist, her lace panties leaving a damp sheen on my tux pants, marking my length under the fabric.
Not when she’s reaching up to tweak her own nipple as she rubs.
I hold her tight to me with one arm and use my other hand to push the top of her dress down so I can lick through the lace of her bra and help the other nipple tighten to match.
She’s incoherent with need, her scent rising to fill my head, the feel of her grinding over my arousal almost enough to destroy me.
But I’m not going to come until I’m deep inside her, until I can feel her clenching around me.
That’s not a rule I’ve made to deprive myself.
It’s exactly fucking what I want, and I’m going to get it.
With a cry and a hitch of her hips, she comes, thrashing in my arms, biting me through layers of fabric, rubbing her breasts against my chest. She does nothing halfway, and I fucking love it.
I carry her to the bed and gently set her down. She is limp, boneless, eyes closed, but as I lower myself to the bed, she reaches for the hem of her dress and tugs it over her head. Kicks her panties off. Spreads her legs for me, opening her arms.
“Oh, wow,” she says, opening her eyes, too.
“You’re still wearing all your clothes. That’s—just—wrong.
” She sits up, reaches for my shirt buttons.
We work them together, then the fastener of my pants, the zipper.
I stand up to shuck my clothes, and her eyes follow the process, avid.
She’s already seen my cock, obviously, but I really love the respect she gives it with her gaze, and it swells even more under her regard.
“Tucker,” she says. “You are so pretty.”
That makes me laugh.
“What?” she asks.
“I really fucking like you,” I say, not giving myself any time to think about what a bad idea it is. She makes me want not to overthink anything. She makes me want to say what’s on my mind.
“I really fucking like you, too.” Her expression is so soft, it hurts my chest.
I take a step toward the bed, at which point I have a terrible realization.
“Fuck. No condoms.”
“I figured,” she says, laughing. “Given the whole two-and-a-half-years thing. There’s a bunch in the black zipper pouch on top of my suitcase.”
I find her stash and dig one out. Her eyes track my hands as I smooth it over my length, her lower lip soft.
I climb onto the bed and kneel between her legs.
I spread her open and use my fingers to gently paint her wetness up one fold and down the other, then over her clit and hood.
When she’s glistening, I touch my condom-covered cock to her, repeating the caress until she’s thrusting her hips up and begging.
“You ready for me?”
“Yeah,” she grunts, barely a word.
“You want me to fuck you?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?” I’m teasing her now, the tip of my cock working the very, very edge of her entrance in small, slippery circles.
“Tucker,” she whines.
“What do you want, pretty girl?”
“I want you inside me.”
That’s what I was waiting to hear. I notch myself into her.
Just the tip. Just enough to give her the smallest amount of stretch.
And I watch her face, her lower lip even softer, her mouth open and panting, her eyes darkening from chocolate to near black.
I work her, a millimeter at a time, only wanting to take what she’s ready to give, wanting to feel her surrender to me.
And she does, bit by bit, softening, getting wetter, yielding to me, until she’s begging and whining and whimpering and thrusting up to meet me, until I find no resistance as I take a centimeter, an inch, all of her with a single, big, deep thrust that draws a long, thick groan out of her.
“Tucker,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Now fuck me like you mean it.”