Chapter 15 #2
So I push the sheet off my naked body and glance about for my boxers. They’re on the carpet across the room, where I vaguely remember Bailey pitching them earlier. I smile to myself as I draw them on.
‘I’m starving,’ I say into the room, before turning.
I should have taken a beat longer to prepare for the sight of her.
The same sheet I was under a minute ago is draped over Bailey from the waist down, so her beautiful breasts are calling to me, all honey gold and full, the nipples peaked, with patches of pink from my stubble and where my mouth has sucked hard enough to leave a mark.
It stirs me up all over again, my cock hardening inside my boxers.
She shifts a little in the bed as I watch, almost like she’s remembering what it was like to be together.
Reliving it. I stand there, hands by my side, just staring at her, so I notice the second her eyes open and latch to mine, her lips parted on a silent, desperate challenge.
‘How starving?’ she asks huskily.
‘Bailey James,’ I mutter, striding back toward the bed, kicking out of my boxers as I go, bringing my weight over her. ‘You’re insatiable.’
Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing,’ she teases, running her nails over my back as I prop myself up on my elbows either side of her head.
‘Definitely not a bad thing,’ I promise. Hell, I don’t know if I’d ever get sick of doing this with her. Of hearing her scream my name into the room, like she doesn’t give a shit who hears. Making her whimper and plead, beg for me, like I’m the only man on earth who can do this to her.
‘Kiss me, cowboy,’ she says, digging those nails into my ass, staring up at me imploringly.
‘Sure thing,’ I grin, dropping my mouth to one of her breasts and sucking in a nipple, deep and hard, thinking I’ve never felt anything quite so perfect as this.
When she arches her back, my cock presses between her legs, against the sheet that separates us, still trying to find her sex and tormenting her with how close I am.
She writhes beneath me, her rapid breaths showing me how close she is already. ‘Fuck.’ I pull up, just so I can stare at her, my own breathing as ragged as if I’ve just run three miles. ‘You are so damn hot.’
Heat flushes her neck, spreads into her cheeks. ‘Don’t stop,’ she responds.
I thrust my hips to show her I don’t intend to, and then she’s reaching across the bed to the bedside table and the condoms I stashed there.
She grabs one and tears it open, eyes on the rubber as she pushes it over my length.
It’s a torment to have her touch me like this.
I grind my teeth as she slowly stretches it down, pressing her hands over me as she fits it in place in such an exaggerated manner that I realise she knows what she’s doing and bite out a half laugh.
Except it sounds deranged rather than amused, and is it any wonder?
I drop back to my knees, breath hissing from between my teeth as she wrests the sheet away and lifts her hips, wildness in her features.
But a second later, she’s pushing up and kissing me, her mouth desperate on mine, her tongue lashing me, as one hand presses to my chest, pushing me away from her, onto the mattress.
I tumble down beside her and a second later she straddles me, eyes still alight with that wildness, as she takes me deep in one swift movement, crying out as she buries me within her, tilts her head back and makes a sound of euphoria, her breasts peaking in a way that I ache to touch—and so I do.
My hands lift of their own accord, holding her, feeling her, kneading her, before dropping to her hips.
I stare, mesmerized, as she starts to shift, every movement an exercise in both control and exploration, in agency and release.
I buck my hips and she cries out, a manic, desperate sound, so I move again, and again, and then she’s tumbling into an abyss, her voice barely human.
I grip her sides, keeping her pressed low against me, feeling the way her muscles throb and pulse as her body explodes.
Power surges through me, an ancient, primeval, masculine surge of heat that makes me want to puff up my chest and go light a fire with my bare hands or some shit.
I stare at her, wondering if there’s ever been a more beautiful sight than this, and then, as her breathing slows and she looks at me almost as though she’s waking from a dream, I start to move once more, harder this time, faster, showing her what she does to me, showing her that the same wildness that just overtook her is deep inside me too.
She’s riding that wave again, each frantic cry from her stoking my fires more and more until I’m exploding and she’s following after, our voices mingling, the room a shrine at which our passion is worshipping; it’s just about the best goddamn feeling I’ve ever known.
I got two rooms for us because it seemed like the right thing to do.
Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to share a room with Bailey, but the truth is we barely know each other.
And where I can be casual about sex and treat it like nothing, I have no idea how easy she’s gonna find that, so I thought having space would give her a chance to withdraw to her own corner, if she needed it.
Except it was Bailey who kept me with her all night, suggesting we get takeout from the diner rather than leaving her room, then putting on some soppy old romance movie she found on the motel’s streaming service, snuggling into me while we watched before falling asleep on my chest, so it would have been rude to leave her.
Rude to risk waking her when she was so peaceful.
Rude to do anything but soak this up. This weekend, I’ve got an event, then a week later another back home, and after that Bailey will be gone out of my life.
For good. The article written, her focus shifting to whatever she’s covering next, her eyes firmly planted on Washington.
I don’t think she’ll forget me. At least not right away.
Maybe not at all, given what this has been for her.
After her ex, she’s been celibate and single, alone for years, choosing to play it safe rather than let herself go and risk getting hurt again—something I know a fair bit about.
If nothing else, maybe our time together will teach her that she can have her cake and eat it too.
It’s possible to enjoy flirtations and relationships, to fuck around a bit, without letting your heart mess it all up.
It’s my last thought as I fall asleep, one arm wrapped around Bailey, holding her close.