25. Cannon
My lips crashed down on hers as I pulled her to me, bringing our bodies flush together. Her hands moved back down to my chest, gripping my shirt as she responded to my kiss. I hadn’t planned on kissing her, especially not while we were lying on her bed. But her words, the sincerity, her genuine belief that I was deserving, had overwhelmed my senses. No one had ever had so much belief in me. No one had ever been so determined to help me see myself as worthy. She unashamedly cared about me. And I’d be a fool to let her slip through my fingers.
Our kiss, which had started off frantic and maybe even a little desperate, started to slow as thoughts of letting myself be with her had a soothing effect, like she was the answer to all of my problems.
I brought our kiss to an end, placing one last soft kiss to her lips before pulling back. “Thank you.”
Her brows puckered. “For what?”
“For saying what you did. For believing I’m better than I am. For being willing to fight for us, for me. For trying to ease my fears.” I took my hand and let my fingers lightly trace down her hairline, slowly making their way to her jaw. “For being you.”
She smiled, a smile that tugged at me like a string that pulled me under, completely lost to any and all things Demi. We stayed in a comfortable silence, just staring at each other. Which if I had done this with anyone else would have been totally weird, but with Demi there was nothing weird about it. We were both more than content to just be close, to just be together.
“I know being in a relationship scares you and that this would be new territory for you, but…” She paused, considering her words, then said, “Let me be by your side. Let me hold your hand while we figure out what being together looks like for us.”
My first thought was she’s too good for me. My second thought was she’s way too good for me. It was difficult for me to push away the instinct to mentally distance myself from her. There was a part of me that understood what she had told me, that wanted to believe I could change so easily, that her trust in me could be what fixed me. But I had a feeling it would require a lot of work on my part, plus a whole lot of hope that she’d stick around.
She was right. I was scared.
I was scared of messing up. I was scared of hurting her. I was scared of losing her. I was scared of losing the only true family I’d ever had. But the thing I was the most scared of, I wasn’t even sure I could say out loud.
I was scared that one day she wouldn’t want me, would realize I’m too broken, that she’d look at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and the way she was looking at me now…would go away.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked softly. “There are going to be some learning curves, some major bumps in the road. Do you really want to sign up for that?” Had she really thought this through? I wanted to give her a chance to back out if she wanted to.
“I’m not scared of a little wild or bumpy ride.” She took my hand in hers, and those brown eyes looked at me with so much adoration, it was almost impossible to not feel worthy. “Not if I’m with you.”
The last of my walls came crashing down, crumbling all around me.
When she looked at me like that and said words that seemed to fuse some of the broken pieces inside of me, the fears that had their claws in me began to loosen.
Her words, plus the conversations I had with my grandfather and with Victor, began slicing through all the reasons why I thought we should stay apart. Victor approved of me dating his daughter. West had practically given me the okay back in Lake Tahoe. My grandfather had given me the push to not let my past define my future. And now Demi had opened up her heart to me, choosing me.
My eyes roamed over her, from her neck to her collarbones, to her hair that surrounded her face on the pillow, to the arch of her brow and the fullness of her lips. Finally, I swept my gaze back up to her eyes. This beautiful woman wanted to be with me, and I didn’t want to question it anymore.
“So what does us being together look like?” I asked.
Her smile lit up the dark room. She took my face in her hands. “We do a whole lot more of this.” She pressed her mouth to mine, and I instantly got lost in the sensation of our lips moving together in the most hypnotic way.
We explored each other in a slow and intoxicating rhythm. It was like now that we knew there were more kisses in our future, we didn’t need to rush. We could take our time to enjoy and learn each other. There was so much I didn’t know about Demi when it came to her physical desires, and I couldn’t wait to find out each and every one of them.
I pulled her body closer to mine and rolled on to my back, bringing her with me. I moaned at the feel of her on top of me, reminding me of when we’d bumped into each other that one night in the hall, falling and then getting to feel the weight of her against me. I’d wanted to kiss her so badly that night, in just the same way we were doing now, and I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this with Demi. The number of times I’d thought about kissing her was too high to count, and I planned to take every advantage now that we were going to be a couple. Because this? This was a feeling I’d never truly felt before.
I slid my hand up her back and into her hair, reveling in the feeling and the thought that I was the one she wanted to be with, the one she wanted to kiss. She was so warm and soft, and it was taking all my willpower to keep things slow, to not rush into anything.
I rolled us again so that now she was on her back, only letting the right half of my body rest on top of hers so I wouldn’t crush her. Pulling back for the first time, I kissed a path down from her jaw to her neck to her collarbone and to that shoulder of hers that was always on display when she was in her pajamas, the one that had driven me crazy so many nights when we were playing video games together. She let out a breathy moan as I continued exploring her, and it quickly became my favorite sound.
Finally, I made my way back up to her mouth, knowing I needed to end this before we took things any farther. That would come with time, but not tonight. Demi meant too much to me to speed up our physical relationship in one night, even if my body had other ideas.
I reluctantly broke the kiss, our breaths coming out fast. The feel of her chest rising up and down, pushing against me had me lifting myself off her and resting most of my weight on my elbow.
As I looked down at her with her blonde hair spread out around her, I recalled another memory of being above her when we’d first gotten to Lake Tahoe and I’d been teasing her, flipping her back on her bed. And now I was getting to live out that dream of seeing her beneath me, her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed, those brown eyes hazy and full of desire. Gosh, I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life.
I pressed one more soft lingering kiss against her lips before rolling away from her and standing up from the bed.
I took a big breath and let it out, hoping it would help cool down the heat that coursed through my veins. “Let’s go play Mario Kart.” I held out my hand to help her up.
She looked at me, blinking a few times. “Now?”
“Yes, now. I need a distraction,” I told her. “And beating you at Mario Kart is one of my favorite pastimes,” I added with a smirk.
She pursed her lips and slapped my hand. “You’re not winning tonight.” She got up and brushed past me, heading toward the living room.
“In your dreams,” I said, following behind her.
“When I dream of you, we aren’t playing Mario Kart,” she said over her shoulder with a flirty grin.
I groaned. “You’re going to kill me with comments like that.”
She laughed, the sound of it making me smile, as if she knew exactly what she was doing.
We sat down on the couch, picking up our controllers and starting our first game of the night.
After five races, she still hadn’t won.
“One more,” she insisted, already selecting what race we were going to do.
“Are you sure?” I teased. “It’s getting late. I’m exhausted from all this winning.” Mario Kart hadn’t been my favorite video game to play before her, but if Demi wanted to play it all night, every night, I would. Being with her was totally worth the late nights.
She gave me a deadpan look. “Hilarious.” She picked up my controller from the ottoman and held it against my chest until I took it from her hands. “Get ready to lose, Cannon James.”
The race started as well as the trash talk, and she kept up with me the whole race. She was so tense as we raced, completely focused, and for a split second I thought about letting her win, but I knew if she ever found out, she’d kill me.
All of a sudden, she stood, causing me to look over at what she was doing. I kept glancing between her and the screen as she lifted one foot up and back and then the other until she was standing on the couch, her gaze never leaving the race.
“What are you doing?” I asked in bewilderment.
“Nothing,” she said, but her feigned innocence wouldn’t work on me.
“You’re up to something,” I argued.
“Who, me?”
Simultaneously she turned her body around, twisting as she kept her face toward the TV. Before I could ask again what she was doing, she stepped over my lap and sat down, all while still keeping her focus on driving her race car along the rainbow road.
I sat in shock with the controller still in my hands between her body and mine, but my brain was short-circuiting.
Demi. Was. Straddling. Me.
Her head was still turned back as she sped closer and closer to the finish line, but I was too hung up on having her in my lap, her incredibly sexy body all up close and personal.
“I won!” She turned back to face me, her arms lifted in the air, that sliver of stomach now on display, and at that moment, I didn’t care that she was a cheater. She was my sexy video game cheater.
My hands reached out, gripping her waist, my thumbs gently rubbing against her bare skin. At some point I had put down the controller, but I couldn’t remember when.
She let out a small gasp at the contact, slowly lowering her arms as she placed her hands on my shoulders. The fun, competitive moment was gone, replaced with a sizzling energy that I was sure she could feel too.
One of her hands slid from my shoulder to my neck as she lowered her head and took my mouth with hers. I was convinced I would never get used to the feel of her lips on mine. It was too all-consuming, too addictive, too alluring. The more we kissed, the more I wanted to kiss her again, and I didn’t see that ever changing. Kissing Demi was pure ecstasy.
She pulled back, the heady sensation taking a moment to clear.
“You’re not too upset that I beat you?” she said with a cheeky grin.
“Not even a little bit.”
She chuckled. “I had a feeling you’d be okay with it.”
“If you want to win like this all the time, be my guest,” I said, my hands still on her waist.
She slapped my shoulder playfully. “I can’t say that won’t be my last attempt to distract you, but one day I will beat you fair and square.”
“And I can’t say that there won’t be some consequences for distracting me.” I gave her a wicked grin, her eyes widening right before I started tickling her.
She let out a high-pitched squeal, scrambling to get off my lap, but I had her strongly in my grasp. As she wiggled in an effort to get free, I found us in a position we’d been in more than once, with me above her while she laid back against the couch. We were both laughing as I tickled her and she attempted to tickle me.
I stopped tickling her and looked down at her, letting her ragged breaths ease for a moment. I lowered my head slowly, her body already melting underneath me. I bypassed her lips and brought my mouth down to the spot between her shoulder and collarbone. And then blew a raspberry into her skin.
The yelp of surprise and the laugh that escaped her had me laughing hard as I sat back, the worries and fears that clung to me, disappearing. I looked down at her, both of us laughing and happy. I could definitely get used to having more moments like this—laughing until our cheeks hurt, kissing until our lips were swollen, and spending late nights together soaking up the minutes and hours—together.