43. Cash
Chapter Forty-Three
Cash
In the shower, Haven melts against me. The ferocity of my desire to take care of her and make things right rocks me to my core.
It’s not enough to know she’s forgiven me, that she loves me and knows I love her. It’s not enough to be just enough. I need to eradicate all doubt in her mind. I will never again leave her wondering if she’s carrying more of the emotional weight between us.
Which means revealing parts of myself I’ve spent more than a decade, my entire adult life, suppressing.
“I’ve always needed more time with my thoughts than my brothers,” I tell her as I sluice soapy bubbles down her back. “There might be times in the future where I’m not quick enough to tell you something important.”
“I’ll have to watch you carefully, then, because you’ll show me in your actions.” Haven twists in my arms.
My gaze drops to the delicate gold chain around her neck, the crucifix Jeb ignored as he dragged a knife against her jaw.
I should have smashed his face against the door frame one extra time as I dragged him from that cabin, the fucker.
Her eyes search my face. “What are you thinking?”
“Dark thoughts,” I say gruffly.
“Will you tell me them in time?”
“Not tonight.” I swallow hard and kiss her forehead, pulling her tight against my body. Nothing between us. Close enough I can feel her heart beating against me, and be grateful she’s alive and in my arms.
“That’s okay.” She nuzzles her face into my chest. “I like that you take time to sort out your thoughts and feelings. You have to find the right words. But when you do share with me, I trust that they’ll be the best words. You’ve always said the sweetest things to me.”
“I don’t want you to ever think I don’t feel as strongly for you as you do for me. You’re so loving.”
“I know that now. I promise. If anything, I think it might be because you feel so much, it’s overwhelming?” Her eyes swim with an achingly clear desire to know me.
Me.
“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Fuck. I swallow hard.
“You’ve had to survive a lot in your life. Locking down your feelings is a good way to get through that shit.”
“Cursing, Haven?” I stroke her cheek. “That’s hot.”
She smiles. “It’s justified.”
“Sure as fuck is.” I drag in a rough breath. “Yeah, there’s probably something to that. Loving you…”
Like a movie reel, the last seven years flash through my mind. Being convicted. Haven standing up for me. The realization that I was going to jail. Wishing, desperately, that I had made different choices, so I could be a man worthy of her, instead of a brief pen pal she would disappear on.
I locked down a lot. Seven years of desire. Seven years of craving more than friendship with the memory of a woman so pure and innocent, there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever get her. And when she returned…
“I spent a long time telling myself it was wrong to look at your tits more than once a week.”
She lets out a startled laugh. “Oh?”
“Getting to be your bodyguard would have been more than enough.”
“No it wouldn’t have.”
“I thought so at the time.”
“But you wanted more.” She sees me. Sees right to my soul.
“So much more. And it felt impossible. For the rest of my life, I’ll regret that I didn’t see soon enough that we were meant to be, exactly as we are. I was over thinking it, because I wanted more for you. I’ll always want more for you.”
She cups my face. “You feel so much, so deeply.”
I twist my head, pressing my mouth to the palm of her hand. “Sometimes it feels like swimming in the darkest depths of the ocean.”
“That’s scary.”
“Only when I’m alone.” I wrap my arms around her, holding on tight. “Never letting you go.”
“Excellent plan.”
“What do you need?”
“You.”
The first time she needed me, for a kiss, I thought it was a ruse. But maybe there was a part of her that understood I was hers. For a kiss, for protection, for anything she needed. For everything.
She exhales and repeats the answer. “I just need you, Cash.”
Then I’ll give her what she needs.
I dry her off, careful for her cuts and scrapes, then re-dress her bandages before carrying her to bed.
My heart races as I stretch out beside her on the clean sheets, both of us naked. The door firmly closed, cocooning us off from the rest of the house, the rest of the world. Just one lamp casting a warm glow across her soft, curvy body.
I curl my fingers around the nape of her neck and cover her mouth with mine.
Her kiss is hungry, seeking. My response is just as hot, and a fire is lit between us.
She arches against me, her body adding to the demands of her lips.
I carry my touch to the curve of her breasts, then the lush pillow of her belly before sinking my fingers between her legs, where she’s slick and oh so alive.
“Is this okay?” I ask between kisses as I circle her entrance and roll my thumb against her clit.
“More,” she breathes. “Please, Cash.”
I push one finger, then two, into the tight clutch of her body.
“You’re so good to me,” she whispers.
I bend my head to kiss her heart, between her breasts. I want to be good to her for the rest of my days.
Please her.
Love her.
Comfort her.
She sinks her fingers into my hair, raking her nails against my scalp. Making me groan.
As I work my fingers in and out of her tight secret, I lick down her belly, rub my nose against her mound. “Spread your legs for me. Let me be even better.”
She makes room for me between her thighs.
My mouth waters as I stare at the delicate dusting of dark red curls framing the slick, pink slit stretched around my fingers.
“God damn it, Haven, you’re gorgeous.”
She exhales in a rush.
And I hate that anyone made her feel any other way, but I know how I can chase those memories off for good.
“Don’t stop scratching my head,” I murmur before I kiss her right above her clit. “You know how much I like it.”
“My house tiger.” She laughs, then sighs, as I ease my fingers out of her tightness.
Growling, I lick them off, then go in for a taste right from the lush, pink source. Fuck. Fuck. She turns me into an animal, all right. I thrust my tongue deep, wanting her all over my face and down my throat. Craving her inside me as much I need to be inside her.
“Oh, Cash.” Her voice hitches and her nails drag against my scalp. “Yes, there. That’s so good.”
I snap my hips against the mattress, my cock aching for anything to take the edge of the pounding need throbbing through my body.
“You like being good for me.”
I lift my gaze enough to nod as I latch onto her clit and suck.
“I didn’t know…” Her eyelids flutter and her lips part. “Cash!”
“Keep watching me, Lucky.”
“Can’t look away.”
“Tell me I’m good for you.”
Her eyes are locked on my face between her legs. Her expression is pure wonder, so innocent and sweet. “You’re such a good boy.”
Fuck.
I hump against the bed, feral now.
All the years I fucked my own hand instead of going home with someone who wasn’t exactly what I wanted…
I thought I was punishing myself with a fantasy that could never be, but I should have had more faith.
Maybe if I’d let myself believe that Haven could be mine, I’d have tasted her pureness in that first kiss and known she was mine in every way.
But I can’t dwell in regret tonight. Tomorrow, there will be time to replay my worst nightmare.
Tonight, I only want to focus on the sweet relief of having her in my bed again.
Not closed off, not reading herself to sleep.
Splayed out, thighs curling up, pussy so slick my cock instinctively knows she’s ready for me.
I need to make her come first, though, because when I get inside her, I’m not lasting long. Not the first time. But I’ll love her again and again, as often as she needs.
I suck her clit, drinking in her arousal, and I give her my fingers again, too.
This was worth waiting for.
She drives her hips, chasing her pleasure, and against my tongue, her clit stiffens.
This is worth everything.
When her whole body rises to meet my mouth, it feels like we’re back on top of the mountain, watching the sunset. Never knew a happiness like that before. Didn’t know I’d lose it so damn quickly. But I won’t lose her again.
With a cry, she comes apart for me. I swallow every delicious drop, licking her through the shuddering waves before she tugs my hair.
“Please, Cash.”
“Let me get…” I slur the words as her hands slide down my neck. Soft, delicate, lovely hands, urging me up her body. My chest heaves as I finish the thought. “A condom.”
“I don’t want to use one tonight.”
Between us, my cock thickens against her bare skin, a bead of precome pulsing at the contact. Wetting her belly with my seed.
She licks her lips as she stares up at me. “Or ever again.”
I stare, dumbstruck.
Her mouth curves in a pleased smile. “I know you need a minute to process that, but—”
I crush my lips to hers and hitch her thighs up around my waist.
Words are sometimes a challenge for me, but actions…I can show her right fucking now how right it feels to be inside her. Bare, nothing between us.
I slide my cock along the length of her slit first, coating myself in the sweet honey from her first orgasm, before I notch the tip right at her snug entrance and brace myself over her.
She cups my face, holding our gazes together as I press into her. Inch by inch, I sink home. There are no words to properly describe the sweet grip of her pussy around my shaft. Hot. Wet. Soft. Tight. Incredible. Mine.
Her eyes flare, her breath catching, hot spots flaring in her cheeks at the way I stretch her open.
Which only makes my cock swell further. Never been bigger than I am inside her right now.
“Are you…” My voice catches.
“I’m…” She takes a shallow breath. Then, “I missed you.”
Fuck.
I snap my hips and drive the rest of the way inside her, burying my cock balls deep.
Then the floodgates open and I find my fucking words. “You’re doing so good for me.” My voice is rough with hunger. “I love how you take me.”
She squirms under me, rocking her hips. “Deeper, Cash.”
“Yeah, baby. I’ve got you.” I scoop my hands under her hips and cradle her, driving into her body, giving her what she asks for—and chasing what I need, too. More, more, endlessly more.
“I love how you feel, how tight you are. Hot and perfect. Never want to leave you again.”
“Don’t. Don’t leave me.”
Her lust-laden words weave an intoxicating double meaning, an invitation to bond us forever.
My pulse races at the thought of finishing inside her, nothing between us. And she must read my mind, because her pupils flare wide.
And her cunt clamps down around my shaft, holding me deep in her belly.
“You want me to finish inside you?” I hear myself from a distance as I slow my thrusts, dangerously close to spilling now. “Fuck, Haven, if you want it, you can have it. You can have anything you want in this world. I’ll give you the moon if you ask.”
“I just want you, forever.” She wraps her legs around my waist and throws her head back, her body arching beneath mine. Her fingers slide past her belly and her eyelids flutter shut as she finds her clit.
Inside, she starts to flutter, too.
Greedy pussy.
Perfect pussy.
“I’m going to marry you,” I hear myself say. And then I smile, because it’s so fucking true.
She blinks her eyes open, staring up at me as I slowly stuff her full of my cock. “That you can just say?”
“Gonna marry you, and love you forever, and give you all the babies your heart desires.” Fuck. I’m so fucking close. “Rub that beautiful clit faster, baby. Come for me, and you’ll milk my orgasm out of me, I swear to—”
Her thighs slam against my hips, her pussy turning electric as she goes soaring.
I groan like an animal rutting in the fields, falling on top of her as I slam my cock home.
“That wasn’t the sweet love making I thought I’d give you,” I whisper when the aftershocks finish rippling through my body and I manage to roll off her, pulling her into my side.
She snuggles close. “But it was what I needed from my very good man.”
“I like the sound of that. I’m your man.” I take a long, deep breath and pull her up enough to so I can brush my mouth against hers. “And I meant every word. I love you. I’m going to marry you. There’s no end to us. Not tonight, not ever.”
“Okay.” She smiles and kisses me, a bright promise of a future so sweet and lush it would have felt impossible just a few weeks ago.
And then she starts laughing.
“What is it?”
“I’m just thinking about what you said.”
“Which part?”
“That it was wrong to look at my tits more than once a week.” She giggles again. “Why was it all right once a week?”
“Self-preservation.”
She yawns. “What does that mean?”
“That’s more of a twentieth date reveal.”
“Hey, wait a second—”
I pull her on top of me and swallow the rest of her protest with a deep, endless kiss.