34. Wrenley
THIRTY-FOUR
WRENLEY
W e’re both soaked through when we step back inside the house. The rain ticks against the windows, soft and steady like it’s trying not to interrupt.
Saint shuts the door behind us and shrugs off his wet shirt, then nods toward the hallway. “I’ll grab you something dry.”
Swallowing loudly while staring at all that carved, toned muscle under his ink, I trail behind him toward the bedroom. The air inside is warmer, but it’s not the heater. It’s the way he keeps glancing over his shoulder at me with twin flames in his eyes.
With his bare, rippling back to me, he goes to his drawers and pulls out one of his old tees, triple-washed, gray, oversized. I take it without a word and disappear into the bathroom.
By the time I return, he’s changed into low-rise sweats. His hair is damp, pushed back, and the fire in his eyes has turned into a damned inferno .
The sight of him like this, his skin glistening from leftover rain, the carved V of his muscles disappearing into his sweats and his hair slicked back, makes my knees go weak.
Saint’s gaze moves down to my bare thighs, then back up to my face and stays there.
“You okay?” he asks, but there’s nothing casual about the question. He’s looking for signs of retreat, of second thoughts, of any reason to stop what’s about to happen.
I nod. Words are beyond me.
He crosses the floor in three strides.
The scent of him—rain, grass, cologne—fills my lungs. He stops just short of touching me.
I’m drawn to him like a magnet, sliding my palms up his chest, feeling the heat of his skin, the wild stutter of his heart. I tip my chin up, and he bends down, mouth finding mine with a hunger that’s almost violent. Tasting him again is so dizzying that I can’t decide which way is up.
Saint’s hands slide down to the back of my thighs, and in one motion he lifts me into his arms, holding me there like there’s nowhere else I could possibly belong.
He carries me to the dresser, setting me on it and I almost laugh, because of course he chooses the dresser over the comfort of a bed, but the look in his eyes swallows the sound.
Saint kneels between my knees, palms braced on either side of my hips, and just looks at me. His breathing is short when he drags his knuckles up my thigh and goose bumps bloom in their wake.
My fingers tangle in his damp hair, tugging gently, urging him closer.
Saint doesn’t need much encouragement. His mouth finds the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, and a shiver racks through me.
His tongue traces a hot path upward, my hands fisting in his hair, gluing him to me as the pleasure builds, tight and hot in my belly .
Saint captures my gaze while sucking on my clit, and I nearly come apart by that alone.
He releases his lips long enough to rumble against my swollen folds, “You taste like mine,” before diving back in.
My world narrows to the feel of his mouth, the rough scrape of his stubble against my thighs, the insistent pressure of his tongue. I cry out as the first wave hits me, sharp and overwhelming.
Saint doesn’t stop. He pushes me higher, gripping my hips to pull me closer, holding me steady as I come apart.
Before the shudders fully subside, he’s standing, his hands at the hem of my borrowed T-shirt. He pulls it over my head, tossing it aside without a glance. His eyes roam over my bare breasts, lingering on my hardened nipples.
“Beautiful,” he says in a thick voice, his lips shining.
Saint lifts me again, my legs wrapping around his waist instinctively, but he still doesn’t carry me to the bed. Saint chooses the wall, his erection hot and hard against my entrance.
He kisses me then, deep and flavorful, his tongue tangling with mine when he enters me in one smooth, easy thrust.
I gasp into his mouth at the sensation of being filled by him again, the friction just right, the angle so deep I see white behind my eyelids.
Saint’s rhythm is urgent, desperate, each thrust a claiming.
This isn’t just sex. It’s our reunion, our re claiming, a collision of two people who were starved for each other.
I brokenly say his name against his mouth, over and over, as he keeps driving into me.
He bites my lower lip, grinning when I whine, then slides his hand behind my head to cradle it, his other arm braced under my thigh, holding me against the wall as if I weigh nothing.
I’m so high up I’d fall if he let go, but he never does.
Saint has always been the only man to make me feel weightless and pinned down at the same time.
Saint pulls out, just enough to make me mewl in protest, then lifts me higher against the wall. He’s strong enough to manhandle me like I’m nothing, and for once, I want to let myself become just sensation and heat.
He shifts his grip, cupping my ass. There’s a glint in his eyes, a dare, and then he does something I don’t expect.
Saint rocks his hips in a slow, rolling grind, then dips his head and sucks my nipple into his mouth, hard and greedy, while still circling inside me.
The sudden, sharp pull makes my toes curl. I clutch at his shoulders, nails raking the wet, hot skin, clinging as he slides in and out, slow at first but with growing, premeditated intent.
I can’t get enough of him, his hands, his mouth, the way he fills me completely.
Saint releases my nipple with a wet pop and braces my back with one arm, bending his knees so he can fuck me up, not just in.
It’s an angle I’ve never felt before, and the sensation is so intense and precise that I can’t even moan, I just gulp at the air, my body clenching around him, his cock hitting the same spot inside me until I’m whimpering.
I’m not just coming; I’m unraveling, every muscle in my body seizing, my mouth frozen open in a silent scream.
“You feel that?” he rasps, voice wrecked. “That’s me. All fucking me.”
I nod, the words lost, and he rewards me with a slow, devastating thrust that drags the ridge of his cock so deep I see into space.
Saint’s eyes are narrow slits, blue turning almost black. His lips bracket my jaw, teeth scraping as he mutters, “I’m never fucking leaving, you hear me? ”
I want to answer, but my brain is too busy detonating behind my eyes. All I can do is nod, pulling at his hair, needing him closer, needing him to finish what he started. Saint reads my mind, one hand leaving my ass to slip between our bodies, thumb circling my clit.
I come again, raw and bright and so sudden it nearly hurts.
My body pins itself to the wall, Saint’s arm the only thing holding me together.
He groans, shudders, then comes with a force that makes me feel drunk, dizzy, completely gone.
His hips piston through the aftershocks, wringing every last drop until he’s spent and I’m boneless … and stuck onto him like a sticker.
While still inside me, he spins us, this time carrying me to the bed. Saint lays me down, sliding out. Then he crawls over me, kissing up my stomach, my chest, my collarbone, until he reaches my lips.
We kiss until he settles beside me with a contented sigh. The Saint who never lets anyone see him soft is gone, at least for me.
“Are you real?” I mumble, burrowing into the pillow to escape the possessiveness of his stare. I don’t think it will ever fully sink in how important he thinks I am—that I matter.
He laughs, soft and easy. “I’m not going anywhere, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I roll onto my back, searching his face for any trace of the old Saint, the one who would push me away the second things got too close. I find none.
“Ivy will be home soon,” he says, then runs his palm down my bare arm. “You want to stay for dinner?”
I smile. “Only if you’re cooking.”
Saint’s mouth quirks. “I’ll do you one better.”
He leans over, grabs his phone from the nightstand, and starts typing, then hands it to me with a sly grin .
On the screen is a reservation confirmation. For three. At 7:00.
“Ivy’s favorite,” he says. “There’s a new dessert on the menu. She’s been talking about it for a week.”
My face splits into a smile so uncontrolled that I have to hide it behind both hands. “You made a reservation at your own restaurant?”
He shrugs, grinning for real now. “Never done that before. Figured you should be my first.”
“Saint…” It finally hits me that it’s a reservation for three. The rest of my sentence dissolves.
He sits up, elbows on his knees. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. If you’re not ready. But I want her to see that I’m not hiding. That you’re…” He shakes his head, at a loss for words.
“That you want me to stay,” I finish.
He doesn’t answer, just pulls me onto his lap. I brace for another round, but instead, Saint wraps my legs around his waist and holds me so tight, my bones fuse to his.
Saint rests his chin on my shoulder, breath cooling the heat he’d just set off, and murmurs, “Ivy’s been making a list of her favorite dinners. Every night, she asks if I think you’d like them, too.” He buries his nose in my neck, voice muffled. “The way she says your name. You should hear it.”
I should. I want to. I want everything. Dinners, lists, the slow creep of new traditions. The thought makes my eyes sting.
He must sense the shift because he kisses my jaw and says, “We can start over. Tonight, if you want.”
Start over. As if this is a story that could ever loop back to the beginning.
“I don’t want to start over,” I say, twisting a little so I can see his face. “I want more of this. Messy, complicated, all of it.”
Saint’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “Good. Because this is about as neat as I get.”
He stands, still holding me, and deposits me on the bed, then disappears into the bathroom and turns the shower on.
I’m too busy admiring his bare ass to notice when he glances over his shoulder and crooks a finger. “You coming?”