Chapter 12 #3
"I'm going to eat this pretty pussy, Zoey. I mean it. I'm going to take my goddamn time with you, and when I'm done I'm going to start over, because I have wanted my mouth on you forever."
His tongue traces a slow line along the edge of my panties, and thank Christ, my hips jerk up off the sofa of their own accord.
"That's it, sweetheart." A low, dirty laugh against my skin. "Give it to me. I've got nowhere else to be. Not one single place in the world but right here, on my knees, between your legs."
And I want to.
God, I want to.
But something in me, some last little wire that hasn't been cut yet, tightens.
I grab his shoulders and tug him up.
"Just… come here."
He freezes for half a second and looks up. I watch him read my face, but he doesn't push or make a fuss.
Colt Lane never makes a fuss.
He rises up over me, kisses the corner of my mouth, then my lips, soft and full. My hands are working at his belt, maybe to distract him, or perhaps it's to distract myself.
His belt buckle clinks as I shove his jeans down his hips. He's already hard. So hard the head of him is wet against my palm when I wrap my hand around him.
Colt's forehead drops to my shoulder with a hiss.
"Fuck, Zoey—" I stroke him, slow. Feeling my confidence finally start to grow now the focus is on him, not me. "If you keep going… I'm not going to last."
I laugh, breathless. He laughs too, half-strangled, and then his hand is on mine, stilling me.
"Let me get a condom, baby."
"Hurry."
He's gone for ten seconds, long enough for me to draw in some deep breaths. He rolls the condom on and lines himself up, watching my face the entire time.
"You sure?"
For one suspended second, every reason I've ever told myself no lines up neatly in my head like soldiers waiting for orders.
The voice that lives in the back of my brain whispers don't be stupid, Zoey, you know how this ends.
But there's another voice too. The one I've been smothering for eight years under aprons and school drop-offs and 4 AM alarms.
The one that wants this.
The one that wants him.
He doesn't rush me. He just waits, propped above me, his thumb stroking a slow, patient circle against my hip like he has all the time in the world. Like he'd wait all night if I needed him to.
And maybe that's the thing that breaks it open… that he's letting me decide. That this isn't a man trying to talk me into something. This is a man asking permission to give me something I've been starving for.
I'm scared. God, I'm so scared.
But maybe that's okay.
I lift my hand to his face, brush my thumb along his stubble, and nod.
"Yes."
And when he sinks into me, slow and deep and full, the sound that comes out of me, for the first time in years—
It's real.
It bounces off the high ceilings of his apartment and fills every empty corner, and Colt groans against my throat like that sound just took ten years off his life.
"Fuck, baby. Yes, that's it. Let me hear you."
He moves slow at first, watching me carefully. Adjusting his hips, his angle, his rhythm, until he finds the place that makes my eyes flutter closed and my nails dig into his back.
"There?"
"Yes. There."
He stays right there, and the heat builds. I hear myself for the first time in years, and the sounds I make grow stronger.
Colt is whispering things into my hair that I will replay for the rest of my life.
You feel so good. You're so beautiful. I've got you. Let go, baby. Let go for me.
And when he reaches for my clit and circles it, driving deeper into me at the same time, I do let go. He follows me a few strokes later, groaning into my neck, his whole body trembling against mine as he roars a deep grunt that makes my body shiver.
For a long minute, he's heavy on me, in the best way. Eventually, he eases out of me, deals with the condom, and pulls me against his chest on the sofa, dragging the throw over us.
His finger traces a slow line up my arm.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." I clear my throat and smile up at him. "That was… yeah."
But I can feel him noticing. The way I held back at the end. The way my sounds caught even when my body was clearly trying to let go. The way I stopped him on his knees when he was saying how badly he wanted me.
He kisses the top of my head anyway.
"Okay, baby."
My phone buzzes on the floor where my jeans landed.
Colt fishes for it and hands it to me. A photo of Morgan loads on the screen. She's covered in face-paint with Isla beside her, both girls holding up sleeping bags like trophies. MOM. BEST NIGHT EVER. ALREADY!!!
I show him Colt and he chuckles like the proud father my little girl never had.
"She went to the sleepover, huh?"
"You knew about it?"
"…Yeah."
His hand slides up my spine, warm and steady.
"So that means you can stay."
And you know what…
After everything he just did… From the recipe, the notebook, the way he held me while I came undone in his arms… how could I possibly say no?
I tilt my face up to his.
"Okay, Hockey Boy," I smile, pressing a kiss to his lips. "But only if you feed me more of those delicious pastries you made."
He laughs deeply, then nuzzles scratchy kisses into my neck. "You've got yourself a deal."