Chapter 8 - Claire #2
His hand fists in my hair and pulls me off him. The sound I make is embarrassing, a desperate whimper of protest, but he's already shaking his head, jaw tight, chest heaving.
"Two more seconds and it's over," he says roughly. "And I'll be damned if I finish anywhere but inside you."
Something about those words hits me low in the stomach.
Hard. Derek used to take what he wanted without announcements, without asking, without giving me any say in the matter.
But Tom saying it like that—direct, almost reverent, like being inside me is the only thing that matters, makes my whole body flush with heat.
But I'm not ready to give up the wheel yet. This is the first time in five years that I've been in charge of anything, and I'm not surrendering it easily.
I pull back and stand up. "Then wait."
His eyes track me, dark and blown wide. "Claire—"
"I said wait." I hold his gaze. "Don't move."
He exhales through his nose, a long breath, and leans back against the couch. His hands drop to his thighs. He's doing what I asked, actually doing what I asked, which is such a foreign concept that for a moment I just stare at him.
He looks absolutely wrecked. Hair pushed every direction from my hands. Sweat tracking down the lines of his chest and abs, catching in the definition of muscle underneath. His cock hard and flushed and waiting. His blue eyes locked on me with an intensity that should be terrifying.
It isn't. It's the most desired I've ever felt in my life.
I swing one leg over him and straddle his lap, but I don't take him in yet. Instead, I wrap both hands around his cock and stroke him slowly, watching his head tip back and his throat work.
"Jesus," he breathes at the ceiling.
I lean forward and press my lips to his jaw. His cheek. The corner of his mouth. He turns his head trying to catch my lips properly, and I let him for just a moment before pulling back with a smile he can probably feel more than see.
"Claire." My name in his mouth sounds different than it ever has. Like it means something.
"I hear you," I murmur.
I position him at my entrance and sink down.
There are no words for the first few seconds.
None that would do it justice. I feel every inch of him as I take him in, feel the stretch and the fullness and the overwhelming rightness of it, and I have to close my eyes and just breathe through it.
Just exist in this moment. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, and the small pain only sharpens everything else.
"Fuck." The word tears out of him like it costs something. "You feel… God, Claire, you feel—"
"I know," I whisper. Because I do. I feel it too.
I stay still for a moment, adjusting, savoring. His thumbs trace circles against my hip bones like he's trying to soothe us both. When I finally start to move it starts as a roll of my hips, a slow grind that makes us both suck in air at the same time.
His hands tighten. "More."
"I'm in charge," I remind him.
"I know." His voice is strained. "I know you are."
I start to ride him properly, lifting and dropping, setting a rhythm that makes the couch creak quietly beneath us. His abs contract with every thrust, those arms flexing where he grips me, his face a picture of desperation.
Jackson. The thought cuts through the haze. I can't wake Jackson.
I bite my lip and swallow every sound I want to make, keeping my moans to soft exhales that only Tom can hear. His eyes track every expression on my face like he's reading a language he's been trying to learn for years.
"You're biting your lip," he says roughly.
"Can't be loud. My son—"
"I know." He reaches up and pulls my lower lip free with his thumb, replacing it with his own mouth. "Give me the sounds. I'll keep them."
The kiss muffles everything that follows.
I lean into him, one hand braced on his shoulder, and ride him harder.
His mouth moves to my neck, my collarbone, my breast, and when his teeth graze my nipple I have to bury a moan against his hair.
His hands roam my body like he's mapping it, touching everywhere: the curve of my waist, the soft weight of my ass, the small of my back, with a thoroughness that feels like worship.
Nobody has ever touched me like I was worth something.
"You're incredible," he says against my skin. "You know that? God—"
I pull back to look at his face. He's looking up at me with an expression I don't have a name for yet.
Something raw and open and completely unguarded.
The sheriff is gone. This is just Tom. Just a man who's been alone for too long and is looking at me like I'm the answer to something he stopped asking.
I press my forehead to his. "I've got you."
"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, you do."
One of his hands moves between us, his thumb finding exactly the right place, and whatever control I had left dissolves completely. I ride him faster, chasing the pressure building at my core, and his free hand grips my ass hard enough to leave fingerprints on my pale skin tomorrow.
Good. I want the evidence. I want proof that this was real.
"Claire." His voice drops low, urgent. "I'm close. Where—"
"Inside." The words come without hesitation. "I want to feel you."
"Come first," he says. His thumb presses harder. "Come on my cock and then I'll follow you."
It's not a request. It's not a demand either.
It's somewhere in between, the voice of a man who wants to take care of me even now.
Even here. I tip over the edge with my face pressed against his neck, shaking and silent, my whole body clenching around him.
He holds me through every wave of it, his hand still working, drawing it out until I'm trembling and oversensitive and completely undone.
Then his hips snap up once, twice, and he groans into my hair as he comes. I feel the warmth of it, feel him pulsing inside me, and something about it: the intimacy of it, the trust of it, brings tears to my eyes that I wasn't expecting.
We stay tangled together for a long time after. Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks. The room is quiet except for our breathing gradually slowing, the distant sound of a car passing outside, the steady tick of a clock somewhere in the house.
His hand moves up and down my spine in long slow strokes. I cry a little. Quietly, against his shoulder. He doesn't ask why. Just holds me tighter and presses his lips to my temple.
When I finally lift my head he wipes my face with his thumb, unhurried, unbothered by the tears.
"Okay?" he asks.
"Better than okay." I search his face. "Are you?"
"I don't think I've been this okay in years, honestly."
I laugh, which surprises both of us. It sounds real. Unguarded. Like something that got unlocked tonight along with everything else.
"So, what happens now?" I ask.
He considers this seriously, like it deserves a real answer and not a deflection. "Now we figure it out. Together, if you're willing."
"I'm a mess, Tom. I have a four-year-old son who's confused and scared. I have no money and no home and no friends in this town. I have an ex who might come back with reinforcements." I pause. "I'm not exactly a great deal."
"You're the best thing that's walked into my life in four years," he says simply. "Maybe ever."
My throat tightens. "You can't know that yet."
"No," he agrees. "But I know enough. I know you cooked dinner for a stranger because you wanted to give something back.
I know you protected your son through pure terror tonight without falling apart.
I know you took control when you needed to feel powerful, and that took more courage than you probably realize.
" He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
"And I know that I've been eating dinner alone for four years and tonight was the first time my table felt like it was supposed to have people around it. "
I press my lips together hard, fighting the fresh wave of tears.
"Age doesn't bother you?" I ask. "I'm twenty-seven. You're—"
"Forty-three. And I've been through enough to know what matters and what doesn't." His eyes hold mine steadily. "What does is that when I look at you and Jackson, something in me that's been very quiet for a very long time starts making noise again."
That breaks something open in my chest. Something that Derek spent five years trying to bury.
I tell him everything then. We're still connected, his hands warm on my back, and the words come out in a flood I can't stop.
Derek at twenty-two, so charming, so attentive.
The slow erosion of my friendships. The fights about my parents, the terrible things I said to my mother, the four years of silence that followed.
Getting pregnant. Hoping it would fix something that was already beyond fixing.
The first time Derek hit me, how shocked I was, how I convinced myself it was a one-time thing.
How it wasn't.