Chapter Eighteen
Jesse
A rough, sandpaper-like tongue that could only belong to one thing wakes me up the next morning. I peel an eye open to see Dobby laying on my chest and licking the stubble I’ve let grow out over the past few days.
“How did you get in here?” I ask groggily, picking the cat up and using the back of my wrist to wipe where he’s been bathing me. The dude probably licked his asshole right before doing the same to my face, and I don’t love that idea.
I sit up and examine my cracked door, wondering how the hell that happened. It was well after one in the morning by the time I got upstairs, so maybe I was too tired to realize I didn’t close it. Or maybe Belle needed me and opened it before changing her mind and letting me sleep.
Either way, it leaves me being stared at by a one-and-a-half eared cat with boundary issues. He meows once from beside me where I put him, nudging my arm with his head.
“You’re a needy thing, aren’t you?” I murmur, glancing at the time on my watch.
Christ. It’s after nine. When was the last time I slept in this late? I don’t have anything to do until this afternoon, but it feels like I’ve wasted half the day.
“All right, let’s go.” I barely swing my feet over the side of the bed before Dobby launches off the mattress and onto the floor and happily walks to my bedroom door.
Belle has referred to me as his dad yesterday, and it went straight to my cock. Didn’t think that was one of my kinks, but apparently it is. I learn new shit about myself daily.
Or maybe I need my head examined for thinking it’s hot that my stepsister called me her cat’s daddy. But I’ve been with women who had far more…interesting kinks. That definitely wouldn’t have topped the list. Shit. I probably just need to get laid. The only action I’ve seen lately is from my hand.
I follow Dobby downstairs, trying to will away the semi I’m sporting from thinking about sinking between a pair of thighs.
Because it isn’t just any thighs I picture when I’m getting myself off.
It’s always Belle. It’s her with her legs spread open for me on the couch with a show forgotten in the background and my face between her legs.
Or her bent over the kitchen counter while I slam into her.
Or her in bed with me, riding me until I—
“Morning,” Belle greets, startling me out of a too-vivid image of her with a lot less clothing on.
I swallow, trying to brush off the mental picture of her on top of me, but it’s hard to do. Which is why I internally cringe when my “morning” comes out hoarser than usual.
Her brows pinch. “Are you okay? You’re not coming down with something, are you? I know your throat is always the first thing to hurt when you get colds. I can make tea.”
I shake my head and walk into the kitchen to see the mess spread across every countertop surface. “What happened in here? It looks like the pantry exploded.”
She flushes as she examines the contents of the kitchen. “I’m doing a practice menu to figure out what I’d want to sell at the café. I want there to be a wide variety of options for any dietary needs. Like gluten, dairy, and nut free things.”
I notice something white on her cheek and reach out to brush it off with my thumb. The skin beneath me turns pink as I pull away to study the… “Is that yogurt?”
Glancing over, I see the fruit parfaits she’s making using the gallon of lactose-free yogurt and the freshly chopped fruit she must have gone to the open-air market for early this morning since we didn’t have anything fresh in the refrigerator yesterday.
She’s got a notebook with her handwriting along the front and back of the open pages. A few things are crossed out. Others are circled. There are ink smudges and stains from whatever food she’s experimenting with.
“Sorry for the mess,” she apologizes softly. “I’ll clean it up as soon as I finish making the scones. I thought I’d be done by the time you got up. You seemed tired.”
I gesture toward Dobby, who’s currently drinking from his water from the dish by the island. “I had a visitor this morning who decided he wanted me up.”
She frowns down at the cat. “I should have mentioned he’s a little Houdini. I don’t know how he gets in and out of rooms. I think he jumps on the doorhandle and pulls it down enough to open the doors. He’s done it to me twice.”
That would explain it.
“He jumped into the shower with me yesterday,” she says, lips flattening. “Then realized quickly he didn’t like water.”
I wince. “Did he scratch you?”
“I almost lost a nipple, but I got lucky.”
Without meaning to, my eyes drop down to her chest as if I can see through her shirt. I wet my lips and lean my hips against the counter, forcing myself to look away and watch the cat pounce after a toy with a bell on it. “You called me his dad.”
The statement makes the pink on her cheeks darken when I briefly glance at her. “Oh. Uh…yeah. But it was innocent enough. A slip of the tongue, really.”
I make a noise, leaning down until my arms are resting on the edge of the counter. It brings me closer to where she’s standing, mere inches from her pajama-clad body. There’s flour on her shorts and matching top, like she reached to grab something and smeared it on herself without realizing.
I’m not sure what comes over me, but something snaps. My restraint. My filter. Whatever it is doesn’t stop the next words from coming out of my mouth.
“I’ve got to be honest, Bells,” I tell her quietly. “The thoughts I’ve been having haven’t been that innocent.”
She sucks in a breath, her eyes locked onto the food like she’s afraid to look at me. “Oh?”
I hum. Replaying the fantasy in my head of her bent over this very island makes me turn steel in my pants. I could make a mess out of us both if she’d let me.
“Is that…” She pauses, rubbing her lips together as she stares down at the yogurt container in front of her. “Is that your thing?”
I snicker at the question because it’s a loaded question and she has no idea.
“Everything about you is ‘my thing’, Bells. That’s the fucking problem.
” I walk over to her and crowd her space until she’s forced to look up at me.
Arching my hips into her to emphasize my point, I take in the way her lips part when she feels me.
“Oh,” she says again, this time breathier.
I spin her around and cage her against the counter, her back pressed against the edge as flour coats my hands from where I clench onto it on either side of her body. “I don’t know about you, but nothing has gotten out of my system yet.”
Her eyes flash at the reminder of what happened between us weeks ago. Did she think I’d forgotten? That I’d let it go? It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.
Belle lets out a shuddered breath. “It hasn’t,” she manages to say, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Gotten out of my system, I mean.”
I debate on what to do, where to take this, when her body arches forward to get a better feel for the erection aching for her. That’s when I make my decision.
All I say is, “Good,” before my mouth is on hers again and I’m lifting her onto the counter not caring that she’s going to be covered in flour and other ingredients.
She gasps into my mouth, allowing me to taste her.
Belle must have been testing her menu because she tastes like sugar and berries.
I step into her, winding her legs around my waist and lick her tongue, her teeth, bite into her bottom lip and trail my hands up her sides.
I bring the material of her shirt up with them until I’m stripping her of it and discarding it somewhere on the kitchen floor.
“Jesse,” she rasps when I look down to see her exposed breasts. Her nipples are pebbled, and her skin is flushed.
“I’m glad the cat didn’t scratch these,” I say almost to myself, grazing the pads of my thumbs over the hard peaks. “I would have had to leave them alone to heal if he did.”
Her eyelashes flutter as I swipe and circle and squeeze her nipples between my fingers. “God,” she moans. “That feels good.”
They’re sensitive and I love it.
“Tell me what you want,” I say, letting my hands roam up and down the curves of her smooth torso until my palms land just below her breasts.
“I-I—” She chokes when my knuckles graze the underside of her left boob, and I nuzzle the crook of her neck, peppering kisses there. “I don’t know. I think my brain is short circuiting.”
I smile against her skin because I understand exactly what she’s going through.
“Everything,” she decides as my mouth drags a path from her throat to her collarbone and then further south until it’s pressing above her racing heart. “I want everything.”
Thank God. My mouth envelopes her nipple, rolling my tongue over it until she rubs against me with a guttural noise that will be permanently engraved in my mind forever.
I lick and suck and tug the peak while my hand kneads the other breast and then drops to her backside, sliding my hand into her shorts and palming her ass.
She lifts up the same time she wraps her arms around my neck, letting me pull down her shorts until she is completely naked on the kitchen island.
I take her in like I’m staring at a statue of Aphrodite. Utter disbelief at the beauty of this woman, both inside and out, leaves me speechless. I want to touch every goddamn inch of her. Taste her where she’s most sensitive. Bury myself inside of her and spend hours there.
I want everything too. And I’m sick of depriving myself from accepting the truth.
“This seems unfair,” Belle breathes, biting her bottom lip. “You’re still fully clothed.”
I grin, chucking my shirt off in one movement and leaving my pajama pants on. “Trust me,” I say when she frowns, “I need to take my time or I’m going to embarrass myself.”