17. Chance #2
“They’ll drag!” she complained as I towed her behind me.
“You’ll be sitting down,” I assured her.
She dug her heels in and pulled me to a stop in the hallway outside our rooms. “Hey, Chauncey?”
“What’s up?” I asked, turning to look at her.
Rena’s eyes shimmered. “Thank you for my new old jeans,” she said quietly.
“Fine,” I said in mock exasperation. “I’ll carry you so they don’t drag on the floor.”
She screeched with laughter as I gripped the back of her thighs and lifted her into my arms. Her legs dug into my sides as she held on for dear life, but I didn’t mind.
She was laughing quietly in my ear and kissing my neck as I hurried down the stairs, and I figured that was a more than decent trade-off.
“You’re late,” my father announced as I raced into the kitchen.
“It was Chance’s fault,” Rena said quickly as I set her on her feet. “He made me wear his jeans.”
She said it like I’d made her slather herself in mayonnaise or something.
“Are those the elusive bell-bottoms?” Reese said in wonder, rising slowly from her seat.
“What is she talking about?” I asked Beau. He just shrugged.
“Okay, everyone, sit,” my father ordered. “Nice trousers, Rena.”
“You have to show me later,” Reese whispered loudly to Rena, as if everyone at the table couldn’t hear her.
“They look good on you,” Lucy remarked.
Gary stayed for dinner, and Charlie even came downstairs to join us.
I wasn’t sure if anyone else felt it, but something settled in my chest as the volume around the table grew, with everyone talking over each other and laughing—mostly at Reese and Rena, who couldn’t seem to stop bickering hilariously back and forth like they were some kind of comedy act.
It was the first family dinner in longer than I cared to remember that felt… nearly complete.
Rena and I stripped as soon as we’d entered our rooms that night, leaving a trail of clothing all the way to the bedroom.
We didn’t make it to the bed before we were on our knees, and I was entering her from behind, pinching her nipples between my fingers, my teeth at the tender spot where her neck met her shoulder.
She surged against me, slamming backward with every thrust until I thought I was going to lose my mind.
She was nearly there when I pushed her off my cock and cursed as I pressed her forward onto her elbows.
“I’m going to?—”
Her words cut off with a moan as I licked down the crack of her ass and shoved my thumb inside her. Using my fingers, I pinched her clitoris.
She let out a tiny groan and arched her back as I thrust my thumb inside, again and again, watching as her lips became wetter and wetter, the sound making my mouth water.
Then I bit down on the cheek of her ass and pinched hard.
She came with a wail, her forehead pressed to the carpet, and her entire body clenching.
Before she was finished, she’d jerked away from my hand, gasping as my fingers lost purchase.
I fell back onto my heels as she twisted and straddled my thighs, gripping my cock and positioning it so she could slam down brutally.
“Fuck,” I cursed, gripping her ass in my hands.
She rose and lowered herself again, rolling her hips with each glide, until I was gritting my teeth and clenching my ass against the urge to come.
“Help,” she gasped, riding harder. “Why can’t I?—”
Lifting my hand to my mouth, I sliced open a small incision in the tip, groaning at the taste of her.
Her mouth was already open and waiting as I curved my fingers around her cheek and pressed my thumb inside, letting her taste herself and me.
Her hips ground against me as her eyes fell closed, and she came for a long time, taking me with her.
In the aftermath, I slid my hand off her ass and up her back and froze.
Blood.
“Shit,” I hissed, lifting her off me. I flipped her around and leaned down, licking over the bite mark that I hadn’t been able to close when she’d pulled away so quickly. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, kissing the spot. “Fuck.”
“Hey,” she said, twisting toward me. “It didn’t hurt.”
“I didn’t close it. I—you were bleeding.”
“Barely,” she replied, smiling. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll be more careful,” I promised.
“I hope not,” she retorted with a scoff. “Come on.” She got to her feet and reached for my hand. “You can clean me up before bed.”
Rena and I spent most of our time in bed that first week after we completed our bond. She called out for the second week in a row, and everyone left us alone for the most part. We still stumbled down to dinner in the evening, but the rest of the time was ours.
When we weren’t busy trying to see which of us could make the other lose control first, she kept me company while I cleaned up the mess I’d made of my computers and gave her opinion on what I should get to replace them.
I’d been just calm enough that I’d left the hard drives untouched, and when my new monitors arrived, I was able to get back into the files I’d need.
Rena loved her place, and she wanted to keep it—at least for a while—but we agreed to stay at my parents’ place for the time being. We were safe in our rooms, insulated from the outside world, and both of us needed that.
I’d been fighting an invisible monster for so long that I had a hard time remembering that the monster was gone.
Perhaps because we still had one loose end left.
Two weeks later, a month after we’d rescued the Vampires and mates from the facility, we finally had a chance to tie that loose end.
“We should be back by the time you wake up,” I assured Rena as she watched me dress.
She’d been feeling under the weather for the past few days, and I was really glad that we’d grabbed her couch when we’d gone to get her computer, because she’d been spending the first half of the day balled up at the end of it, watching movies on the monitors.
“That’s assuming that I’ll sleep,” she replied, yawning into her hand.
“I think you’ll sleep.” I looked her over worriedly as I put my socks and boots on.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured me, pulling her knees to her chest. “It’s a matter of hours, and the heat has been pretty manageable lately. I barely even notice it anymore.”
“You’ll notice it when I leave the house.”
“I think I can handle it.”