7. Hallie
seven
Hallie
He meets me in the middle of the kitchen and I put my hands on his chest and look up at him and say the only thing that's true right now.
"Thank you. For all of it. The trail, the cabin, the crackers." I pause. "For making it feel safe to breathe."
He looks at me for a moment. His hands come up to my face, both of them, tilting me toward him.
"I intend to show you what it looks like when a real man takes care of his family," he says. Low. Certain. Like it's already decided.
Family.
Then he kisses me and I stop thinking.
His hands are in my hair and I'm already pulling his shirt up and we're moving down the hall without deciding to. He gets the bedroom door shut and I get his shirt off and he walks me back to the bed and comes down over me.
"Hallie."
"Don't stop," I tell him.
He gets my shirt over my head and unhooks my bra and then he just looks at me. I don't cover up or redirect, like I have in the past. I lie there in the low light and let him see me and feel the difference between this and every other time a man has looked at me.
Then he puts his mouth on my breast. His mouth on my nipple, tongue and teeth, while his hand slides into my jeans and finds me already wet and I gasp at the ceiling.
Two fingers push inside me and his thumb circles my clit and he works me like he has all night, steady and relentless, reading every sound I make and doing more of whatever caused it.
"Harder," I tell him.
I come with my hand fisted in his hair and my hips grinding against his hand and it rolls through me in long waves and he doesn't ease off until I'm pulling at his shoulders saying “Now, I want you now!”
I get his jeans off while he sorts that out and then I wrap my hand around his cock and stroke him slowly and watch his jaw go tight.
"You're killing me," he says.
"Good," I say.
He laughs, low, surprised, and then he's between my thighs. I reach down and guide him and he pushes into me slow and full and I make a sound I don't bother controlling.
He's big and he takes his time with it and I dig my fingers into his back and pull him deeper and he obliges, sinking in until there's no space left between us, and holds there a moment before starting to fuck me in a slow devestating way that makes my eyes roll back.
Deep, steady strokes that I feel everywhere, his cock filling me just right, his weight exactly what I want pressing me into the mattress. I wrap my legs around him and match his rhythm and think: this is what it's supposed to feel like. His body and mine and nothing held back.
I push at his shoulder.
He reads it immediately and rolls, taking me with him, and I'm on top of him with my hands on his chest and he looks up at me in the dark like I'm something he's been waiting for.
I sink down onto his cock and our eyes lock in the dim light.
Then I start to move and his hands grip my hips and his jaw tightens and I find my rhythm and chase it — selfish, deliberate, exactly what I want at exactly the pace I want it. My body. My choice. My pleasure.
"God," he grits out. "Hallie. Yes, good girl. Take it."
I roll my hips and his grip tightens and I lean down and kiss him hard and keep moving, faster now, chasing it, and he thrusts up to meet me and slides his hand between us to press his thumb against my clit and I break apart, loud, shaking, my pussy clenching around him as I come and he follows me hard, his whole body going taut beneath me, his hands holding my hips down against him as he comes inside of me.
I collapse onto his chest.
His arms come around me. Big and warm and certain.
We lie there and breathe. Outside the cabin the valley is quiet. The woodstove ticks down the hall. Somewhere in the spare room Boots shifts and settles and is still.
I put my face against his throat.
"I'm staying," I say. "In Silver Ridge. I'm not leaving."
His arms tighten.
"I know," he says.
"I just wanted to say it out loud." I laugh into his neck and he tips his chin down and kisses my hair and we stay there while the cabin breathes around us, and I feel the thing I drove two days to find without knowing I was looking for it.
Not a place. Not a vacancy sign.
Just this.