Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
She was kissing him.
The crazy woman was kissing him.
Like he hadn't wrapped his hands around her delicate throat and almost squeezed the life out of her not even five minutes ago.
More than that, she’d told him she was in love with him.
With him.
How was that even possible? How could a woman who was as good, and sweet, and kind, and loving, and open as Chelsea Pierce possibly love a man like him? What could she possibly even see in him?
“Make love to me, Josiah,” she whispered as she pulled back. Desire danced brightly in her gray eyes, along with arousal, and he didn't understand how she could be totally fine with him almost killing her.
And locked in his dream as he’d been, he had been trying to kill her.
It wasn't that he wouldn't love to lose himself for a while, bury himself so deep inside Chelsea that he couldn’t help but absorb some of her goodness, her light. But there was no way he was going to cause her more pain.
The truth was, he had zero to offer her. Not now and not ever.
Because he knew Chelsea wasn't really wanting just sex. She wanted a commitment, a future, she wanted him to love her back, and allowing himself to love her was like asking the universe to take her from him.
Not a risk he was willing to take.
Not with someone as special as Chelsea.
“Chels,” he said slowly, lifting his hands to grip her hips and still them when she began to rock them against the erection straining against the flimsy boxers he wore.
“You're something special, you know that, right?
You're beautiful and smart, you're caring and kind, you go out of your way to see the best in people.
You're the brightest of light shining on the darkest of days.”
“Why do I sense a but coming?” she asked, but she didn't sound angry. If anything, her voice was full of tender affection.
“Because you have to know I have nothing to offer you. If things were different, if I was different, then I’d ask you out in a heartbeat. But as the man I am right now, I don’t have anything to give you.”
“But I'm not asking you for anything.”
“Look, I know you think you can do just sex, but I know you, and I know you're looking for more than that. You want the whole fairytale, white picket fence, happy ever after, and that isn’t something I can give you.”
“Pretty arrogant of you to assume you know more about what I want than I do.” She arched a brow at him to emphasize her point, and he had to shake his head at this sassy woman. She might be all sunshine and sweetness, but she knew how to stand up for herself, and he respected the hell out of that.
“Not saying I know more about what you want than you do, but we’ve known each other for years, and I know you're a hopeless romantic. You think you can fix me, and that’s …
that’s not possible.” If he knew a way to fix himself, he would have done it by now.
Truth was, he was too broken to ever find enough pieces to put together to make a whole, and Chelsea deserved only the best.
“Oh, Josiah, once again you’ve got it all wrong.
I don’t want to fix you, you don’t need fixing, you're not broken.
You're hurting, you're suffering, and all I want is to be there for you, to love you.” Leaning in, she brushed her lips across his again in a searing kiss that seemed to brand his soul. “Now make love to me, please.”
“Trying to do the right thing here, Chels,” he told her, restraining his urges to tear her clothes from her body and sink inside her regardless of whether it was a good idea or not.
“Stop trying to be all noble. I don’t want noble.”
“But you want making love, you want soft and sweet, tender and loving. If I have sex with you right now, it’s not going to be any of those things.”
Instead of putting her off, his words only seemed to turn her on, and she ground her center against his rock-hard erection, then leaned in to nip his bottom lip.
“I don’t care how we do it. I love all the different sides of you.
Take me however you want me, because I'm already yours, and nothing you say or do, no matter how much it panics you, can ever change that.”
Her acceptance snapped whatever control he’d been clinging to, and with a growl, he managed to pry her off him and toss her onto the bed. She bounced as she hit the mattress, but he was already ripping off his boxers and then reaching for her clothes.
They had to go. If she was determined to do this, he wanted to see every inch of her delectable body.
Her gaze was locked on his length as he yanked her sleep shorts and panties down her legs, then shoved up the tank top she was wearing to bare her breasts and cover the nasty red marks he’d left behind on her neck.
“Like what you see, Chels?” he asked as he pushed apart her thighs and settled between them.
“Even more than I liked it the other day,” she said, then gasped as he didn't hesitate to dive right in, licking and nipping at her sensitive flesh like he was going to die if he didn't drown himself in her taste.
She was so responsive, each time his tongue circled her bud, or teased its way inside her, she gasped and moaned. Her fingers tangled in the sheets, and her head tossed restlessly against the pillows.
“Josiah, I need—”
“Know what you need, Chels,” he told her as he plunged two fingers inside her, making her cry out. Hooking them so they brushed across the rippled flesh that would make her see stars, he pumped them in and out as he closed his lips around her bundle of nerves and sucked hard.
Chelsea came apart for him, screaming his name.
Not giving her time to float down from the orgasm he moved up her body. “You on birth control?”
“Mmhmm,” she said with a nod, her eyes still glassy with pleasure.
“I'm clean. Haven't been with anyone in almost two years.” Not since he realized Chelsea was in love with him, and the appeal of finding a random woman who liked rough sex lost its appeal.
“I'm clean, too, we don’t need a condom,” she told him, and that was all the permission he needed.
Sinking into her was like heaven, a surreal feeling he’d never experienced before, didn't even know existed.
She was so hot, so tight, so utterly perfect, and he was so close to coming, but he wasn't letting go until his girl came again.
He wanted to feel her clamp around him, locking them together for a few far too brief seconds.
Setting a brutal pace, Josiah balanced his weight on one hand and grabbed one of her breasts, kneading it roughly, then tweaking her nipple before his hand moved to touch her where their bodies joined together.
Chelsea gasped as he rolled her bud between his fingers. “Josiah, it’s too much,” she whined, but she lifted her legs and hooked them around his hips, drawing him deeper.
“Don’t think anything is too much for you,” he told her as he began to circle the sensitive bundle of nerves and picked up the pace. Chelsea said he could take her however he needed to, and he was filled with desperation to claim her in the only way he could.
Her fingers clawed his shoulders, no doubt leaving behind scratches he would wear with pride. Too bad they couldn’t be permanent. Something to remind him that someone loved him despite his self-loathing.
A high-pitched scream fell from Chelsea’s lips as her internal muscles fluttered and then clamped around him as her orgasm hit. It set off his own, and it exploded inside him with fiery pleasure that licked along his every nerve ending until it consumed him.
It was almost too easy to want this, too easy to let himself believe that he could keep Chelsea in his life.
“Mmm.” A content sigh rumbled through Chelsea’s chest. “That was … no words. You broke my brain and my vocabulary.”
Pulling out of her was harder than it should be. If he could just stay here, connected to someone in such an intimate way, the anger held at bay by Chelsea’s unwavering love and devotion, then maybe he could find the peace that eluded him. Peace he didn't feel he deserved.
But it had to be done.
“Stay, please, sleep beside me, just for tonight. Let me hold you and remind you that you're not alone,” Chelsea whispered, her eyes begging him, and he found he couldn’t say no to her.
With a single nod, he stood and disappeared into the bathroom to get a towel to clean her up. Once that was done, he stretched out beside her, pulling the covers up to tuck them both in.
Immediately, Chelsea snuggled against his side, one of her legs thrown over his, her hand resting on the Kevlar above his abdomen, her cheek above his heart. She didn't seem concerned about how hard and unyielding the body armor was, just settled down to sleep.
On the other hand, he lay there, unsure where he should put his hands, wanting to wrap his arms around this woman and hold her close, pretend she could be his, but scared to tempt himself with what he could never have.
If only things were different.
Only once her breathing evened out and she drifted off to sleep did he allow himself one moment of weakness.
Touching his lips to the top of her head, he swept a hand down her back, tracing the length of her spine.
“Thank you for not giving up on me when I've already given up on myself,” he whispered.
May 15th
8:10 A.M.
“Thanks for trusting me last night,” Chelsea said, turning from the stove where she was cooking up bacon and eggs for breakfast once she heard Josiah enter the kitchen.
Since she was looking at him, she saw how he froze, got that deer caught in the headlights sort of look that told her he was both uncomfortable, but trusting her more without even realizing it because he hadn't filtered out his expressions. Instead, he’d let them play out across his face, something he wouldn't have allowed even as recently as yesterday.
His subconscious was beginning to trust her even if his conscious mind hadn't.
Progress.
Small but there nonetheless and she loved it.