Chapter 14 #2
His hands circled her waist, lifting her off the floor, and it was the most natural thing in the world to wrap her legs around his hips and hold onto his shoulders.
Something she couldn’t quite name danced in his dark eyes, or maybe it was an amalgamation of so many different emotions that they all blurred together.
“Don’t like you being in danger,” he murmured as he tipped his head forward so his forehead rested against hers.
“I know.” Her fingers began to massage his tense muscles. “But I’m okay, and I'm here as your partner, to watch your back. Trust me just a little.”
“I do,” he muttered, clearly displeased with the concept.
She giggled. “Good. I know you're trying, Josiah. And I don’t want to push you too hard too fast, but try to accept I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. You know I love you, and you …” she paused to take a breath hardly daring to believe he’d actually said it, “you said you fight your feelings for me, so you care about me too, even if it’s not love. That means you know I’ll always put your needs first. I’m not asking for any commitment, I'm not asking you to fall in love with me, to date me or marry me, or anything more than trusting me to be there for you.”
“It’s not about trust, it’s trying to control the fear and anger,” he admitted softly, almost like he was ashamed of the words. But there was nothing for him to be ashamed of. Josiah was a hero, one who was struggling, who thought he had to do it all alone.
Please let me in.
The whispered thought ran through her mind as she pulled her head back. “Then stop trying.”
“Pretty sure I’ll fall apart if I do that.”
“Then fall apart.”
“Can’t. I might …” One of his hands remained on her waist, his other lifted to brush calloused fingertips across the mostly faded marks on her neck from when she’d woken him out of a nightmare the other night. “I might hurt you again.”
“I'm tougher than I look.” Not wanting to force him to do anything he wasn't comfortable with, she let her lips hover millimeters from his.
For some reason she couldn’t explain, Chelsea felt like he had to make this first move.
Not because she wanted to push him into something he wasn't ready for, but because she needed to know it was what he wanted.
Right now, his emotions were all over the place.
He was terrified because they’d almost been caught, angry that she’d been in danger, but more than that, he was battling against himself as he tried to shake off the shackles of his past and find his way through all that fear and anger to a better place.
When his lips brushed across hers, it felt like her second victory in as many minutes. Or really, the victories were Josiah’s. He was the one fighting as hard as he could right now.
“Make love to me, Josiah,” she whispered against his lips.
“Not sure I can do soft and sweet for you this time any more than I could last time.”
His warning was adorable. “Who said I wanted soft and sweet? Don’t you know by now I want you any way you’ll let me have you?”
Despite his warning, as he carried her to the bed, there was a tenderness to the kisses he kept peppering to her lips, and he laid her down with a reverence that made her feel like a queen.
With quick, deft movements, he stripped her of her clothing, stopping regularly to dot more kisses to her lips, then as he bared them her already pebbled nipples, her stomach, and the inside of each thigh, mere inches from where she really wanted those sexy lips of his.
“You need to be a little more naked a little more quickly,” she said with a pout when he stood beside the bed looking down at her.
One of those extremely rare smiles of his graced his lips, and when he let go like that, he quite literally stole her breath.
“Breathe, Chels,” he said with a small chuckle as he leaned down and kissed her again.
Sucking in a shuddering breath, she watched with rapt fascination as Josiah stripped out of his clothes. His movements were almost graceful, and his body was such a work of art that she could quite happily stare at it forever.
“You should be in a museum,” she said dreamily, making him laugh again.
Two in quick succession, she was one lucky girl.
Even though this was their second time having sex, last time she hadn't expected there to be a repeat, and while she was still reminding herself not to get her hopes up, that he was here with her again had to mean something. At the very least, she stood a chance.
“You're the one who should be in the museum,” he corrected as his hands began to skim her body, seemingly everywhere at once. They tweaked her nipples, kneaded her breasts, then trailed up her sides, making her break out in a mass of goosebumps.
When he moved to settle between her legs, she grabbed at his shoulders. As much as she craved the feel of his tongue on her most sensitive flesh, there was something else she craved even more.
“Need you inside me,” she said urgently, trying to maneuver his much larger body where she wanted it.
With the third chuckle of the evening, he grabbed her hips at the same time he flung himself down beside her, somehow rolling her so she came up straddling his hips. “Take me how you want me then, babe.”
“You should be careful making that kind of proposition,” she warned as she settled her knees on either side of his hips, his hard length jutting up to meet her.
“I should,” he agreed, and yet from the way his fingers dug into her hips, she concluded he wasn't all that worried about it at all.
Lowering her hips until his tip rested right against her opening, Chelsea warred with herself. She wanted to just sink down, take him inside her, let the pleasure already simmering inside her boil over, but she also wanted to take her time and savor the moment.
Making progress with Josiah or not, she knew this could be the last time she made love to him.
Placing her hands on the Kevlar vest, hoping one day she might be lucky enough to run her fingers over every inch of delectable muscle beneath it, she sank down just an inch, enjoying the small sting as his impressive length stretched her.
“Going to torture us both, Chels?”
“You're the one who said you couldn’t do soft and sweet, but I don’t see you complaining.”
“No complaints,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.
Sinking down a little more, taking another inch of him, her heart swelled with so much love for this man that her eyes got all watery.
The pad of Josiah’s thumb touched her cheek, catching a stray tear. “You okay, Chels?”
“Perfect,” she assured him. “I'm perfect.”
Inch by inch she took him. Josiah’s fingers dug into her hips a little more with each passing inch, and she knew he’d leave behind bruises. Not that she cared. She’d wear those marks with pride for as long as they lasted.
By the time he was buried deep, she could already feel the first flutterings of pleasure. This really was perfect. The two of them together, nothing between them, the way she wished it could always be.
“Not sure I can hold back much longer, Chels,” Josiah warned, and she could see how tautly wound he was.
“Then don’t.”
“Touch yourself,” he ordered as he used his grip on her hips to thrust into her.
Keeping one hand on his chest, above his heart, her other moved quickly to where their bodies were joined, circling her needy little bud.
Inside her, Josiah seemed to grow bigger, although she knew that wasn't really a thing. Maybe it was just that the sensations he was creating were bigger than anything she’d felt before.
Her fingers worked faster.
Josiah’s dug harder into her skin.
His thrusts were almost desperate.
“Come. Now,” he ordered, and just like that, the command detonated an explosive of ecstasy inside her.
The most perfect pleasure licked along her veins, touching every part of her body, seeping down into her very soul. Josiah roared out his own pleasure, continuing to thrust into her even as her orgasm began to fade.
When it disappeared into nothing more than a few delightful aftershocks, Chelsea sank down to rest against Josiah’s chest, suddenly exhausted.
“Need to go clean you up, babe,” he said softly, trying to move her.
“No,” she protested, sleep already tugging at her mind. “Want to stay like this, with you inside me, not ready to let you go yet.”
“Okay, Chels,” he agreed, reaching for the blankets and tugging them up and over them, keeping her on his chest, his softening length snug inside her.
“Never going to be ready to let you go,” she mumbled as she tumbled into sleep, praying Josiah would keep fighting his demons.