Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Bea
Bax threw out his arm to take the sketchbook away from me as I flipped to the next page, but the swift movement stole his balance, and he toppled to the ground like an old telephone pole in a stiff wind.
I dropped the book. “Shit! Are you okay?”
He groaned on the ground. “I’m fine. My ego’s just a little bruised.” He rolled onto his back in the grass and looked beside him, to where his sketchpad had fallen. It lay open to the drawing I’d been trying to see.
A drawing of me.
“Whoa,” I breathed, and I lowered myself to the grass, too, and crossed my legs in front of me.
In the mostly black-and-white sketch, Bax had captured an image of me standing in the dark next to my truck, dressed in the same clothes I’d been wearing when I first arrived at his house after my harrowing encounter with Wooly Wally.
My hair was as dark as the night, and it flowed over my shoulder like silk.
The only color on the page was the purple hue of my oversized RedHead sweatshirt.
The expression he’d given me in the drawing looked kind and warm, even though I’d felt tension between us that night. I’d still thought he was an asshole.
I’d never seen myself look so… pretty.
I picked up the sketchpad, securing the previous page underneath. “Can I have this?”
“No!” he said, and he sat up. “Sorry, I meant, if you don’t mind, I wanna keep that one. It’s not done.”
“Okay, but will you draw somethin’ for me?”
“Like what?”
“Dunno. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. Whatever inspires you.” I stood, brushing dirt off my butt.
He cocked his head and reached for my hands again. I closed the sketchbook and secured it under my arm, then grasped Bax’s hands and held steady while he pulled himself up and balanced on one foot.
“Where are your pencils?”
“There,” he said, and he looked at the ground as I bent to grab his fallen crutches and handed them to him. A few feet away in the grass lay a plastic baggie with twenty or thirty different graphite pencils contained within.
“Will you draw somethin’ for me now?”
“Okay.” He blushed. It was hidden a bit in the dark, but the fire behind us and the white moon above us, slipping through slow-moving clouds, lit his face a little so I could see. “Come to my room.”
“Grab that chair,” Bax said when we were in the safety of his bedroom. He nodded to the hardback chair in the corner and the mud-crusted Tecovas on top as he sat on the edge of his bed. “Bring the boots too.”
Athena and Shaylene were in the middle of a Friends marathon in Athena’s bedroom, but I locked Bax’s door just in case. A sly light glinted in his eyes. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what that meant, but I had a hope and a guess.
“Where do you want ’em?”
“At the end of the bed.”
I dragged the chair to the end of Bax’s unmade bed, set the boots on the floor next to the chair’s leg, and then stood there, waiting for further instruction.
He looked at me, tilting his head this way and that, and when he found whatever light or angle he’d been looking for, he scooted backward and stuffed a pillow behind his back. He bent his good knee and rested the sketchpad on top.
“Take off your clothes.”
I snorted. “’Scuse me? What did you just say?”
“Get naked and sit backward in the chair so the wood slats hide your bits and bobbles.” He winked, and then he showed his hand—his tongue peeked out and slipped over his lip and he scraped it with his teeth, like two years ago, when I’d dealt him a royal flush.
Only, that night, he’d been too drunk to know the power of his hand.
Tonight, he’d figured it out.
Two can play at your game, bucko.
Facing him, I sat in the chair to remove my boots and socks, and then I stood.
I kicked them away and turned, and my hair cascaded down my back when I lifted my sweatshirt over my head.
I tossed it next to my boots, noticing the dried mud on the soles and vowing silently to sweep and mop for him tomorrow.
With one hand, I spun the chair away from the bed. It scraped over the old hardwood, and I watched Bax over my shoulder while I unhooked my bra and let it fall down my arms to the floor. I kicked it away and unbuttoned my jeans.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as I pushed the denim over my hips, but I lost my view of his face when I bent in front of the bed, dragging my jeans to the floor, giving him an unobstructed view of my ass.
I left my undies on, though, ’cause no way was I sitting on that rough wood with no barrier.
I straightened slowly, stepped out of the jeans, and walked behind the chair.
Slowly I turned, looking right in his eyes, and gripped the chairback with both hands, then spread my legs over the seat.
He groaned while I used the power of my thighs to lower myself inch by inch until the cold wood bit at my ass cheeks, and then I sat and rolled my hips to get semi-comfortable.
“Now let your legs fall open. Sit up straight.”
I steeled my spine, and his hand moved to hover over the bulge beneath his ridiculous maroon track pants. He adjusted his hard-on, but then he picked up his baggie of pencils and searched through it till he found the one he wanted.
His eyes rose to mine. “Mess up your hair a little.”
Dragging a hand through my hair, I rustled it and let it fall where it wanted.
“Fuck, Bea. Yeah, that’s it.” He sat forward and pulled his phone from his pocket, then snapped three pictures of me.
“What’s that for?”
He smirked. “Just for reference.”
The girls’ giggles danced down the hall and through the air every now and then, but silence ruled the moment.
Bax began to draw, and I sat there, still as stone, loving how his eyes lifted every few seconds to capture me.
They caressed and slipped all over my skin, and I’d never felt more beautiful.
His soft gaze landed on mine, and the desire I saw painted across his face had my body heating up. I rolled my hips again, trying to squeeze my thighs to ease some of the ache building between them.
He lifted his baggie again and found a different pencil. After a few strokes, it wasn’t working for him, so he tossed it onto the bed, then reached back in and dug out a broken piece of charcoal.
Sketching with it, he used his index and middle fingers occasionally to smudge what he’d drawn. He was into it, working furiously, his fingers trying to move as fast as his eyes. I didn’t mind him being so distracted since the thing distracting him was my body.
He’d been at it for at least twenty minutes, and it had begun to feel like my muscles would ossify. I arched my back and stretched my arms up in the air, laced my fingers together, and my breasts pushed out in front of me.
Bax looked up when the chair creaked, and he froze, his gaze traveling frantically all over my body, but finally, it landed on my face. “Yeah, sweetheart. That’s it. Stay like that. Don’t fuckin’ move.”
Charcoal dust covered his hands and fingers. He reached up to scratch beside his nose and left streaks and black smudges on his cheek. He bent his neck, concentrating on some detail, but then he pushed his sketchpad away. It fell onto the bedcovers, and he scooted to the side.
“Is it done?”
“No,” he said as he stood and grabbed his crutches leaning against the wall. He opened his bedside drawer, and my heart kicked into overdrive. Was he getting what I thought he was?
I stayed perfectly unmoving, arms still raised, back still arched, legs spread wide and propped up on the tips of my toes. My nipples were as hard as ice, but the wetness his eyes on my body had caused warmed the insides of my thighs.
Bax came to the end of the bed. He sat, set his crutches on the mattress behind him, and then he straightened, crooked his finger at me, and spread his legs. “Come to me.”
I stood and lowered my arms, but I rolled my shoulders and my neck from side to side. Bax growled softly and scooted a few inches backward.
As I began to step toward him, he said, “Slow now. I need to watch you move. All of you.”
I stalked forward as slowly as I could, and his eyes ate me up. He didn’t miss one movement I made.
Standing in front of him, I let my eyes eat him, too, as he tugged his T-shirt over his head.
Anticipation danced inside me. I wanted to jump him and lick his skin, but I denied myself, and the denial made my body ache even harder.
The sweet pain blooming low in my belly throbbed, and moisture welled between my thighs.
He slipped his hands beneath the waistband of his pants and pushed them down with his boxers to the tops of his thighs, and his hard cock sprang free from its confines. His broken leg stuck out to the side, but he bent his other knee and braced his foot on the floor.
I replied to his invitation by sliding my fingers over my hips, beneath my underwear, and I slipped them down my legs. His low moan told me he liked seeing me completely naked.
No man had ever looked at me the way Bax looked at me, like if he blinked, he’d lose me forever, and in the moment, holding onto me was all he knew.
I took two steps closer, feeling the heat radiating off his chest as he held the condom out for me. His hands were filthy, and I wanted them all over me.
Leaning over him, I bent at the waist and grabbed the condom wrapper between my teeth.
Bax groaned, and his bare cock twitched in the empty space between us. “Fuck,” he whispered.
Straightening, I gripped the wrapper between my fingers and pulled. It ripped open as he slipped his hand between my legs, sliding his fingers through the slick mess between my thighs.
I gasped and shivered, and he cupped my pussy with his hand and pulled me closer as I rolled the condom on.
His dick was burning hot and as hard as concrete.
Wrapping my fingers around it, I pumped twice, needing to feel the hardness in the palm of my hand that would soon be inside me, but then let him fall from my grasp.
His tight and rock-hard shoulders were my anchors, and I climbed up and let my knees straddle his hips on the bed.
Leaning back on his elbows, he watched me, and I used the strength in my thighs again to control my slow descent, taking him inch by thicker inch.
When I held him fully seated inside me, he fell back on the bed and moaned loudly.
I covered his mouth with my hand to remind him to be quiet, and then I began to move.
The knowledge that there were other people in the house with us, and that they were fully awake and just down the hall, should’ve stopped us. It was wrong. What if they heard? What if they saw?
But the perverseness of that knowledge made every touch of my skin on Bax’s hotter.
It drove my desire higher, made my heart race, and soon I was fucking myself on his body, riding him hard and wet, grasping for his arms and chest, making us both sweat and clutch at each other like we’d cease to exist if we didn’t.
His abs flexed, and I felt his thighs harden beneath me as he sat up. The base of his dick and his pubic hair ground against my clit with every roll of my hips. He filled me completely, and I gasped and arched as he wrapped his arms around me.
Holding me close, he watched pleasure play over my face, and then he lifted his hands and cupped my breasts inside them.
He leaned down and laved one with his tongue slowly while his fingers pinched and caressed the other one.
Streaks of charcoal colored my skin, shading the still-building desire I felt for him in grays and black.
Up and down I moved over him, taking him deeper inside with each descent, feeling his hard length stroke me from the inside out, the pressure building.
His fingertips dug into my ass cheeks, his big hands pulling me closer, not letting me escape what he was giving me. He closed his eyes, and his head lolled on his shoulders as he allowed himself to feel me, to feel the pleasure I gave right back to him.
Dragging my fingers lazily over his hips, his obliques, and his ribcage, I watched as goosebumps rose all over his chest. It reminded me that he’d called them “goosechills,” and I laughed.
He froze. His eyes popped open, and he began to buck up into me fast and hard. “Do that again,” he begged.
“What?”
“Laugh.” He buried his face in the crook of my neck, licking and sucking, and his hands roamed my ribs until he found the spot he wanted, and then he dug his fingers in and tickled me.
I threw my head back, trying not to make noise, but I giggled and laughed and let myself drown in his attention.
Even if it only lasted a couple weeks, being with him like this made me feel amazing. He made me feel special, like I mattered to someone in this harsh world, and I never wanted the moment to end.
When I looked in his eyes, he was all business.
His body hardened and tightened with every thrust inside me, and he latched onto my breast with his mouth again, this time rougher, his teeth caging my nipple.
He gazed up at me, and then he reached between us, coated two fingers in the mess we’d made together and rubbed my clit.
Round and round he rubbed, over and again, giving pressure exactly where I?—
His sketch on the bed behind us drew my eye, and I stared at the sexiest image I’d ever seen of myself as an orgasm crashed over me, like angry waves battering the edges of a distant sea.
My body clutched at his, and his cock throbbed inside me. It pulsed and jerked as he came, too, making me crave him all over again because the vulnerability he kept offering to me took my breath away and made me desperate for more.