Chapter 20 #2
Beck growls in response. He angles his hips, and I feel the tip of him at my entrance. It feels hot and sure and somehow both real and hallowed.
Like discovering that a favorite fairy tale is true.
No. More like all the fairies, and mermaids, and unicorns, and dragons have been real all along.
I raise my legs, needing to bring him closer. And he’s big. Bigger, I realize, than anything in my vibe arsenal.
When I suck in a breath, Beck freezes. His eyes search mine.
“You okay?”
I nod, clinging to my confidence. A part of him is inside of me, but I know this is just the beginning.
He holds his position, but he drops his mouth to mine. He kisses me once. Twice. “We’ll take our time,” he promises again, the whisper tickling my lips.
But even as he promises to go slowly, my body bounds ahead. I tilt my pelvis, opening for him.
And, oh God, he fills me.
We both moan.
“Hattie—God—” Beck pants. “Am I hurting you?”
“No. No. It’s just—so—” I struggle to find the words for this. Maybe they don’t exist. The feeling is… big.
Not pain exactly, but a stretch that demands my full attention. My full breath. Instead of trying to explain, I wrap my arms around him and hug him tighter against me, take him deeper inside me.
This feeling. This closeness.
“God, you feel incredible—”
“You… feel like…” But tears crowd my throat as soon as I realize what I mean. “Beck.”
I barely squeak his name, but he must be able to tell that my heart is ready to burst. He must see it in my eyes. He’s too close not to.
“Hattie.” He turns my name into an answer. Just like his is my answer.
A hot tear slips free. Beck leans down and catches it with the tip of his tongue. The movement drives his hips higher, sending a pulse of radiant warmth through me.
“Mmmm…”
“Ohhh…”
He’s barely moved since entering me, but this one shift and my body’s reaction to it promise great things to come.
The fingers of one hand are still between us, gently coaxing steady pleasure from my most sensitive spot. He reaches his other hand up to my face to swipe at another tear. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since our bodies merged.
“You are so beautiful. So beautiful.”
Breath fills my lungs because nothing has ever felt so true. “I know, right?”
He laughs. I laugh. I cover his hand on my cheek with mine. Our fingers tangle then lock together.
I squeeze. “Can we move now?”
The intensity has eased. If it was going to hurt—really hurt—it would’ve happened by now, right?
“I hope so,” he says, proving me filterless yet again. “But you move first. Just in case.”
“H-how?”
How can his smile be so sweet and so wicked at the same time?
“However you want, honeysuckle.”
I spasm around him. Maybe it’s the look in his eyes. Or the way he calls me honeysuckle. Or the gentle pressure he’s gifting my swollen clitoris. But when the muscles deep inside me clutch around him, pleasure surges, and I suddenly know how to move.
My legs clamp around him and I lift my hips, squeezing everywhere.
Beck’s eyelids flutter, then his jaw clenches.
“Like… like that?”
Beck makes a noise in his throat that could be taken as a yes in any language. And, Jesus, this feels amazing.
I mean, damn, I really know how to move.
“Yes—” Beck grunts. “You do.”
And I’m not the only one. Above me, Beck’s body is taut heat and power.
Then he tilts his pelvis and—
“Oh my God! You can move too!”
Pleasure mounts again—just like it did when he was going down on me—and for a moment I fear that again this won’t be enough. That the peak will stretch out of reach. That I’ll just wind tighter and tighter until I throw a spring or break this borrowed bed.
But this time, Beck is there. Beck is there. Powering above me. Surging inside me. Matching my thrusts measure for measure. And when I need something to hold onto, his cute-sexy-biteable ass is in just the right place.
“Fuck—Hattie—”
I open my mouth to tell him to take me harder, but my orgasm breaks open before I can form words. Sounds come out anyway.
A lot of sounds.
“AAAAH… AAAAAH… MY…MMMM… OHHHH…. OHHHH, YES! YES! YES! YES!”
It’s as though my climax is the starting pistol for his. The muscles of his ass turn to granite and instinct tells me to grab them harder. Lock my thighs around him tighter.
Beck is still wringing pleasure from me with every thrust, but I float down from my high just enough to remember that watching him come apart isn’t something I want to miss.
“Hattie—Sweet… Gah—”
His mouth falls open, his eyelids falter, and the look of such gasping, tortured ecstasy claims his face.
He is so beautiful, time slows.
And I know I will hold tight to this memory until my last breath.
When he collapses in my arms seconds later, a panting wreck, fresh tears wet my lashes. I clamp my mouth shut because volley after volley of the vow launch from my heart.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
“G-God—” His breath saws through the words. “God… You’re—I… Hattie… I never want to leave.”
I kiss his neck because I don’t trust my voice. But I hug him to me as tight as I can. He hugs back, crushing me in the best way.
God, help me, if he doesn’t love me back.
God, help me, if this isn’t love.
If this isn’t his love, I am lost.
The silent prayers pour from me, more devout than any I’ve uttered in my life.
Beck’s hand cups my cheek. He presses a kiss to my jaw and raises his head to meet my eyes. He blinks, seeing my tears.
His whole body locks.
“Are you—Hattie, did I hurt you?”
I shake my head. “No. No. Not at all. It was…” How can I find the right words? The words that say just enough but not too much?
Beck has never made me feel like too much, and I’d like to keep it that way.
He brushes a tear with his thumb and tilts his head? “Good?”
My breath gusts out of me. “Good? It was holy!”
Oops. Was that too much?
But Beck just laughs before coming in for a kiss.
“Holy. Yeah. That almost covers it,” he murmurs against my lips.
God, I love him.
And since I can’t let myself say the words yet—I mean a post-coital love blurt is pretty cliché, and I refuse to be a cliché—I take over the kiss, making it more than holy.
“Mmmm.”
To my surprise, his cock leaps inside me and my pussy answers with a flutter.
I gasp. He moans.
He kisses me deeply again.
And, damn, the same thing happens.
“I think we’re onto something,” I whisper.
He chuckles softly, drawing back. “I’d love to explore it, but I should take care of the condom.”
Oh. Right. That.
The fresh reminder that I’m inexperienced is humbling, but nothing compared to the feeling of Beck leaving my body.
I have to physically stop myself from jerking him back.
At the bedside he leans down and kisses my forehead. “Be right back.”
Shit.
Tears are so stupid.
But I’ve never been here before.
Teetering between delirious happiness and sheer dread.
Why did nobody warn me how scary it is to love someone? How the moment you fall for them, your heart is at the greatest risk.
Why, it’s fucking unbearable!
I blame Margaret. Surely, she should have told me. I mean, this had to have happened to her the moment she fell for Merrick, right?
Then again, maybe not. If ever there were a fairytale love story, it’s theirs. They probably fell in love at the exact same instant and made synchronized declarations, pledging to live happily ever after while songbirds twittered in heart-shaped formations above their heads.
I snort. That sounds about right.
Beck runs the tap in the bathroom sink, and the sound brings me back to now.
Still naked, he walks out holding a wet washcloth in one hand and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Would you bend your knees?”
I frown at him but bend my legs anyway. “What for?”
His smile looks shy. “So I can take care of you.” Then he presses the warm washcloth to my sex. The act is so surprising and yet so intimate, I grip his thigh.
“Tender?” he asks, a frown of concern creasing his brow.
The warmth is so soothing, I must be a bit tender. “I guess… a little.”
He nods, focusing on the task at hand, touching me so gently but without the least bit of hesitation or embarrassment.
So I feel no embarrassment either. Yet I’ve never felt more humbled.
This man.
This good, gentle man.
He finishes, stands, and carries the washcloth back to the bathroom, leaving me to ogle his perfect ass as he does.
When he comes back, he reaches down, draws the covers from beneath me, slow-motion magician style, and climbs in next to me.
I can only manage to watch him, a little stunned.
How?
How did I earn this?
Is this… is this normal?
I have to know.
“H-have you… done that before?”
Beck is still settling in, drawing the covers over us before pulling me into his arms. We lie on our sides, tucked together.
“Done what?”
I blink at him. “That… the… the thing with the washcloth.”
“Oh.” Beck’s mouth twitches. And then a blush blooms. “Um… No… I’ve never done that before.”
My brows shoot up. “You haven’t? So—then… wh-what made you…”
One of his arms is draped over me. His fingertips glide up and down my spine. I suppress a shiver.
“I…I wanted to take care of you. Make sure you were… okay.” He shrugs.
“Oh.” My voice comes out soft. Because he’s pretty sweet. I smile. “I liked it.”
His lips quirk. “Then I’ll do it every time.”
And, right now, I’m not teetering. I stand squarely in happy delirium. And with him right here, holding me tight against him, gazing down at me like I’m something precious and sexy and his, sheer dread is nowhere in sight.
Because he must feel it too. Right?
Neither one of us has said a word, but we must be in this together.
Right?