Chapter 20 #2
She shakes her head, her thumbs sweeping up my cheekbones. “Not again. Still. I still love you, Christian.”
“Did… Did you ever try not to?”
I note her hesitation and sadness by the way her shoulders drop. “Come sleep with me upstairs.”
I shake my head, sighing heavily. Damn it. “Not yet.”
“Why are you doing this?” Lana asks softly. “Come upstairs with me, baby. Sleep with me every night.”
“I can’t,” I say vaguely. “Not yet.”
“There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
I dip my chin.
“I can’t force you to tell me things you aren’t ready to talk about,” she says.
“But I want you to know that whatever it is, it won’t change anything.
So whatever you are holding onto that is making you feel…
ashamed about yourself, I won’t be ashamed of you.
You’ve stayed by my side at my worst, Christian.
Who would I be if I did not do the same? ”
“You’ve done the same, baby,” I say. “You’ve… You’ve done more than you should have.”
“I did it because I love you. And I’d do it again. For you.”
There have been days where I felt as though I could die. And I’d be okay with it. I was unimportant and insignificant to the world, so I wouldn’t have been missed. But Lana? She makes me want to fight to see new days, every day. She gives being alive a new meaning.
Tell her.
“Lana, baby,” I sigh. “I…Before… When I was…”
“It’s okay,” Lana breathes gently, lowering her face to hover her lips over mine. “Not tonight. Come to bed.”
My fingers around her body tighten. “Babe…”
“Come to bed, Christian,” she insists again. “Just for tonight. You need me…”
I feel my chin begin to quiver, my body giving in to the weighty emotion.
“…and I need you.”
I surrender to her and try to keep my confessions at bay for the night. “Okay.”
Lana presses her lips to mine once, so softly I barely feel it, and then she removes herself off my lap. She stands in the moonlight, beautiful as ever, holding her hand out for me to take while chewing on her lip—waiting.
Finally, my trembling hand slips into hers and my legs follow suit through the house and up the stairs, not once letting her go. Lana releases my hand first once we are in her bedroom. Her knee presses into the mattress first before she crawls into the center, lying on her back.
“Come here.”
I do as I’m told and crawl to her side. I pull her into my chest once I’m situated, and her body curls against mine. I nestle my face into the crook of her neck, kissing her pulse, and settle there—ensconced in her embrace.
“You were always such a giant, sensitive teddy bear,” Lana giggles softly, her finger drawing lines over the back of my hand. “It’s my favorite thing about you.”
“Yeah?”
Lana turns in my arms, shifting herself closer into me as she does. “Yeah. Not everyone knows how to love someone the right way, but you do. You have the heart to love people, Christian.”
“Not when I got back.”
“Even when you got back to town, baby. It just…took you a bit to find your footing—remember my love language.”
“I know it,” I tell her.
“And I know yours,” she says. “Thank you for always wiping off mustard.”
My lips twitch and my hand on her hips lowers to the swell of her backside. “Always for you.”
Lana’s lips find mine easily, a path that’s also engraved in my brain.
Smirking against her lips, I lie, “No funny business, baby.”
But she bites my lip and her hand smooths down my chest to cup the erection in my boxers. I can’t contain the groan that slips out of me, my hand on her ass squeezing tight.
Lana’s tiny gasp of pain turns into a breathy moan that makes me harder, to the point of pain. I massage her ass cheek before I bring my hand up her curves and under her shirt, my hand cupping her breast. She arches and her nipple hardens as I brush my thumb over it.
She pulls away, panting, and pulls her shirt over her head so quickly I’m not sure it’s happened until I see her lying back, her bare breasts exposed. She bites her lip with flushed cheeks, seeming the slightest bit shy.
“You’re gorgeous, Lana.”
“Come here, Christian,” she breathes, her hand curling at my nape and pulling me to lean over her. Her lips are moving with mine, our tongues tangling and searching, moans slipping out in continuous patterns.
My lips move down her jaw, her breathing shaky as kisses are scattered down her body and as my tongue circles each of her nipples before sucking them into my mouth.
Lana arches again, as though offering herself, before tugging me back over her with her fingers in my hair. Hovering while remaining on my side, using my forearm for support, I look at her closely. “We aren’t… Lana…”
“I know,” Lana says. “No sex.”
I lick my lips, my eyes locked on her pouty mouth, and I question this whole thing.
Confess and surrender yourself to her, my mind tells me. Confess and she is yours.
Lana’s hand is on my chest, finding its way down and down and down…
“No funny business,” she breathes, her hand slipping beneath the waistband of my Calvins.
My chuckle turns into a grunt when her fingers wrap around my cock, giving it a hard pull with her thumb circling the tip, spreading the pre-cum. “Lana.”
“Touch me,” Lana breathes into my mouth, still stroking me.
When my body tenses and I hesitate, Lana removes her hand, adjusting my briefs. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— I’m sorry, oh my god.”
She tries to roll herself from underneath me. “Let me just… I’ll grab my shirt.”
“Lana, baby, stop,” I hold her back with my hand on her hip. “Baby, it’s okay.”
She’s shaking her head rapidly, her eyes glossing over. “No. No, it’s not okay, Christian. I keep doing this. I keep… I keep… provoking you. It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting. Just let me put on my shirt.”
“No,” I breathe. “No, baby.”
I lower my head to kiss between her breasts. She exhales quietly so I continue to drag my lips over her skin, blow and lick at her nipples. “I could have stopped you if I really wanted to.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t.”
“Oh…”
“You’re right, Lana,” I say. “There is something I’m not telling you and that’s why I don’t want to…take that from you until you know. I don’t want you to fall back in and decide you can’t love me.”
“You think I’d do that?”
No, she wouldn’t. Ever.
“No.”
“Just let me put on my shirt and we’ll sleep.”
“I want to touch you,” I growl, wrapping my lips around her nipple again as my fingers trail down her stomach and under her sleep shorts. “I want you to touch me.” My fingers slip across her pussy, fucking soaked for me, and I groan. “I want you, Lana. All. The fucking. Time.”
She moans loudly as I push two fingers into her.
“I want this all the time, baby,” I husk, my fingers curling. “God, every day I see you come downstairs and you’re beautiful. And all I want to do is make love to you, make you come until you’re screaming.”
“Christian,” she breathes, her nails digging into my bicep, and her head presses back into the pillow. “Oh my god.”
I thrust my curled fingers and circle my thumb over her clit. “Fuck, baby, you don’t know how badly I want to be inside you.”
“Please,” Lana whimpers and her eyes roll back. “Fuck.”
I trail my tongue down her neck, leaving a path of wet kisses across her skin, and I feel her hand slip back into my Calvins again. I moan in her ear as she duplicates her move from before. Fuck, this has never felt so good. This might be the best hand job of my life.
Everything I do with Lana is the best thing of my life.
“Jesus, fuck, baby,” I growl in her ear as she moans in mine, “Fuck, Christian.”
“I love you,” I rasp.
“Christian,” she moans louder, her hand that strokes my dick wavers as I feel her getting close. “I’m close.”
I feel a spark in my lower body, and her pleasure is just enough to get me there too. “Fuck, baby,” I grit, my hips jerking into her hand.
“Christian, I’m…”
“Come, baby. Come on my fingers,” I say in her ear. “Let me see how beautiful you are when you scream my name.”
“I…”
“Eyes open, Lana. Look at me.”
Her eyes snap open, her hand moving faster around my cock, and her mouth is frozen open. “I’m… I’m gonna come.”
“Come, baby.”
“Oh god… Christian.”
I feel her pussy pulse around my fingers, her breaths coming in heavier and faster and her cries driving me into my own orgasm. Lana cries out my name as her legs tremble and fall closed around my hand as I continue, even as I come all over her stomach.
My body trembles as she strokes me through my pleasure, prolonging it the way I’m doing to her. Finally, spent and weak, our hands stop at the same time, our heavy breathing filling the air.
Her eyes flutter open, her body so relaxed I think she might fall asleep right now. But then she giggles quietly. “Hi.”
Smirking, I pull my fingers out of her slowly while keeping my eyes on hers. Her lips part as she sees what I’m about to do, her eyes widening too. I suck my fingers into my mouth, licking her off of them and moaning at the taste.
“Christian,” she breathes.
“Hmmm.” I take my fingers out of my mouth. “Fucking love you—”
“I love you.”
I roll off her with a silly smile on my face from hearing those three words, and adjust my briefs at the edge of the bed.
“Where are you going?”
My eyes wander over her body again, her stomach and breasts covered in me. “To get something to clean you up, baby.”
“Oh.” Lana looks down at her stomach and brings her fingers down her body, collecting my release on their tips before she puts her fingers in her mouth—moaning as she does it.
My eyes roll back, my cock aching again. “Lana…”
She smiles proudly. “Yes?”
I shake my head and go into her ensuite. With a warm, damp towel, I sit beside her and wipe off her body.
“Thank you,” Lana whispers.
I kiss her softly and toss the small piece of cloth to the hamper. “No more funny business,” I say, curling my fingers at the waistband of her shorts before tugging them down her smooth legs. “I just want to hold you.”
Lana nods and I strip my boxers off next, getting in beside her naked. I pull her into my chest, our bodies curving against each other to fit like puzzle pieces. “You don’t want to be the little spoon?”
“No, baby,” I say. “I just want to hold you.”
“Okay.”
I pull the blanket over our bodies, and kiss her shoulder blade. “This is it,” I promise in her ear. “You and me.”
“Okay,” Lana breathes. “Okay.”