Chapter 43
Forty Three
Kaeli
Ilove her, damnit!
He loves me?
He loves me.
Astonished doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel.
All I can do is gawk at him, my brain working in overdrive to digest what he professed and come up with a coherent response.
Not a single word comes to mind. An onslaught of jumbled emotions wreaking havoc on me as I wander my mind and heart, trying to decipher each one of them.
Ezra spins on his heels to look at me, his features contorting into regret and then into hard lines as he grabs my hand and drags my mute self out.
“We’re leaving,” Ezra announces.
“Where will you go so late at night?” Roman’s chair screeches as he stands.
“We’ll look for a hotel or something. But I’m not letting her stay another night under the roof where she’s not valued or respected,” Ezra growls, tugging me closer.
Roman throws Ezra a set of keys, which he skillfully catches. “This is the key to my place. I’ll stay here for the night. Go. I’ll text you the address.” They exchange numbers.
Ezra gives a curt nod and takes me away while I’m too caught up in his words to protest.
We’re off to Roman’s house in the rental car.
The silence in the car hangs over us, awkward and tense. I spy Ezra’s knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he opens and shuts his mouth, unsure of what to say.
I don’t aid him and completely turn to look outside the window.
He can’t say those big words and expect me to accept them or repeat them. What would I even say?
I don’t think I can say them back to him. I care about him, and I may be falling for him, but I still need time to understand, or maybe even develop the strong feelings of love.
After being burned too many times in the past, it’s not easy for me to give someone that much power over me. Give someone the key to my happiness. It’s too risky.
Spending all my life surrounded by greedy people, I put in a lot of effort in building high walls around my heart. But this man has decimated it, hit by a single hit.
We arrive at Roman’s house too soon, and I know the discussion on what he said is inevitable.
This time, I don’t wait for Ezra to open the door for me and get out of the car, slamming the door behind me.
Ezra doesn’t waste much time parking the car and follows me into the house.
The motion-sensing lights come to life. The moment we step inside, and I hear the click of the front door shutting, I lose it. “What the fuck was that, Ezra?”
He slides his hands in his pockets as if it’s the weather I’m asking about. “What?”
I take him in, clad in his fitted gray shirt and washed jeans that accentuate his thighs in a way that makes you want to both ride them and sleep with your head on them.
Despite the sexy aura he oozes, I laugh with a hollow chuckle. “Maybe you claiming that you love me!?” My hands spread wide, emphasizing the point.
“I meant what I said. I love you,” he accepts it so easily.
I don’t think I have the energy to fight him. The last month and today have taken such a toll on me. It’s depleted me to the bone.
It’s like he has something else entirely in mind, though, because he repeats, “I love you.”
I take a step back for every one of his. “I love you.”
I cover my ears, yet he doesn’t cease his confession.
“Stop it,” I mumble.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“STOP IT!” I yell in the empty house, save for us. My hands drop to the side. “Stop it,” I plead, softer this time.
I walk over and slump on the couch, defeated.
A few seconds later, Ezra drops to his knees in front of me. Tilting my chin up, he licks away the tears I didn’t even realize escaped. My breath stutters at his sensual but gentle care.
“Don’t cry, Feather,” he whispers softly against my skin. “Seeing you cry breaks my heart.”
He moves over to my other cheek. “I know you’re upset about how I confessed. Trust me, I regret it, too.”
Even though I said I don’t love him, disappointment washes over me. Of course, he regrets it. Why wouldn’t he?
“Now, I know your pretty brain might be working overtime to make you believe that it’s professing my love for you, I regret. I don’t, Kaeli.” My brows furrow in confusion, my gaze bouncing over his rugged features.
“It’s the circumstances in which I blurted those words out. Instead of giving you a surprise, that’s what I regret, Kaeli.”
For some reason, my heart starts to beat with hope again.
Pulling back, he gazes right into my eyes and cups my face. “I mean every word, Kaeli. I love you. I have wanted you from the moment you literally collided right into me.” My eyebrow arches despite myself.
He rolls his eyes, his lips tilting upwards. “Fine. I collided with you and almost cost you your job. I’m sorry for that.”
“It’s okay,” I reply in the lowest of voices.
“No, it’s not. But that’s a discussion for another time.” I open my mouth, but he cuts me off before I can get a word in. “Shhh, Feather. Just listen,” he says, pressing his index finger to my lips. But it’s like he’s issuing a command using that nickname.
I nod, and he continues. “Good girl.” I blush furiously.
“I love you, Kaeli. I don’t know when or how. One day, I woke up with the truth rooted in my heart.” His earnest voice makes me believe every word he says. “I want to spend every waking moment staring at your beautiful face and every night kissing it in your warm embrace.”
He tucks strands of hair behind my ears. “I want to take care of you and show you that not everyone wants to be around you for something you can give them. I want to smother you in love.”
Ezra’s electric blue eyes rake over my figure before coming back to meet my brown ones. “I want to prove to you that I want to be with you for you. Because I’m so utterly and entirely in love with you, Feather.”
I choke on a sob and smash my lips to his. I might not be able to say those same words back to him; instead, I pour all of my feelings for him into this one kiss. I hope that it’s enough for him.
The relief he experiences is evident from the way his shoulders relax under my touch, and his breath comes a little easier, as if he’d have died if I rejected him.
Grabbing my waist, he pulls me to the edge of the couch, rising on his knees. I feel like I’ll melt when his tongue swipes in and caresses mine. I feel him surrendering to me, giving me his heart to protect or to break.
Although it practically hurts me to say, I pull back and let him know. “I can’t…I can’t say it back.” I worry my bottom lip, scared that he’ll pull away.
Instead, he amazes me by giving me a soft smile. “I don’t need you to, Feather. My love is not selfish. I’m entirely satisfied just being able to hold you and call you mine.”
He swallows my gasp of surprise with his skilled and fluffy lips. He taps my hips, and my hands and legs wrap around him. I want to bathe in the love he’s giving me. I’ve spent my entire life surviving on crumbs, and this feels surreal.
“Room?” he asks against my lips.
I direct him, and we climb the steps to the guest bedroom. This feels so much like the first time we slept together.
But this time, there are feelings involved, and even though I’m afraid, I’m not complaining. I want this man in whichever shape or form I can have. Stumbling inside the room and fumbling with our clothes, our movements turn impatient.
Finally, we stand in front of each other in nothing but our underwear. His eyes rake over me, taking in every visible inch.
“Fuck, Kaeli. You’re so beautiful, it hurts,” he marvels with an audible gulp under closed lights as the moon’s luster reflects off of him.
“I’ve never been as comfortable with anyone as I feel with you,” I say, walking closer to him. He deserves a piece of truth, even if I can’t give him what he wants.
His eyes shine with so much love and pride. I cup his cheek, and he leans into it, covering it with his own.
“You make me feel safe,” I admit.
His eyes fall shut as he leans into my palm. “Fuck, Kaeli. You’re killing me,” he curses.
My hand slides down his torso and reaches his dick, gripping him through his boxers. Ezra’s eyes flare open, a shit-eating grin spanning across his face. “So, that’s how you wanna do it? Alright.”
In an instant, he flicks open the hook of my bra and tears my thong right off me, making me gasp.
Picking me up, he tosses me on the bed. I squeal as my body bounces on the mattress.
Ezra stands at the edge of the bed, removing his boxers. He gives his cock slow and deliberate pumps, precum already leaking from the tip. He rubs that with his thumb, and suddenly, I envy the thumb.
Getting to my knees, I crawl toward him. My tits jiggling as gravity beckons them the same way his cock beckons me like a moth to a flame.
His eyes gleam, the black swallowing the blue. “I didn’t even have to ask you to crawl to me, Kaeli. Are you that desperate for my cock?”
Seeing him jerk his cock makes my mouth salivate, and I nod. “Yes.”
“Then come here and have your fill,” his words promise.
Sitting right in front of his bobbing cock, I open my mouth for him.
“Wider, Kaeli. You know how big and thick I am for you.”
Clenching my thighs, I do as he says. He gathers my hair in his hands, wrapping it around his fist.
I tentatively lick his cock from the tip to the base. He shudders at the contact, his eyes fluttering. I wrap my hand around his dick and plant open-mouthed kisses on velvety foreskin.
“Don’t tease me, Kaeli,” he hisses.
I smirk, but decide to put him out of his misery. I open my mouth for him, and he pushes it inside in one hard stroke. My gag reflex comes alive, but I relax my jaw and feel him hit the back of my throat.
“Fuck, Feather. Your mouth is so hot,” Ezra grunts as he starts to brutally fuck my mouth.
I wrap my hand around the part of his cock that doesn’t fit my mouth. His movements turn erratic as I feel him reaching his climax.
My eyes flick to him, and I moan around his cock when I see his face contorted in pleasure, enhanced by the moonlight. His ruffled hair falls over his forehead as a sheen of sweat covers it.
He keeps pistoning in my mouth till he finds his release. Sensing him close, I fondle his balls as drool and precum drop from my chin and scrape the underside of his cock with my teeth.
“Fuck,” he whimpers as he spills his hot seed into my mouth.
His head falls back, as his hips buck unceremoniously, riding his high. His hold in my hair tightens, and tears sting the corner of my eyes. I let him use my mouth to find the pleasure he’s looking for while I moan around his dick and commit this look of his to memory.
Ezra’s eyes flit to my thighs with his cock still hard in my mouth. “You couldn’t wait for me to make you come, huh?”
That’s when I realize, I’m fingering myself as he ruthlessly fucks my mouth.
“You greedy little thing.” His hoarse voice and smug smile elicit a groan from me. He shoots another rope of cum into my mouth while I take it all like his good girl.
“Don’t swallow,” he commands after emptying himself in my mouth.
Pulling his dick from my mouth with a pop, as a string of his cum mixed with my saliva still connects us, he says, “Open your mouth.” I do. “Now, let me see you swallow it like a good girl.”
My pussy coats my fingers at his words, and I swallow for him, letting him have the front row and only seat to the show. His pupils blow wide, his dick twitching again.
Tilting my chin as he erases any distance between us, he asks, “You’re mine. Aren’t you, Feather?”
Bringing my fingers to his mouth, I whisper, “I’m yours, Ezra. As yours as you’re mine.”
He opens his mouth and licks my fingers clean, grunting in pleasure as his forehead falls on mine. “Fuck, I love the taste of your pussy.”
“Your cum wasn’t too bad either,” I jest.
Instead of playing along, he grabs my throat and smashes his lips to mine, and only pulls when I’m a heaving mess.
“This is how it’s gonna go, Kaeli,” he whispers against my lips, kicking up my already racing heartbeat.
“First, I’m going to make slow and sweet love to you, missionary style.
Then I’m going to fuck you on your hands and knees and turn your ass sore with my hand prints decorating it.
Then I’m going to fuck you again and again and again until either you pass out or the sun comes up,” he promises, my breath stuttering. “Any objections?”
His grip on my throat tightens when I don’t answer. “Any objections, Kaeli?” he repeats, his voice rough and heavy with lust.
I shake my head with an audible gulp, which he must feel. “No,” tremors racking my words.
He smiles like the devil himself. “Good girl.”
With that, he continues to make good on his promise until I forget my own name. Fucking me in every possible way, even when I’m too tired to continue, but dying for his thick cock to fill me up nonetheless.
I chant his name all night long.