Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Feral Brody was hot as hell.
Who knew one man could wring so many orgasms out of a woman in such a short span. Guess I'd never stuck around long enough to find out. Hell, a girl could get used to that kind of worship.
But then it hit me all at once.
Like my body just… quit. One second I was floating, loose and boneless, riding the tail end of something spectacular.
The next, I was too aware of everything.
My thighs twitched. My nerves felt fried raw, like even the air against my skin was too much.
I couldn't tell if I was overheated or freezing.
My breathing wouldn't settle. Too fast, then too shallow, like my lungs forgot how to do their job.
And my head—
Christ on a cracker.
It went dead quiet for a split second. No noise, no past, no running. Just… nothing.
Then everything came slamming back in twice as loud.
I dragged a hand over my face and let out a half-laugh that sounded brittle even to my own ears. "Jesus," I muttered. "That oughta be illegal."
Didn't move. Couldn't. My limbs felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each, like gravity had it out for me personally.
And underneath it all, this weird, jittery edge—like my system had burned through something fast and hot and was now scrapin' the bottom of the barrel.
Brody scooped my wrecked body from the couch into his strong arms.
"I'd break all kindsa laws for you," Brody whispered against my skin before kissing my forehead.
Again with the damn swooning.
He carried me to the bathroom and gently sat me on the toilet.
I squeaked when the cold porcelain hit my skin.
Goosebumps erupted along every exposed inch.
It was hard to tell if it was from the cold or from the perfect specimen of a man kneeling before me.
He placed his hands on the tops of my thighs, thick fingers spreading to grip the muscle there.
His thumbs gently stroked my skin and, I'll be damned, even after the crash, that simple touch had me clenching my thighs together.
Brody didn't notice. His emerald eyes were busy searching mine. He swallowed and licked his lips. "You okay?" His voice was quiet and a little rough. "Today was a lot."
I huffed out a laugh. "Sadly, three back-to-back orgasms is a lot but—"
"Not just that." He swallowed again, his eyes darting from mine briefly. "Earlier, at the ranch…"
My mom.
He was so goddamn earnest. So sweet. So caring. This time, it was my chest squeezing instead of my thighs.
"I'm good." I forced a smile. "Glad we could bond over our membership in the dead parents club."
Brody winced.
"Shit, I'm sorry." I placed a hand on his stubbled cheek, stroking his face the same way he was still stroking my thighs. "I've had a long time to come to terms with my lot in life. It's still fresh for you."
He nodded before turning his head and kissing my palm.
"Shower?" he asked.
It was my turn to nod. Brody rose, taking the warmth of his touch with him.
He turned the water on, and we waited in silence for it to get warm.
I took the opportunity to memorize the curve of his ass and the sharp cut of muscle just past his hip bones.
The dusting of coarse hair I felt every time our chests had brushed together.
The heart that lay beneath. The slope of his nose and the pout of his lips.
If the last thirty seconds had reminded me of anything, it was that I wasn't cut out for this shit.
I wasn't relationship material, and Brody was all relationship.
I'd only end up hurting him. Saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing.
I wanted so badly to just enjoy him while I had him, but what kind of mess would I leave in my wake when I left? Because I would leave. Always did.
"Starin' at my cock, viper?" I looked up to see Brody smirking down at me. He was still hard. How was he still hard? "You wanna go again, you're gonna haveta gimme a few. Watchin' my cum drip outta you and eatin' your pussy has me hard as hell, but I'ma need a snack before I fuck you again."
I laughed. Loud. Because he was just so… Brody.
After a shower and a snack, Brody did, indeed, fuck me again. But it was slower, sweeter—full of those reverent kisses I loved so much.
Or, liked. I liked them a lot.
Brody rolled us to our sides and pulled my leg over his hip. At that angle, his slick cock slid against my clit on every slow, lazy thrust. It was perfect torture.
Our tongues danced at the same lazy pace as Brody gripped my hip with one hand and wove his fingers through my hair with the other.
I pressed my forehead to his, our breath mingling in the small space between us. No urgency. No performance. Just the slow drag of him inside me and the warmth of his hand cradling the back of my head like I was something worth holdin' onto.
His eyes stayed on mine.
That was the thing about Brody. He looked at you. Really looked, like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he'd rather be aimin' those green eyes. The first time, it had made me want to flinch away. Now I just… let him.
His hips rolled forward slow, and my breath caught, fingers curling into the warm skin of his back. He didn't speed up. Didn't chase it. Just kept that steady, devastating pace that had my whole body humming low and sweet.
"You feel amazing," he breathed against my lips.
I kissed him instead of answering because there wasn't a word I trusted myself to say.
His hand slid from my hip to the small of my back, pulling me closer, and I felt the shift—that slow, deep tightening that was nothing like the sharp, cresting waves from earlier. This was softer. More like a tide coming in than a wave breaking.
"Calvin." Just my name. That's all.
"I know," I whispered back.
And I did. I felt it in him, the same thing building in me, and we stayed right there together, eyes open, foreheads pressed, breathing each other's air as it crested and rolled through us both in one long, shuddering wave.
His mouth found mine as he came, and I felt it everywhere—his groan against my lips, his arms pulling me tight, his whole body trembling against me like I was the thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
I turned my face into his throat and squeezed my eyes shut.
We lay tangled together while our breathing slowed. His hand moved in long, absent strokes up and down my spine.
After a while he slipped out of bed without a word. Came back with a warm washcloth and cleaned me up so gently I had to press my lips together and stare at the ceiling while he did it. Then he slid back in beside me, gathered me against his chest, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
"Sleep," he said.
Like it was simple.
Like I did much of that.
He was out within minutes.
I could tell by the way his breathing evened out, the arm around me going heavy. His heartbeat slowed under my palm, and I lay there listening to it like it was sending me a message I didn't know how to decode.
The apartment was quiet. The bar below had gone still. Outside, Larkspur did whatever small towns did at this hour—nothing, mostly. A distant dog barking. The occasional creak of the building settling around us.
My thighs still ached. My body was wrung out in the best possible way.
Yet my brain wouldn't shut the hell up.
I stared at the ceiling and let the intrusive thoughts come, because there wasn't any stopping them now. The jittery edge from earlier had crept back in soft and quiet, coiling into my chest like smoke through a cracked window.
A girl could get used to this.
There it was again. That thought. The dangerous one.
I'd been in this town six weeks. Six weeks, and the bartender already knew my drink order.
I knew the name of Slim's horse and which porch boards on the main house creaked loud enough to irritate Mr. Calloway.
I knew that Brody took his coffee black until about noon and then switched to sweet tea, and that he hummed when he worked, always the same three songs on rotation, and that he kept exactly one photograph of his dad in his wallet, worn soft at the corners from handling.
His arm tightened around me in his sleep, some unconscious pull, and an ache shot through me. Warm and terrifying in equal measure.
I thought about what Sassy had said on the porch that first week. You don't strike me as someone who runs because she doesn't feel. You strike me as someone who runs because she feels too much.
Damn pixie.
I pressed my palm flat against Brody's chest. Felt his heartbeat. Slow. Sure. Steady as the man himself.
The problem wasn't that I didn't want this.
The problem was that I did. More than made any sense for six weeks in a town I'd never planned to stay in, with a man I'd never planned to know past one night.
But I also couldn't make my body move away from his.
So I lay there in the dark, too full of something I didn't have a name for, listening to him breathe, watching the ceiling, and doing the thing I did best.
Waiting to want to leave.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, it didn't come.