Chapter 14 — Under The Blanket #4
She pushed back against me, breath shaking.
"Please, Luke. That's part of it. I want to feel you come inside me. Here. In my room. For my first time. I want it messy. I want all of it."
I could barely breathe.
"You're sure."
"I'm sure." Her voice softened, but the hunger stayed. "I picked you. I picked this. Give it to me."
I kissed the back of her shoulder.
Then I fucked her until neither of us had anything left to hide.
She came first. It hit her hard, her pussy clamping down around me, her body shuddering under mine while she buried her face in the pillow and still could not stop the sound from breaking through.
The bed squeaked. The headboard tapped. My name came out of her in a broken whisper that felt louder than a shout because it was mine.
I followed her over.
I shoved deep, hips tight to her ass, and came inside her with a force that stripped the world down to heat and pulse and Reese shaking beneath me.
It was messy and hard and endless, my cock throbbing as I filled her, every pulse dragged deeper by the way her body milked me through her own orgasm.
She gasped when she felt it. Then she pushed back against me like she wanted to take everything I had.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, Luke. God. I can feel you."
Another pulse.
Her fingers twisted in the sheet.
"Don't pull out."
I didn't.
I stayed buried inside her, chest heaving, sweat cooling on my back, my hands still gripping her hips as my cum began to leak around my cock and down the inside of her thighs.
The house went quiet.
Or maybe it had been quiet.
Maybe the only thing loud enough to matter was Reese breathing under me, wrecked and satisfied and finally not waiting.
***
We stayed tangled in her bed long enough for my heartbeat to remember how to count.
Reese lay on her side facing me, one leg hooked over mine, her skin flushed, hair wild, mouth soft from kissing.
I was still inside her because neither of us had moved far enough for that to change.
My cum was warm between us, messy on her thighs and mine, soaking into the sheets she had apparently prepared for exactly this kind of evidence.
She looked unbearably pleased with herself.
I looked around the room again.
The made bed before we ruined it. The low lamp.
The empty desk. The half-open closet with no albums. The blanket downstairs.
The timing. The way she had gotten the family settled, gotten the room dark, gotten her hand on me under cover, gotten me upstairs with a lie so smooth her mother had smiled at it.
I looked back at Reese.
"You planned this."
Her smile went small and bright. "Yes."
"All of it?"
"Not all of it. Mom really found the boxes.
Dad really wanted to do the videos. Gavin really is unbearable on camera.
" She traced a finger along my chest, light and affectionate and completely unashamed.
"But I suggested tonight. I put the blanket on the couch.
I made sure the room was ready. I told Mom there were albums in my closet even though there aren't. And I knew my bed squeaked. "
"You knew your bed squeaked."
"I have slept in it for years, Luke. I'm familiar with the equipment."
I closed my eyes for a second.
She laughed softly.
The sound went straight into my chest.
"Baby," I said, opening my eyes again. "You staged family movie night as foreplay."
"Photo and video night," she corrected. "It's a multimedia seduction."
"Reese."
Her humor softened around the edges. She touched my face, thumb brushing my jaw.
"I wanted the couch," she said. "I wanted your hand on me while my family was right there.
I wanted my hand on you while Dad asked you about boat engines or model ships or whatever normal thing he was saying while I was losing my mind.
I wanted you in this room. I wanted the bed to squeak.
I wanted you trying to stop because you're good, and I wanted you not stopping because you wanted me more. "
My throat tightened.
She swallowed.
"And I wanted you to be my first. Here. In my room. With the whole stupid history of me loving you in the walls."
There it was.
No coyness. No apology. Just Reese handing me the truth while my body was still joined to hers and the evidence of what we had done was cooling between us.
"There was never anyone else?" I asked.
"Not for that." Her eyes held mine. "I dated.
I kissed. I tried to be normal because pining after the man four doors down wasn't a life plan anyone recommends.
But every time someone touched me, I wanted it to be you.
Every time I imagined this, it was you. Eventually I stopped pretending my body was going to be reasonable about it. "
The possessive thing in me wasn't pretty.
I didn’t need it to be.
I cupped her face and kissed her slowly, because if I kissed her hard I might start all over again and her family was still under the same roof. She melted into it anyway, smiling against my mouth like she could feel the effort it took to stay gentle.
"I'm not mad," I said.
"Good. Because I'm not sorry."
"I noticed."
"I'm maybe a little proud."
"Also noticed."
Her grin returned, sunny and filthy and so Reese it hurt. "You loved it."
"I love you."
The grin faded.
Not gone. Transformed.
Her eyes filled fast, and she blinked like the reaction had startled her.
"Say that again," she whispered.
I brushed my thumb over her cheek.
"I love you, Reese."
Her whole body shivered around me.
Not an orgasm.
Something deeper and more dangerous.
"I love you too," she said. "So much. For so long. I know this night was insane, but it wasn't a game to me."
"I know."
"It was fun." She laughed through the wet shine in her eyes. "Obviously. It was extremely fun. Historic levels of fun. But it was also mine. My choice. My fantasy. My way of finally saying what I wanted without making it too careful."
"You didn’t make it too careful."
"Good."
I kissed her forehead, then her mouth, then the corner of her smile.
Downstairs, something clicked. A light switch maybe. The old house settling. We both went still.
Footsteps crossed somewhere below, slow and ordinary.
Melanie's voice murmured.
Patrick answered.
The hallway stayed empty.
Reese pressed her face into my neck, shaking with silent laughter.
"Still hot?" I whispered.
"Disgustingly hot."
"You're deranged."
"And loved."
"And loved," I agreed.
She held me tighter.
We stayed that way until the house settled completely, until my body softened inside hers and the risk cooled into a warm, reckless afterglow. Eventually, Reese kissed my jaw and sighed.
"We should go to your house."
"You can stay here."
"I know." She looked around her room, then back at me. "But I don't want tonight to end in the room where I waited. I want it to end in the bed where I belong now."
My chest did that dangerous thing again.
"Your room is still yours at my place," I said. "You know that, right? This didn't earn it. It was already yours."
"I know." She smiled softly. "That's part of why I wanted tonight. You gave me belonging before I gave you my body. That made me want to give you everything."
I had no clean answer for that.
So I kissed her until neither of us needed one.
***
Getting out of the Madden house should have been impossible.
It wasn’t.
That was the unnerving part.
Reese cleaned up just enough to be plausible and not one inch more. She pulled on soft shorts and her tank, ran her fingers through her hair, looked at herself in the mirror, and smiled at the woman staring back like they had made excellent decisions together.
I put myself back together with less confidence.
"Do I look normal?" I asked.
Reese turned.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth, my shirt, my hair, then lower.
"No, baby. You don’t."
"Reese."
"You look like a man who just had a very good night."
"That isn't helpful."
"It's accurate."
I tried smoothing my hair. It did nothing. Reese laughed, caught my wrist, and pulled my hand down.
"They trust you," she said.
"That sentence used to comfort me."
"It still should." She rose onto her toes and kissed me. "Come on."
Downstairs, the family room was mostly dark.
The projector was off. Photo boxes sat stacked neatly by the wall.
Patrick was asleep in the recliner with his arms crossed and his head tipped back.
Melanie sat curled on the end of the couch, phone in hand, glasses low on her nose.
Gavin was gone. Nora was nowhere in sight, which was a mercy for everyone.
Melanie looked up and smiled.
"Find the albums?"
Reese didn’t even blink.
"Found what I needed."
I stared very hard at the wall.
Melanie nodded like that made perfect sense. "Good. You two heading out?"
"I'm going to walk back with Luke," Reese said. "I might sleep there. The girls are around, and we're probably doing breakfast early."
The cover had been used so many times in this circle that nobody even lifted an eyebrow. Sleepovers. Lake mornings. Everyone at everyone else's house. The language of innocence turned into the world's most effective hiding place.
"Text me when you get in," Melanie said.
"I'll."
Patrick stirred in the recliner. "Luke?"
I froze for the second time that night.
His eyes opened halfway. Sleepy, warm, trusting.
"Lock the back slider when you leave your place open at night," he said. "Wind caught mine yesterday and banged it halfway off the track."
"I'll," I said.
Reese made a tiny sound beside me that might have been a laugh if she were suicidal.
Melanie blew Reese a kiss. Reese blew one back. Then she took my hand and led me out of the house where she had grown up, through the front door, across the porch, and into the dark summer circle.
The night air hit cool against my overheated skin.
Four doors.
That was all the distance between the room where Reese had waited years and the house where her room already existed.