Chapter 28
I hold my breath as I face Dalton. His gaze is a heavy one, full of need, impatience, and the same frustration that boils within me. I see it and recognize it in his troubled expression. What I notice the most though, is the despair. It’s a physical yearning he’s suffering through, and again, I know it because I’m wrapped up in the same damn sensation.
It’s a spell, an addiction. An overpowering desire has me reaching out to him. Without a word, he knows. He’s with me in this because he doesn’t need me to say—or not say—anything. We can feel the tension snapping between us and we’re too weak to stop it. I don’t want to stop anything anymore.
He grips my wrist before I can lay my hand on his arm, and in one quick tug, he pulls me into his room.
Words don’t matter here. In the darkness of the evening casting over the mountain outside the window, shadows show us the way. I feel the strength in his hands as he snakes them around me, closing me into a tight hug.
I heave in one last quick breath, needing it to hold me over as he crushes his lips to mine. This kiss is a claiming, and unspoken continuation of how he stupidly thought to leave me with that last word. That he loves me, that he’s sorry for wasting my time in doing so.
Idiot. We are both being stupid about this, but as I lean up and smash my mouth to his, I demand that he feels me. I part my lips and my tongue duels with his and steals a sinful taste of all of him. Between a rough clutch of his shirt and then with my fingers threaded through his hair, I make a fist and hope he’s taking a note of how unstoppable this love is that I can’t hide from him.
“Aubrey.” He breaks the kiss long enough to utter it, but it is a moment too damn long to waste.
“Don’t you dare think you can have the last word like that ever again,” I warn as I kiss him hungrily again. I refuse to stop until I’ve had my fill for the night. But I doubt I’ll ever get enough of this infuriating man who has burrowed his way into my heart in his insistent, annoying way. Dalton consumes my heart and mind, and it’s only fair that I torment him in kind.
“Uh-huh,” he replies in a whatever-like tone. He’s dazed, drunk on me and the lust we have for each other, but he’s with it, pushing me toward the bed and following me down onto it. The box springs squeak, and a faint worry of someone hearing us enters my mind. He doesn’t let me think about it for more than a second because he removes his shirt, baring that hard, sculpted chest I never want to miss touching.
And tasting. I twist, shoving him so he’s lying down, and I hurry to straddle him and lower my mouth to him. Instead of aiming for his lips, I suck on the flesh beneath his ear, then trail my tongue along the underside of his jawline. My hands stay busy, fumbling for the buttons on my shirt. Why, why the hell did I wear this tonight? Of all pajamas I could have chosen…
He grunts, helping me. His assistance is too harsh, and buttons go flying. I can’t care, not when he’s quick to cup my breasts and roll his thumb over my nipples that bead and stand for attention.
I hiss, distracted by the intense pleasure that rockets from the pebbled tips to my womb. Desire fills me, and I give in to the building race to have him.
“Don’t you dare tell me that you’re wasting my time,” I add, not so carried over with need for him that I forget my grievances that I’ve thought about all night. I lower myself more, gripping the waist of his boxers and shorts and shoving them down together. He grunts, then forces out a hard breath when I go so low that he can’t cup my tits.
“Come here,” he says urgently, begging in the darkness of his room. It sounds so loud, but I know he’s merely whispering so our neighbors don’t wake up.
I don’t, though. “No.” I’m too determined to show him that I feel the same. That I love him too. That I’ve already fallen too quickly and too far to ever think about going back to my life before him. Before realizing how much it hurt to love and surrender to it.
I crawl back towards his erection. It stands proudly so close to my face. Despite the darkness of the night, I see the details I want to memorize forever. The thick, hard length, so upright because of me. Because of us.
He doesn’t have a chance to tell me anything else. This time, I have the last word. I drag my tongue along his tip and savor the tart, salty taste of him. It’s been a while. It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to embark on this route of foreplay with a man, but with Dalton, I’m aroused and eager to please.
Because this is the man I love. It’s taken me too long to accept that fact, but it’s unshakable, and I am all for proving it to him.
A loud curse flies from his mouth, and I can’t help but smile as I wrap my lips around him. His fingers dig into the blanket, and as he fists the covers for purchase, I bob up and down on his shaft. When I swirl my tongue on the tip, he groans in pleasure. If I slow my lips and suck harder, he shouts another not-so-quiet slip of profanity. I alternate, swallowing him deeper with both fast and slow dips and rises, and it doesn’t matter what I do or how, I am thoroughly driving him crazy.
Knowing I have the power to make him so close to coming is heady. I revel in the knowledge I can do this, and it feels so right between us. It’s not a hookup for fun. It’s not a convenient fling because we’re both here and idle on vacation. And it’s not a cheap waste of anyone’s time. Even though the night is only beginning with foreplay, it is all part of loving him.
“Aubrey!”
He sits upright when I feel his balls tightening. His thighs go hard, and I can tell he’s about to come. Before he lets me have a chance to swallow his cum, he scoots back.
My mouth is empty, losing contact with him with an audible, wet pop. I scowl up at him as he pants and shakes his head.
“Why’d you make me stop?”
“Too soon. I want to make it last.”
His words halt me. To make it last? Why, because he’s leaving so soon?
No. Don’t think about it.
It’s ever-present on my mind now, though. He wasn’t afraid to ask me to come to New York with him, but I stall in offering the opposite to him. What if he were to just stay here? To be with me? It’s not fair of me to ask him, and I won’t. He doesn’t deserve that obligation, to put his business and wealth on hold for me out here in the middle of the wilderness. But his comment about “making this last” between us hits a raw spot.
I don’t want to make it last—for now. A secret little part of me just wants to make it last for good. I can’t say that though, and with my core so wet and throbbing and my breasts feeling so heavy and achy for his attention, I don’t. I banish the thoughts from my mind and go for what I want, what we both need.
Again, I shove at him. He doesn’t fight me, slumping back to the bed as I crawl up toward him. Thank goodness the long sleep shirt I chose for pajamas was just that, a shirt. It’s a long one, and I never wear shorts with it. Tonight, I didn’t even opt for panties.
I’m bare as I kneel over him. We’re naked, finally, and his squeaky bed has me wincing at every shift that causes too much noise.
Someone will hear. I’m sure of it. But it doesn’t matter now. If we’re in limbo between making this last for now or for good, I don’t give a damn about anything anyone outside this bedroom thinks.
He lifts his hands and cups my ass cheeks as I move up higher. I don’t take my hand off his pulsing staff, still stroking and spreading the wetness of my saliva and his pre-cum. His eyes lock on mine, and I swear I could sink into the depths of love that shine there forever. He’s safe. He’s caring. He appreciates and respects how hard it’s been for us to come to this point, and I want to reassure him, too, that I have no intention of wounding him after he’s risked his heart with me.
Goosebumps break out on my skin as he runs his hard, calloused hands up from the firm squeeze he gives my butt then up my back. As I angle his cockhead to my entrance, I wait, gazing at him and praying he can see the devotion in my eyes, this love I’m still so timid to voice aloud. We’re both so battered from life that my wish is for him to just sense how I feel about him, that he’ll just know. He does. He seems to know exactly how much this matters to me because he sighs and grins.
“I love you, Aubrey, no matter what.”
That sounds too open-ended, that no matter what, almost as though he counts on something breaking us apart. I do the opposite, defying him by sinking onto his hard length and seeking that all-consuming union. We’re no longer two on this bed, but one. With wild lifts and hard pushes down, I ride him and savor this tie between us.
It’s sex. It’s only a physical action. I know that, but with him, and after the words he blurted to me, it’s so much more. He grunts and clenches his teeth. I feel his power in the deep grip he has on my hips as he guides me to go faster, to grind against him longer, to roll my hips so I can push him closer to coming at the same time that I please myself with the friction on my clit.
“Come with me, Aubrey. Please. Come with me.”
I cry out when I reach the pinnacle of the climax I’ve been speeding toward. With a sharp noise of completion, I come around him, squeezing him and milking him. It’s too brutal of a drop, and as I fall into the abyss of ecstasy and pleasure, I let my orgasm take over me.
I’m heedless to the squeaking springs and the headboard knocking against the wall. I don’t listen to the scrape of the bed’s feet over the floor. I gasp and shout, then cry out too loudly when Dalton presses his thumb to my clit and prolongs my orgasm. He tenses, still jerking and filling me so deep that I fear I’ll pass out. I’ve never, ever come this hard, and I’m not alone.
He reaches for me and pulls me down over his chest as it heaves so fast. Neither of us can catch our breath, and as we try to, we lie there together in a sweaty mess of depleted energy. And together, just like that, with our arms and legs entwined on his not-so-quiet bed, we fall asleep.