Chapter 1 #3
“And now,” I sobbed, putting fears into words in real time, “I have to come to terms with the fact that he’s gone.
That I won’t be making him breakfast or dinner or getting us surprise iced chai lattes on random afternoons.
I won’t be able to hug him every morning or listen to him play his guitar after school or watch TV with him every night.
I won’t know if he’s okay or not because he’s such a stoic kid, and when he’s home, I can see it.
I can tell when he’s struggling. But what if I can’t tell when he’s gone?
What if he never calls me? What if he gets annoyed with me and stops answering my texts?
” I was hysterical now, a mascara-running-down-my-cheeks, ugly-crying mess.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be like.
I don’t know what our relationship will turn into.
All I know is that he’s gone. And I am so completely and utterly and unbearably alone—”
“Christ,” he bit out, an explosion of a word, like pressurized lava finally bursting through the rock holding it back.
“Get in here.” Grabbing my hand, he pulled me into the cabin, into his arms. Arms that were warm and strong and dry.
“Shh,” he whispered into my hair, rocking me gently from side to side as I shivered and shook and gasped for air.
“Shh. It’s going to be okay. Just breathe. ”
But I couldn’t breathe. I could only weep, sadness crushing me until it felt like a rib might crack, like if he wasn’t holding me together, I’d fall to pieces.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’m here. You’re not alone.” He started rubbing my back. “You’re so cold, poor thing. We need to warm you up.”
His grip on me loosened, and I clung to him, not ready to let go. Not ready to crumble.
“Okay, okay.” He held me even more tightly, tucking my head beneath his chin. “I understand.”
The tears still came, soaking my lashes. But slowly, with each degree of heat that transferred from his body to mine, my shivering faded.
“That’s it.” His low voice rumbled through my chest. “Just breathe. Nice and slow.”
I took a breath, nice and slow just like he asked. He took the next one with me.
“There you go,” he soothed. And while my tears finally slowed, we breathed together, rocking in a slow dance to no music. Rocking while my fists uncurled, my palms pressing into his back, feeling firm muscles tensing under hot skin.
I took a deeper breath, and, god, he smelled so good. Not cologne, not even soap. He smelled crisp, like autumn, like sun-warmed days and sweater-wrapped nights.
His hand rose to cradle my head, and when he said, “That’s my girl,” in a whisper-soft purr, despite how chilled I was, how wet we both were now, a spark flickered inside me, heat building in all the places where my body touched his. Thighs, hips, belly, breasts.
I turned my face, my mouth hovering just above his collarbone, and the warmth from his skin thawed my lips. My fingers closed as I gathered his shirt between them, as I leaned forward, drawn like a moth to a flame, and pressed a kiss to the side of his throat.
I felt him swallow beneath my lips, felt his pulse pounding as his hand slid under my hair.
He cupped my neck, squeezed, and pulled until I had no choice but to look up at him.
At this man holding me, soothing me. This man I’d just kissed, out of nowhere, when that simply wasn’t something Hannah James did.
This perfect stranger with his ocean-blue eyes and silvery auburn hair, and the fingers of his other hand closing around my hip as I rucked his shirt up in the back, finding bare skin.
Feeling him harden against me through his sweats.
We stared. We breathed. We crackled like the electrical storm still churning outside as something beyond words passed between us, some primal understanding flashing in his eyes.
“I need,” I heard myself say, not sure what I needed, what word would accurately complete that sentence. Or maybe it was just a statement. Maybe it was enough. I need.
He took my face between his hands, a soft brush of his thumbs drying my tears while his gaze roved over me. “What can I do?” His tone was a little demanding while I stared at him, unblinking, heart fucking pounding. “Tell me.”
“I…” I tried to swallow, but my throat only spasmed on a gasp when he dropped one hand to my ass. “I need… Please.” Please read my mind. Please don’t make me say it. Please just know.
“Fuck it,” he ground out, lifting me into his arms while I kicked off my single muddy shoe and wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing against him, hard and thick and vital.
“I already know.” His lips seared the skin of my neck.
But it was his hand reaching back to massage warmth into my cold and wet toes, the sweetness of it, that made me whimper. “But will you let me give it to you?”
There was the woman I used to be before this week.
And then there was whoever this woman was now, the one who was desperately telling this stranger, “Yes,” as he carried her into his bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him.
The woman who bounced off his bed after he’d tossed her there, who watched him wrench his shirt over his head, watched his chest heave as he crawled over her and undid the button of her pants, slid them off her legs, and pressed an open-mouthed kiss onto her underwear.
“No.” I grasped his head, pulling him up. “No foreplay. Just… Please.”
Staring forlorn between my thighs like I’d just taken away his favorite dessert, he licked his lips, then nodded. “Okay.”
He stood at the end of the bed and pushed his sweats and boxer briefs down his legs, toned and dusted in auburn hair. Hair that led to the proud, hard erection he pumped with a slow, lazy fist, and, yes, this was good. This was crazy. But this was very, very good.
After grabbing a condom from his nightstand, he crawled back onto the bed, took off my shirt, unclasped my bra and tossed it over his shoulder. Then he tore the condom rapper open with his teeth.
“Can I touch you?” he asked, rolling the condom on with a practiced efficiency that made my mouth water. “I need to make sure you’re ready. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I nodded, then squirmed when he reached between my legs, cupping me. His fingers swept through my core, slid over my clit, and I bit back a scream. I’d never been so turned on, so out of my mind, so close so quickly.
“Fuck.” His groan was ravenous. “Tell me how you need it.”
“Hard,” I pleaded while he brushed slippery fingertips over my clit again. “Now.”
When he nestled between my thighs, took himself in hand, and pushed into me with one determined, confident thrust, I knew I was dreaming. Because I came right away, shattering into an explosion of heat and light. And that never happened. Not to me.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked while his hips rocked, his arm hooking under my knee, pulling, opening me up, bending me in half while he hit all the right places inside me like I’d drawn him a map.
“Yes,” I gasped after a particularly hard, particularly perfect thrust.
Full lips touched one corner of my mouth, then the other, soft stubble brushing over my chin, my cheeks, teasing.
But when he finally kissed me, shallow at first, then deeper, his tongue brushing over mine, tasting like whiskey and mint, somehow slow and patient even as he drove into me so hard and fast the headboard marked the time in sharp, staccato thuds, a tingle swirled low in my belly, wrapping around my spine, gripping me.
“Hmm,” he hummed, soothing again as his body continued to contradict him with its unfaltering, unforgiving pace. “You’re going to come for me again, aren’t you?”
Since this was a dream, I refused to wake up. So I closed my eyes and said, “Yes.”
“You feel so good,” he praised. “You deserve this. You deserve to feel good too. Can I touch your clit? Can I rub it and make you come? I want to feel you again, squeezing me, so hot and tight and perfect.”
“Yes.” The word was barely out of my mouth when his lips met mine again, his hips shifting so his hand could reach between our bodies.
When his thumb found my clit and circled with the right amount of pressure, the right amount of speed, the right amount of everything, he broke me.
But this fracture was necessary, letting everything I’d been holding so tightly inside tumble out.
As pleasure raced through me, bowing my back off the bed and forcing a silent scream from my lips, a single tear tracked down my temple.
“There it is.” I heard the smile in his voice, felt it like honey poured over my skin.
“What a body you have. What amazing things this body has done. And right now, it’s all for me.
What a gift.” He cupped my breast, brushing his thumb over my nipple until I writhed beneath him.
And yet he kept moving, kept thrusting, never losing rhythm.
“All this soft skin and these perfect curves. So fucking sexy. So fucking… Fuck.”
His head dipped, his curls tickling my forehead, his shoulders tensing under my palms. His patient, steady thrusts transformed into an erratic frenzy of flexed muscles and muffled grunts. And when he came, I felt him too, a deep pulsing inside me, steady and solid and so, so good.
When his body collapsed over mine, the weight of him pressed me into the bed in the best way, a human blanket, warm and comforting. How was he so comforting? Like it seeped from his pores. Comfort, ease, safety.
He rolled to the side, then rolled back. And when he nestled against me, his fingers dipping between my legs again, brushing over hyper-sensitive skin, I said, “No. I can’t.”