Chapter 15 Cole #2
Groaning, I began to move again, fucking her hard and deep.
I remembered all the nights I’d fantasized about her, all the times I’d imagined being inside her this way—my hand had been a poor fucking substitute.
This was a full-body experience, and every nerve ending was alive and on fire.
Every sense was intensified—I could smell her, taste her, hear her crying out for me, for God, for release.
Stars appeared behind my closed eyes as I reached the peak and clung to the edge, desperate to bring her with me, rocking into her again and again, until I felt the tension within her give way and her frustrated, pleading cries were eclipsed by one long sigh as her body clenched around me.
I let go, and my body took over, exploding inside her, turning inside out, throbbing in hot, desperate, rippling waves of relief.
We lay there for a moment, tangled and clutching, our skin slick with sweat I hadn’t even noticed before, our breath slowing down, our muscles gradually relaxing.
I buried my face in her hair and inhaled, my entire body humming with pleasure. She stroked my back, pressed her lips to my shoulder, wrapped her legs around me. For a few minutes, we said nothing and just held each other, the only two souls in the world. In the universe. In existence.
Eventually, I lifted my chest off her and looked down at her face, my heart beating hard. Those brown eyes threatened to undo me. “Hey.”
She smiled. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
The smile widened, and she nodded, eyes drifting shut. “Yes.”
“Am I crushing you?”
“Yes. Never stop.”
I laughed, shifting onto my side so that she wasn’t bearing any of my weight, but taking her with me so we were face to face. “I just got here. Suffocating you is not part of my plan.”
“I didn’t know there was a plan.”
“Actually, there isn’t. Not beyond this anyway. My plan was to get you to listen to me, tell you how I felt, and then see if you’d let me take all your clothes off.”
She giggled, her fingertips brushing against my chest. “It worked. Well done.”
“But now I need a new plan.”
“I’m good with more of the same,” she said. “I liked every single part of the old one, even if you did cover my mouth to get me to shut up.”
“I had to—you would not stop talking.”
“I thought I was protecting myself.”
“I know.” I brushed her hair back from her face. “And you were right to stop things last night. It’s not that I didn’t feel this way then—because I did—but hearing you admit your feelings made it impossible to ignore mine any longer.”
“Tell me again how you feel,” she said shyly, her eyes on my chest.
I gathered her in close, tucking her head beneath my chin.
For once, the words flowed easily. “I feel a lot of things. I feel like I want to hold you all night. I feel like all the oxygen goes out of the room when you enter it. I feel like I’m the only guy in the world when you look at me.
I feel like there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you smile. ”
She snuggled closer, putting an arm and leg over me. “If this turns out to be a dream, I’m going to be so fucking mad.”
I kissed the top of her head. “It’s not.”
“I wish I could go back in time and tell twelve-year-old me not to give up hope, that there’s a reason she has all those feelings for you that won’t ease up.”
I chuckled. “Did you really have a crush on me all the way back then?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “And it never ended.”
“Get out, you’ve had plenty of boyfriends over the years. And I secretly hated every one of them.”
“Did you?” She sounded surprised.
“Yes. I would tell myself it was just me being protective, but there was probably more to it. Especially that asshole you brought around at Christmas a few years ago. What was his name . . . Jake?”
She groaned. “Don’t remind me. I only dated him because he was the total opposite of you. I was trying to distract myself.”
“He pinched your ass at the tree lighting, and I wanted to fucking punch him in the face.”
Pushing back from my chest, she propped herself up and looked down at me. “You saw him pinch my ass at the outdoor tree lighting ceremony? In that huge crowd?”
I rolled onto my back and put my hands behind my head. “Maybe.”
“Were you watching me?”
“Maybe.”
Her face lit up, and she slapped my chest. “You were!”
“Well, I could tell he was an asshole. I felt like I needed to keep an eye on you. You know, for your own safety.”
She narrowed her eyes. “For my own safety?”
“Yes. Definitely not because I wanted to touch your ass.”
“Of course not. Because you were always a perfect gentleman.”
“Aren’t I still?”
“Well, I don’t know.” She pretended to think about it, tapping a finger to her chin. “Now that I know what you were thinking, I might have to reconsider my assessment of you.”
I reached out and grabbed her by the forearms, and she squealed as I flipped her beneath me. “Haven’t you been reconsidering it since the moment in my bedroom when you insisted on seeing my belt?”
A sly grin took over her face. “Oh yeah. That.”
“I warned you.”
“You did.” She wrapped her legs around me. “It was still a bit of a shock.”
“I remember. You tried to leave through the closet door.”
Her giggle warmed me all over. “God, that was embarrassing.”
“Tell me about it.”
“However, it took my fantasies to a whole new level. So thank you.”
I grinned. “Like the one where I arrest you for being a bad girl?”
She nodded, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “Uh huh.”
“That text message fucking blew my mind.” I leaned down and rubbed my lips against hers. “Will you do that again sometime?”
“Sure. I’ve got plenty of fantasies to choose from. There’s this one where you bust into the bedroom on Prom night where Brody Nichols is pawing me and trying to talk me out of my virginity, and you kick his ass. Then you pop my cherry for yourself, of course.”
My jaw was hanging open, anger shooting through my veins. “Wait a minute. Is any of that story true? Did that little shit Brody Nichols actually paw you?”
“Relax, it was years ago. I’m thirty, remember? And it was very minor pawing. Second base stuff.”
“I will fucking tear him apart,” I seethed. “I don’t care how long it’s been.” I’d never liked Brody Nichols—he’d been a jackass as a teenager, and he was still a jackass as an adult. “He deserves an ass-kicking.”
“He probably does, but it’s not necessary on my account. I handled it.”
“How?”
“I kneed him in the balls and told him to go fuck himself.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I cannot picture the sweet little Cheyenne Dempsey I knew doing that.”
“You didn’t know everything about me,” she said coyly, bringing her hands to my chest. Her fingertips teased my nipples, making my blood rush faster.
“That’s true.” I lowered my mouth to hers, protectiveness and possessiveness igniting the fire in me again. “But from now on, the only hands that get near you are mine.”
“Or mine,” she whispered, “while I pretend they’re yours.”
“We’re done pretending,” I told her, rolling onto my back and bringing her on top of me. “From now on, we’re the real thing.”