Chapter 30
It’s hard to believe I once thought there wasn’t enough of my heart and body left to give to someone else.
But Riley is resourceful.
Whatever remains of me is enough for him to work with. Or maybe, I haven’t lost myself. I’ve just buried parts of me along the way to protect them.
And god, does Riley know where to find the treasure.
On the stairs I’m gluttonous for him more now even after our first kiss when I almost gave in, when I was desperate to feel this way—wanted, desired, and even loved.
Somehow, Riley manages to get us up the stairs. When I slam against the door, the wind is knocked out of me, but the rushed breaths, the sweeps of his tongue that Riley feeds into my mouth is the sweetest resuscitation. I slip, sliding down but what keeps me from falling further is his hard length, straining in his pants. I’m angered, frustrated by the hand he uses to open the door, frantic for him to return it to my body.
“Stay, stay,” I whine as he laps at my neck. “Right here.”
“I won’t be nice here.” He bites at my ear. “Here, I’ll go so hard, we’ll splinter the wood.”
I bite my lip.
“I need to see you.” Riley shakes his head into the crook of my neck before he drags his nose slowly up the column, inhaling as he goes. His voice changes, making it grow deeper, huskier.
“Every.”
He circles his hips.
“Fucking.”
Another circle.
“Inch.”
This time when he thrusts up I mewl.
When he opens the door, I grab his face and pull his lips back to mine, my tongue swooping into his mouth and linking with his. We’re pulled apart only when Riley lowers me onto the bed and I pout at the loss of him even though he’s an arm’s reach away.
He swings the door shut and hits a switch that turns on the light in the corner of the room.
Even though I’m still clothed, there’s something vulnerable about my position on Riley’s bed while he stands looking down at me. Maybe I should feel shy. But it’s what I see that makes me feel none of that—Riley, and how he’s looking at me, how his tongue sweeps across his parted lips. I decide there’s no room for bashfulness when the room is clouded with so much desire.
Riley grabs my ankle, slipping off my shoe and drops it to the floor before doing the same with the other, but this time presses a kiss to the top of my foot before lowering it back down. I rub my thighs together, and the need brewing inside me shifting into an ache when he stretches an arm behind his head, grabbing the back of his t-shirt to lift it off.
“I want you to see me,” Riley says.
My fingers flex when Riley undoes his jeans and lets them fall to the ground, leaving him in a pair of boxer briefs that pulls tightly to a point in the middle.
I writhe on the bed, needing to combat the throbbing. “Come here,” I whine.
Relief feels near when Riley crawls onto the bed. But, ever the asshole, he hovers with a grin before he sits back and gently tugs me up so I’m sitting.
“I’m going to take off your clothes first.”
It’s not quite a question, but what Riley does do is wait until I manage a nod.
My eyes flutter shut under Riley’s scent while he removes his hoodie and tugs it from my body before going for my shirt. I whimper when his lips press to my bare shoulder as he reaches around, unclasping my bra.
“So damn beautiful.” Riley trails his mouth from my shoulder and up my neck, his words leaving little kisses along my skin. “Lean back.”
He must underestimate what strength I have back. I don’t lean, I topple back onto the pillows, gnawing on my bottom lip while Riley removes my jeans and underwear.
“Fuck.”
I bring my legs together again because the sight and sound of him sends heat flooding. But Riley pries them open.
“I said every inch.”
Shutting my eyes, I tremble when he runs a finger up my leg, lightly along my slit and over my stomach, up to my breasts, circling a nipple. When my eyes fly open, his warm tongue teases the hard, tight bud before he pulls it into his mouth and begins to suck.
A whimper of his name flees my lips and a groan replaces it when he stops. I swear, I’ll die right here and now if second thoughts have become contagious and he caught the bug I’ve had for the last few days.
I lift my head, and even though he’s let go of my nipple, he hasn’t backed away from my breast.
“Say it again,” he orders.
I’m panting so hard that the rise of my chest rubs my nipple against the stubble of his chin and I’m so desperate even that feels like a reward. “What?”
“My name,” Riley growls. “Say my name again. ”
My head returns to the pillow as I sigh it out and he returns his mouth to my breast.
Riley.
Riley.
Riley .
I try to continue saying his name because it draws a more enthusiastic roll of his tongue, a deep groan against my nipple. But when Riley’s hand dances down my stomach, I could care less about what’s coming out of my mouth.
I only care that Riley likes it. A lot.
“That’s it.” He smiles against my breast as he presses his hand against me, drawing a buck of my hips. “You deserve something better than what I’m about to do to you,” he whispers wickedly. “And I promise, I’ll give that to you after as long as you do something small for me.”
“What?” I croak.
He licks the tip of my nipple. “Keep saying my name.”
I fling my head to the side. “Riley...”
His name floats into a soft moan as a long, thick finger enters me. I clamp my legs together, wanting to keep him there and wanting more. But I settle—happily—when his mouth trails down the valley of my breasts, further to replace his finger.
“I’m going to taste every inch of you too,” he breathes out, and I don’t know how it’s possible that anything in the world is hotter than the temperature between my legs, but Riley’s words are packed with heat. “Starting with your pussy. I like to work my way from the middle.”
Nothing—not even two layers of duct tape across my mouth—could stop the noises that come out of me. My head flings side to side as I wind my fingers in his hair. “Yes,” I pant. “Yes.”
It’s the press of his lips, the roll of his tongue, the delicious friction of his beard that makes it hard to keep my hips against the bed.
“Riley…”
He slides in one finger and rolls his tongue .
“Riley…”
Another finger, faster pumps. He moans and I buck from the vibration.
“Riley…”
His lips latch onto my clit and he begins to suck.
Until…he stops.
“Riley…” I warn.
“That’s my favorite way,” he hums against my thigh.
He presses a large palm against my lower stomach while the fingers on his other hand massage me from inside.
“W-what?”
My entire body is buzzing when his thumb circles my clit. I feel him smiling cruelly against my skin.
My toes curl so hard into the bedspread there will be a crease impossible to iron out.
“Like what?” I fumble out.
Immediately, I regret asking. I take it back entirely. Because just when I’m teetering on the edge, Riley stops again. And I’m about to be a blubbering mess.
When my eyes fling open, he’s hovering above me with a wicked smirk, his lips stained with my own gloss. There’s a flicker in his eye as my face twists in distress.
“Like you think you have any control here,” he whispers against my mouth.
Riley is right. So right. But the thing is, I don’t care. I don’t want it anymore. I want to surrender to everything, good and bad. But especially good.
I run my tongue across my lips, tasting myself. “Fuck control. And fuck me.”
“We’ll get there. Did you think I was done?”
I tilt my head up, determined to get another lick of myself coming off his tongue when suddenly, Riley isn’t above me anymore— I’m above him, gasping, my head spinning. I slam my hand against the wall above the head of the bed.
“Sit,” he orders. Riley’s fingers dig into my thighs, spreading them open more and more. It’s because he knows my body so well out of the bedroom, he knows what I’m capable of in it too.
But I point my toes, finding the mattress as I hesitate sliding further into a split.
“Sit on my face, Harper. If I don’t smell like you tomorrow morning, I’m going to be upset. I’m in a good mood right now. You’d hate to see me angry.”
When he slaps my ass, I drop just a bit, the tip of his lip hitting my clit. “Sink and drown me, baby.”
I can’t catch my breath when I tilt my head down, finding emerald eyes glitter with speckles of grey. They’re calling to me. They’re begging me to stop fighting it.
I relax my feet and drop down. Riley’s tongue fills me up and I scream his name.
His hands palm my ass more forcefully, pulling me tighter, as if my body paints life into him instead of deprives him of oxygen as I buck against his face.
One of his hands leaves me but doesn’t return—not to my ass, waist, or breast. When I feel Riley’s body writhing beneath mine, I know where it went, and I remove one hand from the wall and lean back, swatting his away so I can replace it. He throbs in my hand.
The realization that Riley is so turned on by turning me on takes me to another level. I soar, screaming his name in a way I don’t recognize—with zero inhibition and not an ounce of self-control.
And even though I feel fantastic, I only have enough energy to slide down so I now straddle Riley’s lower stomach before I collapse and melt against him, his own wildly beating heart echoing beneath my ear.
Every inch of my body lights up under his touch. His fingers leave tingles up and down my arms. “That’s what I dream of.”
“What?” I manage. “Me suffocating you?”
Riley’s laugh grumbles within his chest against my cheek, and he grips my arms and slides me up so we’re face to face. “You wanting me .”
The emphasis Riley puts on himself breaks through the cloud of bliss I’m surrounded in. I understand, now, how much clarity Riley needs. He needs to know that even though I miss Nate, I want him.
“I do want you,” I whisper. “So much.”
There’s been a change in the room, as if one window was cracked open and a breeze floated in from outside, painting it now with streaks of loss that could easily crumble me. For a minute, when Riley’s finger brushes a tear from my cheek, I worry it did just that until I remember something else he said.
“Maybe you’re just happy I survived.”
Grief is a vast, dark, seemingly endless night sky. But without all that dark, I’d never really see just how beautiful even the smallest spark of light can be.
I’d never see how beautiful Riley could be. I’d never know how much my heart could hold—love, sadness, all of it. It belonged to another before. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have place for Riley too.
“This is what I dream about.” I roll onto my side and take him with me so we’re still face-to-face, holding each other while I run a hand down his body and tug off his boxer briefs.
I return my hand to Riley’s face, cupping his cheek. “ You .”
He relaxes beneath my touch even though his breathing picks up when I lift my leg, draping it over his hip and bring us closer. His swollen head slides between my legs and his eyes find mine.
It’s one thing to be held—like Riley does to me now with his hands.
But it’s another thing to feel what it’s like to be held by just a look, like with just a sweep of eyes you can be held—mind, body, and soul—by another. It’s so strong, so powerful, so magical , his touch feels like a bonus compared to it.
“Harper…”
I clutch him tighter. I don’t want Riley to say my name because I need reassurance there isn’t anyone else for him. But the way it sounds leaving his mouth as he slides inside me is a gift I didn’t know I needed.
In Riley’s arms, I’m not Harper, the widow. I’m not Harper, the mother. I’m Harper— his Harper.
Our eyes lock when Riley presses himself all the way inside, giving me every inch of himself, the last part of what he hasn’t already. Leaning forward, Riley lets his eyelids flutter shut. I shake my head against him.
“No. Watch.”
It takes another second and one strong roll of my hips, but Riley opens his eyes, looking down. I slide back and forth, circling my hips when he disappears fully inside me again.
“Fuck. That’s it,” he pants. His fingers press harder into my sides. “Again.”
Riley asks and I comply. Over and over until he smashes his mouth to mine. Our kisses grow messy, our touches more urgent.
The harder I buck my hips, the faster Riley breathes.
The more I say his name, the tighter he holds me.
We’re racing but carrying each other to the finish.
Creases appear across Riley’s forehead as he strains himself to hold back, to wait for me to join him and I hear another one of his echoes sound in my mind.
“We do this together or not at all .”
I smile as I come, grabbing onto Riley and sink my nails into his skin, wondering how crazy the world must be for us to be this way right here and now.
Life is crazy.
And sometimes sad.
But also beautiful.
Especially the middle.