Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Ace
"You were about to fuck me, Ace," she says. Almost sweetly.
A growl erupts from my chest. That feral glint in her green eyes. That tilt of her chin. Daring me. Always daring me.
I rip her flannel open, and the buttons scatter into the sand.
I don't waste a second. My mouth is on her chest, licking a path down her sternum, grabbing her breast in one hand and squeezing while the other works the button on her shorts.
Her skin is hot and salt-slick under my tongue, and the sound she makes when I bite down on the swell of her breast is something I want branded into my memory.
"Fuck, I'm obsessed with you, Goldie," I mutter against her skin.
I drop to my knees. Pull off her boots and toss them aside. Then, slowly, I drag her shorts and panties down her legs. She steps out of them, and I look up at her from the sand. Moonlight on her skin. Rope on her wrists. Those green eyes stare down at me like I'm the only thing left in the world.
I grab her calf, lift it, and place it over my shoulder. Then I dive in.
She's already soaking for me. All over my tongue from the first taste. Her bound hands find my hair and pull, shoving my face harder against her as her hips grind into me. Desperate. Demanding. Taking exactly what she needs.
"That's it, baby. Use me," I tell her.
There is nothing hotter than when she gets like this. Feral and selfish and using my mouth as if it belongs to her. It does. Every part of me does.
I dig my fingers into her ass and hold her in position, letting her ride my face, feeling her thighs start to tremble around me. The way her breathing fractures. The way her grip tightens in my hair until it burns. She's close. Right there. Right on the edge.
The second I feel her body start to break, I stop.
I place her foot back on the ground. She whimpers. Tries to pull me back. I'm already standing, already spinning her around, pressing her into the creek wall. Sand against her cheek. Bound arms above her head. Her back arched, her body shaking from the stolen orgasm.
I kick her legs apart. Grab her hips. Pull her ass back, positioning her exactly where I need her.
I fist my hand in her hair and push inside her. All the way to the hilt in one stroke.
She screams. My name tears out of her, bounces off the creek walls, and disappears into the open desert. The sound of it almost finishes me right there.
And I fuck her. Just the way she likes it. Hard, fast, and so deep I almost see stars. Every thrust drives her forward into the bank, and she takes it. Takes all of it. Pushing back against me, meeting me stroke for stroke with a hunger that matches my own.
She's fighting between screaming and catching her breath. So I make the choice for her.
I wrap my hand around her throat and tilt her head back.
"This what you needed, Harper?" I grunt.
"Yes!"
"Always been a perfect little whore for me, haven't you?" I whisper against her ear.
She tightens around me so hard my vision blurs, and I grin.
"You're just as bad for me," she pants.
I bend down and sink my teeth into her shoulder blade. Hard enough to mark. Hard enough that she'll feel it tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.
"Then come all over my dick, pretty girl. Show me how fucking bad you need me."
She does. So violently that it pulls my own release from me with the same force.
Every drop inside of her, buried to the hilt, my forehead pressed between her shoulder blades as my whole body locks.
But I don't let up the pace. I fuck her through it.
Every wave, every aftershock, just building more until the sounds coming out of her don't sound like words anymore.
I pull out. Spin her back around to face me. Her eyes are glazed, half gone, and I lift her up against the creek wall. Her bound arms loop over my neck, and I slam my mouth over hers as I slide three fingers inside of her.
"Ace, fuck. Fuck. Ace. Fuck," she chants it against my lips like a prayer.
"Another one, baby," I murmur.
She tugs me flush against her, chasing it, grinding down on my hand with everything she has left. I bite her lip. Feel her moan vibrate through my teeth.
"You got this, darlin'. Don't fight me. Just come all over my hand like a good girl. Can you do that for me?"
She nods. Tries to suck in a breath. She's so close. Teetering. I can feel it in the way her walls are fluttering around my fingers, the way her whole body is wound so tight she's about to snap.
I dip my head and press my lips to her neck. Softly this time. A kiss, not a bite. And that's what does it.
She soaks my hand. And I mean soaks.
A scream rips out of her that makes my ears ring. Echoes off the creek bed like a canyon. She doesn't fall apart. She shatters. Completely. Every muscle seizing, her whole body convulsing against me, her face buried in my neck, and her nails digging into my back through the rope.
And I put the pieces back together.
I slow my hand. Gentle. Drawing it out. Letting each wave roll through her at its own pace instead of driving them harder. My other arm is locked around her waist, holding all of her weight, because she can't hold it herself anymore.
I press my lips to hers. Softly. Again. And again. Small kisses. Quiet ones. The kind that don't ask for anything. The kind that just says I'm here. I've got you. I ain't going anywhere.
She rides it out until she's completely spent. Every last tremor. Every last breath. And then she collapses into me, boneless, her forehead on my shoulder, her arms still looped around my neck.
I hold her. Just hold her. Let the desert go quiet around us. Let her heartbeat slow against my chest. Let her breathing even out until it matches mine.
"You good, baby?" I whisper, wiping the hair from her face.
"Never better," she croaks.
"Atta girl." I tap her ass, and she laughs.
I reach up and work the knot on the rope.
It comes free in seconds, and I unwind it from her wrists carefully, checking her skin.
A little red. Nothing that'll bruise. I lift each wrist to my mouth and press a kiss to the inside.
Right over the pulse point. Right where I can feel her heart still hammering.
She watches me do it with glassy eyes and a look on her face that almost undoes me worse than anything that just happened.
"Arms hurt?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "Just tingly."
I rub them. Slow circles from her wrists to her elbows to get the blood moving. She closes her eyes and leans into me, and the sound she makes is so soft and so trusting that my chest aches.
I set her down carefully. Her legs buckle immediately, and I catch her before she hits the sand. She laughs again.
"Easy. I got you."
"My legs don't work, Ace." She says with a pout.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Take it however you want. I physically cannot walk."
I grin. Grab her shorts, shake the sand out of them, and help her step into them, pulling them up over her hips.
Her flannel is a lost cause. Buttons somewhere in the Arizona desert, never to be seen again.
So I pull off my own shirt and put it on her.
She's swimming in it. Looks better on her than it ever did on me.
I button it up. Three buttons. Enough to keep her decent for the walk back. She watches my hands with this expression. Soft. Quiet. Like me, dressing her is doing something to her heart that all the other stuff couldn't reach.
I find her boots. Knock the sand out of them, kneel down, and slide them onto her feet one at a time. She puts her hand on my shoulder to balance, and her thumb brushes the back of my neck.
I know she’s watching every move I make. I just want to show her what it’s like to be mine again.
"You don't have to do all this," she says quietly.
I look up at her from the ground. "Yeah, I do."
"Why?"
"Because the way I love you doesn't end when the fun part's over, Harper. It's this part too. It's every part. The putting back together is just as important as the taking apart."
Her eyes fill. She blinks it back. Nods once.
I stand up and cup her face. Kiss her forehead. Long and slow and with everything I have.
"Come on, Goldie. Let's get you home."
"I still can't walk."
"I know."
I turn around and crouch. She stares at my back for a second, then laughs.
"A piggyback? Really?"
"You got a better idea? Your legs don't work. Your words, not mine."
She climbs on. Arms around my neck. Legs around my waist. Her face tucked into the curve of my shoulder. I hook my arms under her thighs and stand up. She weighs nothing. She always has.
The walk back through the desert is quiet.
The moon's high. The air has cooled just enough that it feels good against my bare skin.
Her breath is warm and steady against my neck, and every few steps she presses her lips to my shoulder.
Small kisses. Sleepy ones. The kind that don't mean anything and mean everything.
"Ace?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For always making me feel safe. Even when you're scaring the hell out of me."
I tighten my grip on her legs. Press my cheek against the side of her head.
"That's the deal, pretty girl. That's always been the deal."
She nuzzles into my neck. I feel her smile against my skin.
We pass the boulders where she tricked me with the decoy breath. Pass the spot where she broke my grip and put me in the dirt. I make a mental note to check that knee when we get home. It's throbbing. She doesn't need to know that.
The parking lot appears ahead. The bar's still going. Music and laughter spilling out from the front. Nobody out back. Just the trucks and the flickering light and the gravel under my boots.
I walk her to the passenger side and set her down gently on the tailgate. She sits there, legs dangling, wearing my shirt and her boots and a constellation of marks on her throat that she'll have to explain to no one because she doesn't owe anyone a damn thing.
I stand between her knees. Push her hair back from her face. She looks up at me with those green eyes. Tired and glowing and so full of love that it makes my throat tight.
"You're staring," she says.
"I'm always staring."
"I know. I like it."
I kiss her nose. She scrunches it.
"Stay right here. I'm going to grab our beers."
"They'll be warm."
"I’ll get fresh ones."
I’m sure a few eyebrows will raise at the state of me walking in there. I look like I’ve had a brawl, not sex.
I back away from her. She catches my hand. Holds it until the distance stretches our fingers apart and they slip free.
I head for the back door, and I glance over my shoulder once. She's sitting on the tailgate, legs swinging, head tipped back, looking up at the stars in my shirt.
And I think. That's it. That's the whole damn picture.
Everything I've ever wanted is sitting on the back of my truck in the middle of the desert, wearing my clothes and covered in my marks and looking at the sky like she's thanking it for something.
Like I'm the thing she's thanking it for.
And she's the thing I'll thank it for every single night until they put me in the ground.