Chapter 33 #2
“Because you’re hurting, firefly. I don’t wanna hurt you anymore. Even by accident. You need calm. You need rest.”
I shake my head and unbuckle his belt. “No, Hunter. I need you. Make me forget about him. Mark me as yours. Reese told me I’d never be yours. Only his. I want to be yours, cowboy.” I hold his stare, run my hands through his thick, dark hair, and tug him down to me. “I dare you. Take me.”
“Fuck it,” he growls.
And then his mouth is on mine. It’s feral. Full of passion and hunger and everything I need to burn Reese’s touch from my skin.
He rips off his shirt and shoves down his jeans, kicking them across the tile floor. He’s almost panting by the time his blue eyes meet mine again. “Fuck. I need you so bad, Lola. I really fuckin’ need you.”
And then he’s back on me. Consuming me in the best possible way. Eliminating everything that happened tonight and replacing it with something so much better. “You need me to stop. You need me to calm down. You fuckin’ tell me, firefly.” He gruffs out, holding my face between his hands.
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell you.”
“Cherries. Say the word cherries, and I’ll stop.”
I nod, and then his lips crash over mine. He lifts me into his arms and carries us both into the bath. The warm water rises around us as he sinks down, pulling me with him, the bubbles swallowing everything below our shoulders.
“Keep that hand out of the water,” he whispers against my lips.
“I know,” I tell him, smiling against his mouth.
I keep my arms around his neck, legs straddling either side of his waist. And I roll my hips. He dips his head into my neck, sinking his teeth in.
I tip my head back and give him everything.
“I wanted to take care of you,” he mumbles into the curve of my throat.
“You are.”
His tongue drags up my throat to my jaw.
His hand finds my breast, rolling my nipple between his fingers until my spine arches and a moan slips out of me that echoes off the tile.
He shifts me slightly, dragging himself along me, teasing me until I’m biting my lip so hard it stings. “Such a good girl for me, ain’t ya?”
I nod. And the tip pushes against my entrance, and my eyes water.
“Look at me,” he orders.
And I do.
I don’t break eye contact as he sinks inside me, one hand holding me still, the other guiding himself in. The stretch of him fills me completely, and I suck in a sharp breath.
He grins. “Takin’ me so well. Fuck.”
I start to ride him. Slowly at first, adjusting to the angle, ignoring the ache in my hip because what he’s giving me is so much bigger than any pain Reese left behind. He meets me with his own thrusts, burying himself so deep that my vision blurs.
“Hunter,” I breathe.
The water splashes around us as we both become more desperate. His hand grips my uninjured hip, pulling me down harder, and I let him set the pace because he knows exactly what I need.
“More. Ride me, city girl.”
So I do. I sink down and up, hard. Over and over. Until the pressure builds to something almost unbearable. His fingers dig into my ass, pushing me even deeper onto him.
I cry out as his mouth finds mine. His fingers tighten around my throat.
“You gonna come hard for me, baby?” he mutters against my lips.
“So hard. Please.”
His hand on my ass slips between my cheeks, and his finger presses gently against my back entrance. My blood hammers in my ears. A shriek of pleasure rips out of me. He’s just teasing there, barely touching, but it’s enough to send me over the edge.
I come so hard my whole body locks around him. I almost see stars as he holds me tight, chasing his own release. He fills me up with my name on his lips, breathless, wrecked, his forehead falling against my shoulder.
We stay there. Tangled together in the warm water, trying to remember how to breathe. I rest my head on his tattooed chest and listen to his heartbeat slow. And then he presses a kiss to the side of my head. And I feel him. Still inside me. Still hard.
My eyes go wide. “Hunter…” I say carefully, sitting upright.
“Yes, firefly?” he says lazily, stroking my hair from my face.
“We didn’t use a condom.”
He bites his lip. “No. We didn’t.” It comes out calm. A hell of a lot calmer than I feel.
“Aren’t you scared? What if I get pregnant?”
His hand slides to my stomach, and it rests there, making me suck in a breath. “You think that would scare me away?” he asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know. It scares me.”
“Do you want kids one day?” he asks it quieter this time. Like the question means more to him than he’s letting on.
I open my mouth, but no words come out. “I—uh. I think so?”
He runs his finger along my bottom lip. “I can’t make your mind up for you. I can’t tell you what to do. Just know, if you ever end up pregnant with my kid, I’ll do everything I can to give you the perfect life. Everything in my power, Lola.”
He’s a good dad. I can already see that. The way Wyatt looks at him. The way the whole house orbits around that little boy.
“So long as I ain’t rotting in a jail cell,” he adds, and my heart sinks.
For him. For me. For whatever this is becoming between us.
Because that’s our reality. This might be a fairytale that ends with a devastating final chapter.
“You won’t,” I tell him.
He sighs. And then kisses me again, like he’s running out of time and needs to memorize the taste of me.
“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen, Lola. But we can be more careful, if you want?”
I lean back, running my red nails along his jaw. “I’ll just make sure I pick up my birth control tomorrow, okay?”
That felt too good not to do again.
He chuckles. “You’re naughty.”
I grin. “I know. Get used to it. I like being a menace.”
Something shifts in his eyes. The softness burns away, and that darker thing takes its place. He lifts me up and sets me on the edge of the bath, spreading my legs open. The cold tile against my thighs makes me gasp, but his hands are already on me, holding me in place.
There is no hiding from Hunter.
“You might wanna make notes on this,” he says, looking up at me from between my knees. “Because I’m about to show you just how good a cowboy eats pussy.”
My eyes blow wide. That heat is already creeping over me again. His filthy mouth does things to me that I didn’t know were possible. Getting turned on by words alone. Who even am I anymore?
“B-but you just came inside me. Isn’t that…” I can’t even finish the sentence.
“Hot as hell, Lola,” he finishes it for me.
Okay. Yeah. It is.
“Just watch,” he tells me.
And I do. Resting on my good hand, I let him tease me with his tongue. Long, slow strokes that make my legs start to shake almost immediately. I can feel him groaning against me as I roll my hips, chasing more pressure, and the vibration alone nearly sends me over.
His fingers push inside me, and I cry out.
“Want to taste just how hot we are together, city girl?” he rasps from between my legs.
Everything he’s done so far has been incredible. Everything he’s given me tonight has peeled away a layer of fear and replaced it with something I don’t have a name for yet.
So fuck it. Why not?
“Yes, please.”
Before I’ve even finished speaking, he pulls back and stands. One hand wraps around my throat. The other stays inside me.
My eyes are wide, but I open my mouth. He leans down, hovering his lips above mine.
And then he spits into my mouth.
I swallow and lick my lips, and something inside me detonates. The taste of us together swirling around in my mouth.
He ups the pace of his fingers. His thumb circles my clit. I can hear how soaked I am for him. The sounds I’m making fill the bathroom and should embarrass me, but don’t.
“Let me have it, firefly. Nice and hard for me.”
I obey.
My next orgasm crashes over me so violently that my vision whites out. I taste him on my tongue. I feel him everywhere. Every nerve in my body fires at once, and I come apart in his hands like I was built to.
“Perfect,” he declares against my lips.
I smile, fluttering my lashes. “That was.”
“Now, do you feel better?”
I nod. And I mean it. I feel pieced back together. Not whole but no longer shattered.
“Good girl.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. Then pulls back and looks at me with an expression that has nothing soft in it. “I’m going to go and stomp on my ex-best friend’s face, and then I’ll be right back to you. Okay?”
My heart jumps. The way he says that so casually almost makes me laugh. “Right now?”
“Yeah. I won’t be able to sleep until I know that asshole got what he deserves. And monsters only work in the dark. I need this done before sunrise.”
I don’t try to argue. I don’t ask him not to go. Because Reese deserves it. He deserves every single thing that’s coming to him.
“Won’t you get in trouble? Like with the police?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Reese will be thanking me for not burying him, not running to the cops. This is how we deal with shit here, baby. Just trust me.”
I don’t know what to say. All I know is that I want him to come back to me.
“I won’t be long. I’ll be by your side again in no time.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and press my face against his throat. “Be safe, Hunter Sterling,” I warn him.
“Always.” He winks.
He sets me back down in the bath, and I finally let myself sink into the warmth. The bubbles come up to my chin. My muscles unclench for the first time in hours.
“I’ll bring up your hot chocolate and get you some clothes out to wear. Okay?” he tells me as he climbs out and reaches for a towel.
“Hmm, mmm. Thank you.”
He leans back over the edge, cups my face, kisses me once more, and then he’s grabbing his clothes, and he’s gone.
I settle back against the bath and close my eyes, and eventually his boots echo down the stairs.
I sink deeper into the water, rest my bandaged hand on the edge of the tub, and stare at the ceiling.
I came here bloody and barefoot and terrified. And this man ran down his porch steps, carried me inside, cleaned my wounds, made me hot chocolate, offered me a home, and then put me back together in his bathtub.
I don’t know what I did to deserve Hunter Sterling, but I’m never letting him go.
I’m not sure he’d let me go anyway.