Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
you can’t laugh while my dick is still inside you
Alice
The front door closes, and Luther’s nails pitter-patter on the stairs as I listen for Arthur.
I didn’t expect to be gone so long today, but Maeve wanted to have brunch with the girls, and then I spent the rest of the day cleaning out more of Gran’s house.
Before I knew it, the sky was getting dark.
I was surprised to get back to an empty house, but it gave me a chance to eat something and have a long everything shower.
Once I finished my curly hair routine, I slipped Arthur’s shirt on.
I’ve been sitting on my bed staring out the window since, thinking about how much my life has changed over the past couple of months, and what meeting Arthur’s entire family will be like tomorrow.
Gabriel and Rafael are lovely, and it helps that Charlie will be another familiar face there, but family events are very far outside of my comfort zone.
Now Luther is sniffing at my door, and the three hard knocks that follow startle me enough to jump off the bed.
I swing the door open and find Arthur, arms spread wide as he holds on to either side of the door frame.
His head is lowered, but as the seconds tick by, his chin rises as he takes me in, starting at my toes, over my bare legs, to where his shirt opens wider at the collar.
Every inch of my skin warms with the heat from his gaze.
I’m practically panting by the time our eyes meet.
Reaching for him first, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. It’s fierce and needy, it’s wild and entirely uncontrolled. I never want it to end, but he cradles my face in his hands and pulls back.
“Are you okay?” His question unsettles me, because I don’t know.
Am I?
I’m on the brink of falling for a man I can’t have, in a town I don’t want to live in, while I make decisions I never wanted to have to make about someone else’s life. But with him, I feel more than okay. It might be the only time I do.
“Yeah. I didn’t mean to be gone all day, I’m so—”
He cuts me off with a kiss, shaking his head. “I just wanted to make sure, baby. You don’t need to explain or apologize.”
Him calling me baby does obscene things to my body, and the way I try to climb him like a tree, wrapping my leg around his hip, does nothing to hide that fact.
“You’re wearing my shirt again,” he says, gripping my outer thigh, slowly massaging his way higher and higher, where he’s about to discover… “And nothing else?”
His groan makes my core throb, and when his other hand slides beneath the hem of the shirt, grazing my inner thigh, I’m mewling, ready to beg him to touch me.
“Tell me, what am I going to find when I touch you, Alice? Is your pussy soaked for me?” I nod vigorously, and he tsks.
The way he talks to me isn’t entirely unexpected.
Arthur is a competent, confident man, and while I adore how tender he can be, this side of him makes me absolutely feral.
“I said, tell me.” He pinches my skin lightly, enough to make me gasp, enough to make me wetter.
“Yes, my pussy is soaked for you, Arthur.” I barely know what words are as he inches closer, no doubt already feeling how wet I am.
Instead of touching me like I need him to, he spins us until my back is against the bedroom wall, then he drops to his knees, lifting one of mine until it drapes over his shoulder.
The flat of his tongue meets my clit, and I’m certain I levitate.
He licks and sucks until I’m riding his face, reaching for the high only he can provide.
His response? A desperate-sounding moan followed by his fingers gripping me tighter as he hums, like he’s entirely satisfied.
The tip of his tongue circles my clit as his fingers tease my entrance.
Just as I consider begging, he slides two fingers into me, curling them into a spot no one has ever touched before.
I slap a hand against the wall as my legs tingle and heat rushes over my skin.
He doesn’t pull them out, just keeps curling and uncurling his fingers until I’m gasping for air, screaming as I come harder than I even knew was possible.
When I look down, I find his reverent, hungry eyes already on me, and I’m certain it makes my orgasm last longer.
As I begin to calm down from the high, he stills his fingers and sucks my clit into his mouth. Somehow, I come again, my hands gripping his hair, trying to decide whether to push him away or pull him closer, and settling on holding him exactly where he is.
With me melted into the wall, he leaves a gentle kiss on my oversensitive skin, lifting his head to look at me again. His lower face glistens with my release, and he licks his lips before taking the hem of my borrowed shirt to wipe his chin.
He stands slowly, his hands never leaving my body as they settle on my hips. “You’ve been so quiet when you come. I was wondering if I’d ever get to hear you scream for me.”
His mouth hovers over mine, and I close the distance, tasting myself for the first time. I moan into him, palming his hardness through his jeans, then reaching for the button and lowering the zipper. I shove his pants and boxer briefs down, desperate for him, so, so desperate.
This new energy between us is loaded. We’re both processing a lot of feelings individually, I know that. But it feels so good to have this one thing that we can give each other, to know he feels at least some of what I feel, and that we can both find some type of relief together.
I lift my knee again, and he grips the backs of my thighs, lifting me until I feel his hardness between my thighs. I rock against him until his hard cock is slick with my release. When I start to move faster, his groan is almost pained as he throws his head back. “I need to get a condom, baby.”
I don’t stop moving. I can’t.
“I’m on birth control, and I was tested not long ago. You have nothing to worry about. Do I?” Slowing down, I lock eyes with him.
“No. Nothing to worry about. Are you sure?”
How do I tell him I’ve never been more sure of anything or anyone than I am of him?
“Yes. Now make me scream again.” I notch him at my entrance, gasping at the feel of him with no barrier between us. “Fuck me, Arthur.”
With one thrust, he pushes inside as a feral groan leaves him, and his fingers grip me hard enough to bruise. I hope they do. I hope he marks my body the same way he’s marked my heart. Permanently.
“Yes,” I whisper. “More,” I beg, and he delivers, relentlessly fucking me hard but slow, lavishing my skin with kisses. “You’re perfect.” My words come out between pants, but I don’t miss the way he moans at my praise.
With one hand, he grips the collar of my shirt and pulls until buttons go flying, then his fingers are deftly pinching and pulling my nipples.
He picks up the pace, and the noises I make are savage.
Again, liquid heat fills me as I find a climax unlike any other.
I wonder if it would always be like this with him.
But then there’s no time to wonder, as Arthur’s face strains as he empties himself inside me.
“Alice, fuck,” he whispers before kissing me deeply, shivering with the aftermath of his release, his hold on me softening as his kisses do the same.
His lips leave a warm trail across my jaw, down my neck, until his face is burrowed there again, his inhale so deep, it seems never-ending.
He stays inside me, and while I know this was us needing a physical connection to make up for the emotional turmoil our families have us in, it feels like more. So much more.
As he lifts his head, he kicks his pants all the way off, and my back comes away from the wall. He carries me to the bathroom, somehow grabbing a towel out of the closet while I’m still wrapped around him. I laugh, imagining what we look like right now.
“Tesouro, you can’t laugh while my dick is still inside you,” he says, sounding sad, but smiling from ear to ear. He kisses me quickly. “Just kidding. You can laugh whenever you want.”
Somehow, he’s still semi-hard, and when we shift, I moan, despite knowing that there’s no way I could possibly come again right now. He lifts an eyebrow at me, and I giggle again, shaking my head.
Setting me on the edge of the countertop, he kisses me again, just two soft touches on my lips.
“I’m gonna clean us up, then you’re coming to my bed.
I’d say we could do yours, but mine is bigger, and I’m pretty sure more comfortable.
But if you want yours, I’m gonna be there, because there’s no way I’m not sleeping next to you tonight. ”
It would be so inappropriate for me to cry right now, but it’s exactly what I feel like doing. He’s so hot and so sweet, so serious and so funny, so hard and so tender.
“Yours.” It’s confirmation of two things: where we’re sleeping tonight and what I am.
I quickly latch my mouth to his again, and two tears race down my face.
He lets me kiss him without rushing me, even though we really do need to get cleaned up.
As I shift closer to him, I moan again because apparently it’s not possible for my body not to call attention to how much this man turns me on.
When I do it a third time, he bites down on my lower lip gently.
“Alice,” he warns, in that deep voice that makes me clench around him.
“Goldie,” he says even more sternly, and when I roll my hips,
“Baby,” he gasps. His hips push forward almost involuntarily, making us both groan.
“Tesouro,” he calls, gently, pressing his forehead to mine.
“As much as I’d love to tell you we can go for round two right this second, I’m a fairly normal thirty-five-year-old man, and there is no way my cock is getting hard again.
Not for another hour or two.” He sounds disappointed, which makes me want him more.
“But I will gladly give you my mouth, my fingers, or my thigh again if you need more.”
It’s tempting. So very tempting.
“I don’t think I could come again anyway. I’m pretty sure you drained my body of all the necessary orgasm hormones or whatever.”
What am I even saying?
I don’t know anymore. He might have also drained my brain of working cells.
“That sounds like a challenge,” he starts, then chuckles when my eyes widen and I shake my head. He slides out of me, wincing. “Just kidding, baby.” He uses a towel to catch some of our mess, then reaches around me to turn the faucet on.
I watch as he cleans himself up, and even as he takes care of me, that serious look of concentration I’ve come to know well firmly on his gorgeous face.
When we finish brushing our teeth, he takes his shirt off. He tosses it into the hamper he leaves in the corner of the room, then he pushes the flannel off my shoulders and does the same with it. We’re both naked, but it’s not sexual. It’s weirdly comfortable.
He picks me up again, spinning us around as I yelp and grab onto his shoulders. With a laugh, I say, “You don’t have to carry me.”
He’s quiet until we get to his room. He sets me on his bed, making sure I’m underneath the covers.
“I know. And yet, I’d carry you anywhere,” he adds simply, then walks to the other side of the bed.
I turn to face him, and he mirrors my position.
“Tell me something.” He plays with one of my curls, his eyes never leaving me.
“I really like it when you call me baby,” I immediately reply, feeling my cheeks heat. He smiles that full, just-for-me smile.
“I really like it when you say fuck. Especially followed by the words me and Arthur.” We both chuckle, inching closer to one another.
He heaves out a sigh and kisses my forehead.
“I’m worried my dad will ask me to leave tomorrow.
” His confession is followed by silence, but I nod to let him know I heard him.
“I’m worried my Gran will die and I won’t feel sad about it.” My confession is followed by his gentle touch on my chin, tipping my head up to look at him.
“You can feel however you feel, Alice. There isn’t a right or wrong way for you to process her illness or her eventual death, whenever that comes.” My eyes well with tears again, but I know I have to get the next words out for him.
“And if your dad chooses to ask you to leave, it will say far more about him than it will about you.” His brows furrow, and he scoffs, clearly not believing me.
“I’m serious, Arthur. Whatever happened that made him so upset with you, the reason we’re all going to be at his house tomorrow is a sweet little girl who wants all the people who love her there on her special day. You’re giving Cece that.
“And if your dad can’t see it, then I’m sorry, Art, but that’s on him.
I’m proud of you for choosing to go, and I’m going to support you regardless of the outcome of your decision because I’m seeing firsthand how hard this is for you, and you’re doing it anyway.
That means something. That means… everything!
” Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I find Arthur watching me with soft eyes and a small smile.
“You have no idea, do you?” I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about, so I shake my head.
“No idea how incredible you are.” He pulls me into him, and we settle into a comfortable position of intertwined limbs, his hand in my hair.
As my eyes get heavy, I swear I hear him say, “I think you might be my favorite person.”