Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Kelsey
“What time is it?” Carter asks groggily as I unzip my suitcase, searching for my black running shorts. So much for being quiet and letting him sleep in before our flight out of Rio later this morning.
Carter’s conversation with his mom two days ago really threw him off his game, and part of me wonders if he shouldn’t just go home now instead of to New York with the rest of us.
I know it would only get him home three days sooner, but I can tell how much he needs to see his mom and reassure himself that she’s okay—that even if things are getting worse, she’s still his mom.
The other part of me is terrified of what it means for this tour to be over. Carter’s mom needs him, and I’m not sure how I fit into that. I’m not the caretaker type, so I’m sure I’ll just be in the way if I try to help.
The fact that we head home in four days didn’t hit me until this morning.
The last week has been a mad rush to not only work with my team to figure out what happened in Sydney but to also ensure everything is ready for the concerts each night.
We’re so close to figuring out who it was that sabotaged the system.
Unfortunately, they clearly know what they’re doing, because they’ve been leading my team on a virtual wild goose chase around the globe.
“Five forty-five,” I respond, stepping into my running shorts.
“Why are you up so early?” he asks, rubbing one of his strong hands over his eyes.
“I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you up. You should go back to sleep.”
“You should come back to bed. We got back from the concert four hours ago.”
I haven’t been sleeping well, getting pulled from my dreams each morning with something niggling in the back of my mind—something I can’t seem to grasp. I’m not even sure if it’s about the breach, Jaxon’s security, or something else entirely.
I’m going to be pissed if I finally put together what it is and it’s something stupid like I forgot one of my socks at the last hotel.
Carter climbs out of bed, and I slowly take in the hard planes of his chest, the grooves of his abs, before sliding lower to the prominent bulge in his black boxer briefs.
My perusal finally ends back at his face, where his lips are pulled in a sleepy smirk.
“Good morning,” he says, his voice still raspy.
“Good morning,” I reply, unable to keep the smile off my face. There’s something about waking up with Carter and seeing this cuddly version of him that melts my insides in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Carter steps toward me, the heat of his body seeping through my lightweight running clothes.
Cradling my head in his hands, he lowers his lips very slowly toward mine.
His hands are tender as he holds my face.
His lips brush mine, slowly sweeping back and forth, barely touching.
He’s everywhere, driving me mad with longing, yet never quite settling his mouth on mine.
Catching his face, I still it, rising up on my toes to capture his lips, taking control.
My tongue sweeps between his lips, and I close my eyes, savoring his taste.
He shifts, a subtle move that brings me more completely against him, as he deepens the kiss.
His hands move to wrap around me, enfolding me in his arms.
“Tell me what you want,” Carter commands.
“You. I want you.” It comes out as a whisper, a plea.
He lowers his head, his lips brushing over my neck, just below my ear. His tongue licks, soothing the places his teeth scrape. My nerve endings are in overdrive—or in shock. I’m hot and hungry and desperate.
“You’ve got me. For as long as you’ll have me.”
His body is radiating heat, and I squeeze my legs together, unable to find the friction I need.
I pull away and reach up to trace his lips, following the warm, firm curves.
“Do I? Is this really going to work once we’re back?”
“Yes,” he says, the absolute conviction in his tone mixing with something softer in his eyes—something that feels terrifyingly close to love.
“I know what it feels like to only get small pieces of you from afar. When it was all I thought I’d ever get, it was enough, but now I know what it’s like to be with you?
Now I know what it’s like to have access to your brilliant mind and beautiful body?
There’s no way I’m giving it up—giving you up. You’re stuck with me.”
“What if you get the contract and Trent sends you to live with Jaxon?” I ask. It’s one of the many questions that have plagued my waking and sleeping hours.
“I’m not leaving Wild Bluffs indefinitely like that, but, before you ask, if you get the contract and have to go live with Jaxon, then we’ll do long-distance. I will take whatever version of you you’re willing to give me.”
His confidence in us, in our future, does something to my body, and I can’t think of anything else but having him buried deep inside me.
Carter’s mouth finds mine again, his hands working quickly to relieve me of my tank top and shorts. Our tongues dance between desperate kisses as we devour one another.
Carter shifts, throwing me on the bed before prowling forward on his hands and knees to hover over me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, gently moving a strand of hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear.
His attention shifts lower, pulling up my sports bra to access my nipple.
My head falls back as his mouth moves, slowly sucking, biting, teasing.
He changes the angle of his body, and suddenly his thick erection is pressed tight against my thigh.
I bite back a moan, my eyes drifting shut as pleasure flows through me.
His mouth is rough and sensuous on me, and his other hand teases the other breast, pulling at my nipple and cupping my small mound possessively.
Unable to stop myself, I squirm against his leg, and he releases my nipple, a dark chuckle escaping.
“Needy this morning, huh, Kels?” he teases, pressing too-gentle kisses to my stomach.
“I’m going to take care of it myself if you don’t hurry,” I chastise, though the effect is likely lost with the breathiness of my tone.
“Liar,” Carter whispers in my ear before reaching for his wallet on the bedside table and grabbing a condom. He quickly tears open the package and wraps himself, his eyes never leaving mine as he does it.
I watch, entranced, as Carter pulls my panties to the side and lines himself up with my entrance.
He slowly pushes in, my core tightening with each centimeter gained.
His mouth finds mine again, his kisses scorching as our bodies seek the rhythm we’re both looking for.
Finding it, the fire inside me starts to build, my nerve endings roaring their pleasure to the world.
Carter lifts himself higher, his right arm locking behind my knee to pull it toward my shoulder, changing the angle.
I thrash my head side to side as Carter’s relentless pounding brings me right to the edge.
I’m chanting his name, begging for the release my body so desperately needs.
His thumb finds my clit, the tight bundle of nerves firing in excitement at the attention. One, two, three circles of his rough thumb is all it takes, and I explode, my walls gripping tightly as Carter follows me into oblivion.
“Ugh,” I groan, my body limp as Carter climbs off the bed to take care of the condom. “Now I’m going to be sore the entire run.”
Carter’s dark eyes smolder as he takes me in, lying on the bed in my underwear and a bra shoved up around the top of my chest. Signs of just how hot and fast our coupling had been—just how much we both needed the release.
“You know,” Carter says, his right hand reaching down to stroke himself, “if you skip your run, I’ll let you be on top this time.”
“Pshh,” I say, my eyes tracking his hand as his cock slowly rises back to attention. “As if you let me do anything. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re the one in control here.”
Carter lowers himself onto the bed next to me, his fingers lightly tracing my inner thighs. “I’ll fuck you however you want me to, Kels. I don’t care if I’m on the top, bottom, or upside down on the moon, as long as I’m the man getting to worship your body.”
“I love you,” I say, the words slipping out.
Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIT. What in the world? Where did that come from? I have never once been the first to admit anything in a relationship—how did I blow my freaking love load early like that?
Carter looks at me, his wide smile turning gentle as he watches me freak out internally.
“You can take it back if you want,” he says, his expression becoming distant as he gives me the out.
I take in the hard lines of his face, the shadow of his dark stubble accentuating his strong chin.
The way the very corners of his lips curl up, even when he’s not smiling.
The two lines that run between his eyebrows, the ones I always want to smooth out with my fingers, just to show him he doesn’t have to be worried about others all the time.
I open my mouth to take it back, to blame it on the sex-induced endorphins, and it’s almost as if I can see Carter start to build a wall between us. A wall intended to either keep me out or to keep in the hurt that’s currently playing across his features.
“No. No, thank you,” I say instead. “I meant it.”
He raises his eyebrow, clearly questioning if I’m being honest, and I can’t help but think about how truly unromantic this whole exchange is. I can’t ever let my sisters hear this story. Or JT. God forbid Sam hear it. He would have so many thoughts on how fucked up I am as a person.
“To be fair, I don’t think I realized it until just now, but I do. I love you. And I totally understand if this is too soon. I’m not expecting you to say it back, I—”
Carter cuts me off by placing his mouth gently over mine.
“Of course I love you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you when we were in eighth grade and you always had blue rubber bands on your braces so they’d match your eyes.
I thought I was in love with you when we were eighteen and you were so kind and yet so strong when standing up for my mom.
And I know I love you now that I’ve gotten to know the real you—the one you keep hidden from everyone else but me. ”
He kisses the tear that snuck out of my eye.
“There is no too soon for me. No amount of commitment is too far, and there is sure as hell no possible future that I don’t plan on having you in.
You’re not in my future—you are my future.
If you’re not at the center of it, then it can’t be my future, because everything that I am—everything that I will be—revolves solely around you. ”
“I… That’s…” I say, wiping the tears that are now flowing freely down my face. “That’s the most amazing… I…” I trail off, unable to express the depth of my love for him.
He kisses me gently.
“I love you,” I say after I pull away from the sweet kiss. “And you’re my future too.”