6. Hannah
6
HANNAH
T here were very few things I loved more in this world than a well-thought-out plan. When I’d left the compound, I’d had a plan. The first time I’d stepped into a library and realized it had all the answers to any question I could ever ask, I’d determined the plan for my career. My first experience with sex had been someone’s plan, but it hadn’t been mine, and I had rectified that every time since.
Until now.
Because now, with Zack Hale filling my doorway and looking entirely too large for it, like a giant in a gingerbread house, his lean, muscular body backlit by the porchlight, and that ridiculous belt buckle gleaming richly in the shadows, it could not be said that there was a single rational thought in my brain, much less anything resembling a plan.
Thirty seconds ago, I had intended to bid him good night and send him on his way. Instead, I’d invited him in for sex.
Zack stepped fully inside, then gently kicked the door shut behind him with his heel. He came toward me until I had to tilt my head back to look at him. That delightful mouth of his tipped up at one corner as we studied each other.
“You changing your mind, darlin’? Because you can, you know.”
I gave that due consideration, then shook my head. “No, I’m not changing my mind.” Evie, cuddled against my chest, decided my affections weren’t enough, and rubbed her forehead against Zack’s abdomen. Honestly, who could blame her.
He glanced down at Evie, gave her head a slow, circular stroke with his thumb, then looked back to me. “You sure? Because you’re holding that cat like a shield.”
“Oh.” I supposed I was. I stepped back a little, just enough to encourage Evie to jump down. “I’m sure.”
I expected him to do something then, kiss me or touch me or something, but he kept right on watching me with an intensity that made me wish I still had Evie between us. But I wasn’t a coward, so I took his hand and tugged. “Bedroom is this way.”
He didn’t budge. I might as well have tried to move an oak tree. I raised an eyebrow. “Zack?”
His gaze was locked on our hands. Slowly, slowly he pulled me to him.
“Zack?” I tried again.
He pushed my cardigan sleeve up to my elbow and sucked his bottom lip between his teeth with a sharp intake of breath. I looked down at our hands, perplexed. What the heck was he looking at? It was just a wrist. There were a million others exactly like it.
“It’s been a while for me. I haven’t done this since the accident.” His thumb traced the blue veins in my forearm, then rubbed feather-light over the tendons of my wrist before nestling in the notch of my palm.
“It’s all right.” The words came out all wispy. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, and all he had done so far was play with my wrist. My wrist . “I’ll be gentle.”
He made a sound like I had amused him, but then he brought my palm to his mouth and scraped his teeth over the sensitized skin there, and when his eyes met mine over our joined hands, all I saw was fire.
“I wasn’t asking you to be gentle, Hannah,” he said. “I was warning you that I wouldn’t be.”
“Oh,” I said. “ Oh ?—”
But then his mouth was on mine and who needed words, anyway.
I had long ago accepted that romance books took a lot of liberties with things like kissing. The world didn’t really catch fire or melt away. Kissing was…fine. I liked it well enough, but if it went on too long, my mind drifted to things like work or my grocery list.
Right now, I couldn’t have found my way to the library with a map. But I had never been kissed like this before, like he needed my mouth more than his next breath. He kissed me like it wasn’t a precursor to anything, like it was the meal itself.
This wasn’t kissing the way I knew it. This was a devouring.
He backed me up, using his hips and legs to guide me while his hands unbuttoned my cardigan and slid it off my shoulders. The wall met my shoulder blades. I couldn’t get my bearings. We might have been in the living room or the hallway, I didn’t know. Everything was hot and liquid: his tongue sliding against mine, the swishy feeling in my belly, the sudden wetness between my thighs.
It was going to happen. This time, it was really going to happen .
But somehow just the thought of it, of orgasming with a man when I had never done that before, made the feeling recede like the tide pulling back the ocean. Frustrated, I balled my hands into fists and thumped them against his chest.
Instantly his mouth left mine.
He was breathing hard as he looked down at me, his mouth damp and swollen. “Do you want me to stop?”
That was the last thing I wanted. “No, I want—” I broke off on a huff. Explaining wouldn’t do any good and would put too much pressure on both of us. I didn’t need an orgasm, anyway. Not from him. I could take care of that myself. “I want to look at you. I want to touch you.”
“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow and gave me that cocky little smirk of his. “Go on, then.”
I dragged my fingers down the front of his torso, feeling the curve and indent of each muscle beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt as I went. When I got to the hem, I fiddled with it a moment, my knuckles ghosting against his skin above the waistband of his jeans. His breathing shallowed, his muscles fluttered, and it made me want to touch him even more.
“Hannah,” he gritted out.
“Hush,” I said. “Be a good boy and let me look at you.” With that, I pushed his shirt up and over his head.
Good lord.
I blinked, adjusted my glasses, and blinked again. I had seen him naked before, but the bunny slippers had distracted me, and he had been too far away for me to see the scars that crisscrossed his torso. Now he was right in front of me and I could see every violent, magnificent line. Most of his scars were silver from age, but a couple were still pink. The largest one curved under his left pec in a red swoop.
“My goodness, you’re beautiful.” I glanced up at him to find him staring down at me with an odd expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”
“Something is all kinds of wrong, Hannah,” he said on a half-laugh, half-groan. “Do you know what you’ve done to me? I see a lifetime of inappropriate wood in my future. Someone will be talking to a dog or a small child and say good boy , and that’s it. I’ll be hard. Fuck.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He looked so perplexed and…god, I wanted my hands on him. “Will it hurt if I touch you? The scars?”
He made a strangled sound. “It can’t hurt any worse than you not touching me.”
I took him at his word and let my hands roam wherever I liked. Scars, muscles, the short, sparse hair that covered his chest, then picked up again below his belly button. I bit my lip as I trailed my index finger down the happy trail that disappeared into his jeans.
“Hannah,” he said roughly. “That lip is mine .”
He captured both my wrists in one large hand and pinned my arms to the wall above my head. His other hand dove into my hair, scattering the bobby pins that held my bun intact. His mouth came down on mine with a savage intensity that made me gasp. And then he bit my lip, just as I had done a second ago.
It felt different, though, the way he did it. It felt like something I needed.
And it was back, that hot, slick feeling.
It could happen this time. It could actually happen .
I pushed the thought down. I didn’t want to hope for it. That would only end in frustration, and right now I just wanted to feel good.
And I did feel good. I felt so amazingly good.
With my arms immobilized, all I could do was push my hips to his. So I did that, grinding my body against the hard bulge below his belt. Again and again, desperate and frenzied.
He tore his mouth from mine, panting. “This is going to go fast now. You ready?”
“Ye—” was all I managed to get out before he had my T-shirt off over my head and my skirt pooled at my ankles. I was left standing there in my white cotton underwear and bra, but only for a moment while he shucked his jeans and that ludicrous belt, and then he wrapped those strong arms around my waist and took us to the sofa.
It amazed me how easily he maneuvered both of our bodies right where he wanted us. He reclined lengthwise on the couch with me on his lap, my thighs straddling his hips. I could feel his cock, hot and hard, through the thin, damp cotton of my underwear. Experimentally, I rolled my hips in a slow circle. I liked it so much that I did it again.
“Christ!” he bit out, jackknifing upwards, his fingers digging into my hips.
I whimpered and he kissed me again, hard, then and unclasped my bra behind my back. Despite his promise that this was going to go fast, he leaned back and took a long look at me. My heart was beating a thousand times a minute, my body starting to shake, but I sat there on his lap and let him look. No one had ever looked at me like that, like I was the answer to everything.
And then he smiled, took my glasses, and gently set them aside. “I don’t want them to get broken.”
“All right,” I said, only slightly miffed because dang it, I wanted to see him.
He squeezed my hips, moving his hands leisurely up my body to cup my breasts, and I thought I might die from anticipation. My nipples ached, my clit ached, every part of me desperate for a touch of his rough, callused fingers.
His thumbs skimmed the undersides of my breasts and I gasped, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts. He was so close to where I wanted but he kept deliberately taunting me, circling my nipples with slow, lazy touches. I was going to die…or murder him.
And then suddenly his mouth was there, his tongue, his teeth, the hot, sweet suction of his mouth. I cried out and dug my fingers into his scalp, holding him there like I thought he might change his mind. My internal muscles clenched in response. It might actually happen .
He growled, wrapping an arm around my waist, his mouth still on my breast, and flipped us over so I was underneath him, keeping one hand under the base of my skull to protect me from banging my head on the armrest, then hooked a finger under the waistband of my underwear and tugged them down my legs to my ankles. I kicked them off my feet, sending them god knew where.
“Zack,” I whispered, because he was looking at me again, and I needed him to stop looking and start touching. I grabbed his hand and brought it where I wanted. I had never been shy about directing. My problem had always been that my directions never got me where I wanted to go. That’s okay , I reminded myself. An orgasm doesn’t have to be the goal .
His breath hissed as he dragged one finger through my folds. “Fuck, you’re wet.”
I rocked up against his hand. It felt good. It felt so damn good that I almost dared to hope again. He pressed the heel of his palm against my clit and worked his finger in and out of my body, first one and then two.
He shifted slightly to fish his wallet from the pocket of his jeans on the floor and pulled out a condom. I watched through half-shut eyes as he sat on his heels to roll it over his length and swallowed hard. He was big enough to make me a little nervous.
Like he was reading my mind, he said, “I promise I’ll fit. I haven’t ripped anyone in half yet.”
I nodded, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth.
He pushed my thighs wider and positioned himself at my entrance. He pressed forward slowly, his eyes focused on my face. My vision blurred at the edges and I gripped his biceps. He was thick and perfect and it felt so good it bordered on pain. He paused for a moment, half inside me, then withdrew, and pushed forward again. He made it further this time before pulling back and sliding in a third time. And this time he didn’t stop, not even when my breath hollowed out, not until he filled me completely.
“I need you to breath, sweetheart,” he said, his voice tense, his body rigid.
I breathed out and tried to relax around the feeling of being stuffed full of him.
He moved. Faster this time, and with much less gentleness. And then he leaned back, hooked one elbow under my knee, and widened the angle as he stroked into me again and again, ruthless and desperate.
The room closed in around us until all I could see was him, me, us. My hands on his shoulders. The cords in his neck standing out with the effort to keep himself in check. His furrowed brow, the sweep of dark eyelashes against his cheek as he looked down at where he disappeared inside me.
Pleasure built, pushing me toward the precipice. Oh, god, it might actually happen .
And then suddenly his blue eyes were on mine. Looking right into my face, right into my soul. Danger . I faltered, there on the ledge. No. I can’t ? —
But I pretended I could. Squeezing my internal muscles as hard as I could, I pretended I wasn’t broken.
With a groan of oh fuck , Zack buried his face in my neck and thrust into me one last time, freezing as he pulsed inside me, his big body shuddering as he came inside me.
For a moment, we lay there, breathing hard. Then his arms shifted around me.
“Hold on tight, honey,” he whispered.
He pushed to his feet with me still clinging to him. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he walked us to the bedroom, every step sending a ripple of pleasure to my sensitized clit.
“Wait here,” he said, lowering me gently to the bed. Then he disappeared into the hall bathroom—I assumed to take care of the condom and clean himself up a bit.
My body was still strung tight with need. He would be back in a moment, but that was fine. I didn’t need more than a couple seconds. I closed my eyes, slipped my fingers against my aching clit, and sent myself flying.
Two seconds later, the bathroom door opened. I heard the soft pad of his footfalls as he went in the opposite direction from the bedroom. A moment later Zack returned with my glasses.
“You want something to drink?” he asked. He set my glasses down on the nightstand. “Water?”
“I can get it,” I said. “You don’t know where anything is.”
“Don’t get up. I’ll figure it out—” He turned to leave but then stopped and did a double take, his narrowed gaze sweeping over me.
I swallowed. He couldn’t possibly know. He couldn’t?—
“Hannah,” he said. “What did you do?”