“I don’t want to go to sleep without talking about what happened tonight.”
“I know it’s something we need to discuss, but damn, I don’t want to.”
“I need to know where your head is and how those feelings are affecting you.” And if that fucker is going to have an impact on our relationship.
“I’m angry as hell. That’s how it affects me.”
“I want to know everything that happened.” I need to know even if hearing it guts me.
“I figured out it was Martin so I screamed for you. But he covered my mouth with his hand.”
I wasn’t there. Instead, I was shooting the shit with people who don’t really even matter to me. “I’m so sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault. There was no way you could have heard me.”
It doesn’t feel that way. I should have gone with her to the van. She had no business being out there alone.
“I went on stage to make an announcement before you and Lawrence arrived. Martin was in the crowd and saw me.”
Fuck. His connection to me brought him back into her life.
“He told me all the shit you would imagine someone like him might say. He misses me. Told me to come back. Wants to marry me.”
“Marry him?” I’m not in a place where marrying Adelyn is on my mind, but fuck if I want to hear that another man is telling her to marry him.
“He said we’d start over. It would be like our old life never happened. He’d give me everything my heart desired, including babies.”
“Marriage and babies?” What the fuck?
“Something in me snapped. I couldn’t not tell him he’d already given me one baby and then killed it before it ever had a chance to live.”
“I didn’t realize you hadn’t told him about the baby.” But that makes sense now since she didn’t know about the pregnancy until after she miscarried. I’m sure the only conversations they had following her recovery were the ones involving blackmail negotiations.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of him taking pleasure in knowing he actually had the ability to father a child. I kept it to myself as my own way of hurting him.”
“Why tell him tonight?”
“I wanted a new way to hurt him. And I did. Martin longs for a child. It’s an obsession. He’s in his forties now and I’m sure that his desire has only grown since we were together. Learning he had killed the only one he’d ever been able to conceive wrecked him. And I enjoyed his pain.”
Adelyn rolls on her side and faces me. “Do you think that makes me a monster?”
“Fuck no. He’s the monster.”
“As much as I enjoyed seeing him in pain, I’m afraid it may have been a mistake to tell him. He immediately started talking about how he was going to… God, I don’t even want to say the words.”
“I have to know, Max. It will make me crazy if I don’t know everything that happened.”
She hesitates a moment. “He said he was going to put another baby inside me.”
I knew that was what she was going to say and still, hearing the words makes my head feel like it may blow off of my shoulders. “Fuck no, he’s not. He’s never, never, never touching you again.”
“He told me I was going home with him where I belonged. That’s when he picked me up and tried to take me to his car.”
And that’s where I entered the picture. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if he’d been successful in getting her to his car.
I sit up and turn to put my feet on the floor. “I’m going to that fucker’s house. He may not go to jail but he’ll damn sure wish he had when I’m finished with him. And he’s gonna know to not come near you ever again.” There will be no future confusion about that.
“Please don’t.”
“You’re afraid I’ll provoke him into doing something to me?”
“No. I’m afraid he’ll provoke you and you’ll lose control again.”
Adelyn’s not wrong. I lost my mind earlier. I saw what he was doing to her, and there was only one thing in my line of vision. Red. I put my arm around his neck and all I wanted him to see was black.
“He needs to understand that you’re mine and he’ll never have you again. And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe from him.”
“I think he got the message when you nearly choked him to death.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. “I’m not done with him.”
“Can you at least be done with him tonight? For me?”
For her? Yes, anything for her. “Okay.”
She rolls over, nestling her back against my front, and her hand pulls my arm so it’s wrapped around her waist. “Is it okay if we lie this way? At least until I fall asleep?”
“I will lie this way all night with you if it’s what you want.”
She lifts my closed hand to her lips and kisses my knuckles. “Thank you, Oliver.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
“You were there when I needed you most. That’s all that matters.”
She twists and kisses me over her shoulder. “Good night.”
“Good night, beautiful girl.”
Adelyn is asleep on my arm and the damn thing is numb. I hate like hell to wake her but I’ve gotta have some circulation. “Max, lift your head.”
She barely stirs. “Hmm?”
“Lift your head for me, babe.”
“Sorry.”
She rolls to her back and tosses her leg over mine. Surprisingly, she’s very touchy-feely for someone who’s slept alone the last four years.
I rotate my arm at the shoulder and flex my hand to help improve circulation, but I think time and blood are the only things that are going to fix this.
She reaches out in the dark and places her hand on my bicep, massaging it. “Is it gettin’ better?”
“A little. It just needs another minute or two.”
She lifts her head and strains to see the clock over my body. “What time is it?”
“Almost five.” Feels like I just shut my eyes.
“Mmm… two or three more hours to sleep.”
“We’re not churchin’ it after we told your parents we would go?”
She cackles. “No. And if Michael and Rachel call for a report, I’m lying.”
“You have my full support.”
Adelyn stretches and moans, catches my dick’s attention. “I wish you hadn’t woken me. I was dreaming of you. Of us.”
She has my full attention now. “You were?”
“Yeah. It was a good dream. An awesome one and I’m sad it’s over. I think you should make it up to me.”
I believe I know what she’s saying but I need to hear her confirm it. “How would you propose I do that?”
“You robbed me of the orgasm I was about to have. I think you owe me one in its place.”
“Tell me how I was giving you an orgasm in your dream.”
“I’m not sure you want to know. You might not be up for it.”
I need to experience the things Adelyn likes if I’m to know whether I’m capable of satisfying her. “Show me.”
“I’m afraid you can’t handle it.”
I don’t like hearing her say that. It makes me sound weak and I already know that isn’t what she likes or wants. And I very much want to be what she likes and wants.
She thinks I can’t handle it? Challenge accepted.
“Take off your clothes and show me how I made you come.” My voice is stern to let her know I’m the one in control. “Now.”
The mattress dips with her movement and there’s no further argument. She’s getting naked.
“You need to be naked too.”
I start shedding my clothes. “On it.”
She gets on her knees between my parted legs after she’s finished stripping. “Come down in the bed a little.”
“You give a lot of orders for someone who likes to be controlled during sex.”
She laughs as she leans forward a
nd grasps the headboard. “This is just the first part of my dream. You’ll get to exert power and control over me in a minute. And when you do, I’ll come like a firecracker.” She moves her knees to the mattress on each side of my head.
Fuck. She’s straddling my face.
“I think you know what you were doing to make me come.”
She’s on her knees, but too far away for me to lick, so I dig my fingers into her ass and force her to come down over my mouth. I lick once. Twice. Three times. “I love the way you taste. And smell.”
I tickle her clit with my tongue and she rocks her hips in a back-and-forth motion against my mouth. Her body shudders and a moan is released when my tongue works her in a circular motion. “Omigod, you do some awesome things with that mouth.”
There is nothing on earth like this. Pleasing Adelyn. Hearing her moans. Licking her until she comes.
I suck and release her clit until she arches her back and cries out. “Oh God! Right there. Just like that.”
Her body spasms in a rhythmic pattern at least a dozen times. One sign of a good orgasm. A second is her calling out my name. And she does.
She goes lax and grabs the headboard to steady herself.
“Was it as good as the dream?”
“Even better but we’re nowhere near done. There was so much more to my dream.”
“I’m not mad about that.”
She grabs the back of my neck and summons me to move with her. She lies on her back and pulls me on top, between her legs. “We were like this.”
She kisses my lips and moves her mouth over my jawline and down my neck. She nibbles the skin, lightly sucking on it.
“I need to get a condom before we get rolling too fast here.” Except I don’t have any. I left my supply at Adelyn’s house the night we fucked at her place. “Son of a bitch.”
She groans when I pull away. “What’s wrong?”
“No condoms. They’re at your house.”
“Oh.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “I guess I’m getting dressed and making a rubber run to your place.”
“You may think I’m nuts but I sorta-kinda-wanna say fuck the condom.” She sucks her bottom lip as she runs her hands over my shoulders and down my chest. She grasps my cock and pumps it a few times. “I want you inside me right now. I don’t want to wait.”
She’s offering herself to me, wholly, and it’s tempting as fuck.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She parts her legs wide, giving me full access to her body. “I’m yours. Every part of me. If it’s what you want.”
If it’s what I want? How the fuck can she think it isn’t what I want? “It is.”
She positions my cock at her entrance and I enter slowly. Deeply. Pure heaven. “Fuck, Max. I didn’t know it would feel this good.”
I move slowly, wanting this to go on forever. I want to be between Adelyn’s legs all day. We may miss lunch with the family.
I grasp behind her thighs and push her legs back and apart. I continue to move in and out of her without hurry because the position is so intense. “Does this feel good for you?”
“Mm-hmm. I love the way you feel inside me.”
“Tell me what you want and I’ll give it a try.” She’s silent. I think too nervous to say the words. “Show me.”
I lower my upper body and rest my weight on one arm so I’m able to free the other. She wraps her hand around my wrist and moves it to her neck. “Cup your hand around the side of my neck but don’t press on the front of my airway.” She puts her hand on top of mine. “Apply gentle pressure on the side this time so you can get a feel for it.”
I thrust in and out while my hand holds her neck, and it doesn’t feel at all like what I imagined. It’s so much better.
She’s giving all of herself to me, submitting to my control, and it’s hot as fuck. Erotic.
Adelyn was right. This has nothing to do with cutting off her airway or hurting her. This is about claiming her as mine. Taking care of her needs. Being the strong alpha male she wants but with gentle hands.
And making her come hard.
Adelyn closes her eyes and tilts her hips upward. I know what she’s doing—positioning so my dick will hit her in that sensitive area beneath her pelvic bone. And I’m hitting it. I see it on her face.
I thrust with fierce domination. “You are mine, Max. No one else’s.”
I feel the onset of my orgasm. I slow my speed in hopes of prolonging the pleasure but it’s too late. I’m too fucking turned-on by what we’re doing to not detonate.
I hold her in place and thrust deep as I explode inside her. Coming. So hard.
This surpassed any and all of my expectations.
She smiles when I release my hold on her neck. Because she’s perfectly fine. Completely unharmed and utterly happy. We both are.
I rub my fingers down the side of her neck. Dub-dub. Dub-dub. Dub-dub. The pulse I feel beneath my fingers is beating so hard.
Adelyn pushes away the fallen hair covering my forehead and eyes. “See?”
I trace my fingertips over her neck. “It doesn’t leave bruises? Or marks on your skin?”
“It does if you applied enough pressure.”
Oh hell no. I’m not having that. “Did I squeeze hard enough to mark you?”
“Absolutely not.”
She seems convinced but I’m not. I need to see the proof for myself. “Your skin is so fair. I’m already worried that I’ve marked you.”
I stretch toward the nightstand and turn on the lamp so I can inspect her body. “Everyone can see your neck. I don’t want it to ever wear the evidence of what we do behind closed doors. I won’t have people wondering if I abuse you.”
“I’m fine. You haven’t bruised me.”
“I need to be sure.” The last thing I need is Mom seeing my handprint around Adelyn’s throat when we have lunch today. She would have a conniption.
I hold her chin and turn her face from side to side for inspection. “I think we’re good. I don’t see anything.”
“Because there isn’t anything there to see. You barely squeezed at all. It was nothing more than a gentle hold.” She cups the side of my face with her hand. “And I loved it. You made me feel like I’m yours.”
Adelyn is mine. Mine to own. Mine to protect. And maybe, one day, mine to love.
“I liked it too but you have to promise you’ll tell me if I’m ever doing it hard enough to discolor your skin.”
Both of her hands cup my face. “I will. Swear.”
She kisses me quickly before getting up. “Be right back.”
When she returns from the bathroom, Adelyn turns off the lamp and climbs over me. “Let’s get a little more sleep.”
She turns so her back presses against my front. Spooning.
And I don’t hate it.
I may even love it.
16
Adelyn Maxwell
Lawrence is teaching me how to make her special guacamole. She says it’s Oliver’s favorite. Or at least his favorite vegetarian option when she’s in charge of cooking.
I look up from the avocado I’m cutting and find all female eyes on me. “Is this not the way you want it done?”
“Go on, Law. Ask her while all the dicks are out of the kitchen,” Ivy says.
You have to love the things that come out of that girl’s mouth.
Lawrence looks in the direction of her living room and then back at me. “We know you and Ollie are doing it, but we want to know if y’all are just fuck buddies or for real dating?”
I’m not sure which surprises me more—the part where Lawrence said “fuck buddies” in front of her mom or that Mrs. Thorn didn’t bat an eyelash when she heard that come out of her daughter’s mouth.
Wow. This is uncomfortable. Oliver’s mom is standing in front of me, waiting to hear if I’m her son’s girlfriend or just the girl next door he screws when he’s horny.
Rachel Maxwell would die if this conv
ersation were happening in front of her. But I’m learning the Thorn household isn’t anything like the Maxwells’.
I still giggle when I think about Mrs. Thorn saying that Mr. Thorn would probably get lucky after he called her his beautiful girl. And the things Oliver has said about them going at it like teenagers? I know he isn’t exaggerating. Only an hour ago, I saw Mr. Thorn smack Oliver’s mom on the ass when he thought no one was looking.
Is that what my life with Oliver might be like at that age after being married thirty-five years? I can’t say I’d mind if it were.
Ivy uses her palms to demonstrate a balance. One goes up while the other goes down and then vice versa. “So what is it, Adelyn? Fuck buddies or dating?”
Oliver and I haven’t given it a label, but we agreed to try a relationship. And he called me his girlfriend. He wouldn’t have done that if we were only fucking. “We’re dating.”
A proud-big-sister smile spreads on Lawrence’s face. “You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.”
“How happy that makes us.” Mrs. Thorn’s smile rivals Lawrence’s.
And they can’t imagine how happy their joy makes me.
I’m not accustomed to this kind of warmth. Martin’s mother hated me. She was old and bitter and jealous. She viewed me as competition for her son’s affection, which was always super creepy. And his sister was just indifferent. She looked at me like I was some kind of insignificant twit who was after her brother’s money.
“Tell us how it happened.”
Umm, yeah. I won’t be doing that.
“We started hanging out right after Oliver moved next door and we became fast friends. And then the friendship turned into a little bit of flirting. Things didn’t click into place until last week.”
“I think it’s great that you were friends first,” Kelsey says.
“My parents came to visit earlier this week. Oliver wanted to meet them and be introduced as the man in my life.”
They’re all wearing the same stunned expression.
“That’s a huge move on Oliver’s part. It says a lot about his intentions.”
I hope Ivy’s right because Oliver is incredible. His fury last night, although frightening at the time, was beautiful. He was beautiful. So genuinely agonized by what Martin had done to me. How could I not be completely captivated?
Neighbor Girl (Southern Girl Series Book 2) Page 17
