by Lewis, R. J.
Like now.
Like right this freaking second.
“You shouldn’t be so quiet, eavesdropping on me,” I remarked.
“I like watching you when you don’t think I’m looking.”
I laughed and replied, “That’s a little creepy.”
He chuckled. “Good kind of creepy though, right?”
“Everything that’s you is good.” I was dead serious saying that. Heath was perfection to me.
His smile faded a little as he muttered, “I don’t know that everything is good, but I want to be good for you.”
Something strange passed his features. Like he was truly uncertain of himself.
I got off the bed and went to him. He watched my every move, those eyes dropping lustfully down to my hips. As I stopped in front of him, I brushed my fingers along his lips, and said in seriousness, “You’ve been my rock for over a year. I haven’t seen anything bad in you. You’re the most selfless man I’ve ever met.”
Again, that look. He didn’t believe it. I wondered what was troubling him, because usually he’d play off any compliments I gave him with a cheeky remark. But now it was like he needed to hear them.
“And you’re the most understanding, remarkable woman I’ve ever been with,” he replied, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “And,” he added, a small smirk playing along his lips once more, “I’m going to finally fuck the hell out of you.”
There he was, the Heath I knew so well.
Before I could respond, he was already leaning down to me. It never ceased to amaze me the affect he had on my body; it obeyed him long before I could even think to obey. My heart instantly sped up as he neared and tingles swept my body the second I could feel his heat. His rough hand went to the back of my neck as he pulled me to him. His mouth smashed against mine, taking no time before probing my mouth with his tongue. I sank into him, unable to resist the taste of him.
His hand travelled the length of me as he pressed my back against the door, covering every inch of my body with all of him. I felt my night gown shoot up, and his fingers travelled to my inner thighs. Jesus, I was already drenched. My body responded before my brain could even form a coherent thought. Weeks without this had been agony, and I could feel how desperate he was for it.
He rubbed me lightly, causing sparks to shoot through me. I panted against his mouth and gripped a chunk of his shirt to me. “Yes, please,” I moaned.
“Yes, please what?” he strained out.
“Don’t stop.”
It was only seconds of feel good heaven when he pulled away. I was so outraged, I might have cried. I’d just told him not to stop, goddammit!
I opened my eyes and watched him take several steps back, motioning to the bed as he grabbed the hem of his shirt and threw it over his head. Fuck me, he was beyond words could describe. I had this strange urge to just lick him everywhere, and you didn’t have to tell me that was weird – I already knew it was weird. It was weird just thinking it right then and there.
“Get in bed, or I’ll have to fuck you against the door,” he said with a hint of a smile.
He knew I was malleable in his hands. The second he touched me I was completely undone. He could take me on the roof in front of everyone and I don’t think I’d mind. So I made a beeline for the bed and jumped onto it. He laughed behind me at my excitement as he undid his belt and pulled down the zipper of his jeans.
“Take your clothes off,” he demanded hungrily. “I want to see all of you. Fuck, I want to taste every inch of you, Allison. It’s been way too long.”
He wanted to taste me too. I wasn’t all that weird then.
My heart beat faster as I rested my back down and stared at him. I didn’t want my clothes off. He might run the other way.
“Don’t you like my night gown?” I innocently asked.
Kicking his shoes off, he nodded and answered, “Hell fuck yeah, I like your night gown, but I’d like you better with it off.”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I watched him strip down to his black, tight briefs. My mouth went dry at the sight of him. My knight wasn’t packaged in shining armour. He was raw, hard, and had the most delicious fuck me eyes I’d ever seen. No one would think this tattooed hulk of a man had a heart of gold. But he did. He had a soul I was still trying to possess all of. I wanted him more with every passing day, and I could only pray that he wanted me too. Because lord knew some days it seemed this was all too good to be true.
He came to me then, stopping momentarily to open the bag on the night table. He tore open a box of condoms and set a few down on the edge of the table.
“That’s a lot of condoms,” I remarked dryly, fighting my smile.
“Really?” he shot back. “I’d say it’s hardly enough for what I have planned for you.”
I laughed as he then climbed into bed, covering my body immediately with his. That laughter suddenly died when his lips found mine. He kissed me tenderly, and it wasn’t long before the mood in the air shifted.
I was hot and sweaty in no time, and even though his mouth did wonders to me, it was more of the feeling of his warmth against me that was my trigger. He made me feel protected. Every time his body covered mine, I felt like he was acting as my shield, and I always gripped him to me like he was. He was shielding me from the world – from all that judgment that had draped around us lately – and in these moments I forgot everything else existed. It fell away. I was his. He was mine. That was all that mattered.
“I feel like I’m doing this for the first time again,” he muttered against my lips.
“It’s only been six weeks,” I replied, downplaying the misery we’d gone through.
His hands moved down my body, sensually exploring every part of me. “That’s like two decades in man years, Allie. I’m pretty sure I grew my virginity back.”
My palms drifted down his back as I reciprocated his movements. I felt his hard back, tracing the line of his spine until I reached his briefs. He kissed me along my jaw, flicking his tongue out occasionally as if he was tasting me. We were a ball, wrapped up in each other, spending the next few minutes getting acquainted.
Exploring.
Touching.
Feeling.
He cupped my breast as he kissed me more urgently, thrusting his hips gently against my aching core. I gripped a chunk of his hair tightly and met him thrust for thrust. His hand slipped down the side of my body before roaming beneath my gown. He rubbed me again. Small circular movements that had me moaning into his mouth. Liking my sounds, his breathing picked up as he continued pleasuring me.
“Holy shit, I missed this,” he whispered. “Did you?”
I nodded eagerly.
“You can’t want this more than me right now.”
“I do,” I moaned aloud. “I want this more.”
“You want me to fuck you?”
Dear God, yes. I nodded again, licking his lips as I tightened my grip.
“Say that. Say ‘I want you to fuck me, Heath.’”
So used to his talks, I didn’t even flush when I hurried to respond with, “I want you to fuck me, Heath.”
He let out a grunt. “Jesus, you’re doing crazy, fucked up things to me, woman.”
I’d have laughed if what he was doing didn’t feel so good. I wrapped my legs around him, slipping one toe beneath his briefs so I could tug it down. While I was excited to feel him naked, I was also worried he might want the same in return. I wasn’t ready for that yet. My heart was beating hard for two reasons: wanting to get ravaged in the best way possible by him, and also from the anxiety of not looking good enough to satisfy him.
I froze when his hands eventually found the hem of my night gown. He pulled it up no further than my hips before separating from me to look down. Grabbing my lacy undies, he slowly peeled them off. I watched him closely, at the glazed look in his eyes as he drank the sight in. He threw the undies somewhere and then began kissing down my body. My skin tingled wherever his lips touched. Dow
n my legs and up them again, moving to my inner thighs.
“Heath,” I breathed out. “You don’t have to do that.”
But he was already there, burying his face between my legs.
“Jesus.” I shook at the wet feeling of his tongue, lapping me gently up and down.
He spread my legs wide, keeping them pinned to the mattress as he continued to tease me. I lifted my head and watched his head move slightly as he increased the speed of his tongue. I moaned and tugged against the sheets as the sparks began to fly through me. Jesus Christ, I felt like I was flying! I’d heard from a conversation somewhere that drugs were like orgasms – a high that had you entombed in its pleasure – and now I was making sense of it all.
Heath.
Heath Lawson was my drug.
He wasn’t greedy. He didn’t tease me. He gave me that amazing high before pulling away quickly. The feeling had been exquisite. I hadn’t even come down from my orgasm when I heard the tear of the condom packet. Moments later he was back over me, my legs still spread to easily accommodate his impressive width. I felt that hard, thick length press against my folds. His hot breaths hit my face, those already wet lips skirted against mine as he whispered, “I fucking love you, Allie,” before sliding all the way inside of me.
We both moaned in unison. “Holy shit.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around him as he gently took me, asking me repeatedly if I was alright and not uncomfortable. It was surprising. All this time he’d been pent up with lust and need. I was expecting a rougher touch. Even in sex Heath was doting. His concern for my well-being overshadowed his own hunger, and as much as I loved it, I wanted him to let go.
“Heath,” I breathlessly said against his lips, already feeling another spark surface, “I’m not glass.”
His face darkened as my words slowly settled in. Then he kissed me again, harsher this time before muttering, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You never will.” There was a different meaning to my words. He knew what they meant. Something flickered in his dark eyes. We had something dangerously good between us, and it was dangerous only because of how invested we were in each other. It meant the fall would be a devastating one, but I trusted him to never let me go. He had kept me whole this last year, sacrificing everything in his life in order to be there for me. He had shown me what selflessness was, and he had gone to great heights to prove it.
Heath was not capable of hurting me, and that made me love him with a depth that couldn’t be measured.
Slowly he let go, fisting my hair with one hand while clenching my ass with the other as he slammed into me. He groaned again, louder this time, and there was something about his voice in pleasure that made me hotter than the sun.
“Holy shit, Allie, you feel good,” he said in disbelief as he pulled out and swiftly thrust back in.
He didn’t treat me like glass anymore. He used me, and fuck, I loved being used. I loved him finding his pleasure in me. Even when my scalp began to ache from his grip, and my breaths came out short and fast, I moaned along with him right up until his release. I felt him jerk inside of me before he buried his head into my chest.
I ran my fingers through his hair for a while. Sex wasn’t everything in a relationship, but this time it made me feel closer to Heath than ever. After a short while, he quickly pulled away and discarded the condom before slipping back into bed with me.
He was still breathing a little hard when he rested against my side, his hand drifting over my stomach. I felt used, in a good way. My skin was gleaming with sweat. My hair was tangled and all over the place. Instead of the scent of Cherry Blossom body spray, I was now covered in the raw masculine scent called Heath.
It was better than Cherry Blossom.
“Why won’t you let me see you?” he suddenly asked, his fingers skirting the edges of my night gown.
“I’ve changed,” I answered quietly, unable to look him in the eye. I stared at the ceiling instead. I was an idiot to think he wouldn’t notice my apprehension. He noticed everything. “My body’s… changed, Heath.”
“So?”
“So… I don’t look the same as I did before.”
“Of course you don’t look the same. You had a baby, Allie. People don’t look the way they did six weeks after they had a baby.”
“Yeah, but I’ll never look that way again.”
He took my face into his warm hand and turned it to him. His eyes stared deeply into my own, and I felt picked apart by them.
“You’re beautiful to me,” he whispered solemnly. “Nothing will change that for me.”
“I’m insecure,” I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat as I began to admit everything I never said out loud. “You don’t like insecure. You don’t like needy girls who need reassurance all the time. You can have anyone without having to deal with their bullshit self-esteem problems. But that’s me in a nutshell. I’ve had a beautiful baby but I feel ugly.”
“I don’t want anyone else,” he replied softly, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “With you, I like insecure. That gives me more reason to compliment you, and I like doing that. It’s a win/win on both sides.”
I sighed and resisted rolling my eyes. At this point in my life, he would probably have to compliment me for a hundred lifetimes. As if sensing my mood, he shifted even closer to me. His lips skirted along my face as he whispered, “I love every inch of you, no matter how different it looks. It’s mine, and anything that I deem is mine is going to be enough to keep me satisfied for the rest of my life.”
“Every inch?” I asked quietly.
“Every” – his hand slowly roamed my body – “Inch.”
I smiled out of reflex, but I was quivering on the inside. His words were always so soothing, but it was the way he said them, so filled with conviction, that made me want to cry. Maybe it wasn’t wrong to have self-esteem issues after all. Maybe it was normal, and all a woman really needed was a good guy like Heath to help make it better.
“Be proud of every change your body holds,” he continued. “You sacrificed it to have the most beautiful baby. You earned every one of those changes. It’s a matter of perspective, Allie. You can look at them and think they’re horrible. Or you can look at them and think, ‘wow, my body did the most incredible thing: it gave life.’”
Now my smile was genuine. My body slowly relaxed in the mattress. As usual, I wondered what I did to deserve him. Then again, maybe relationships were supposed to be this way. Without wanting to, my mind jumped straight to Ryker and how he treated me. Despite him chasing me in the beginning, I’d gone through so much indifference. He’d been distant for months before he’d even showed me another side to him. I’d always wanted to understand why. What made him want me to begin with? Why had he been insincere and distant at the start?
I bit down on my lip, not wanting to ask the dreaded question: are you going to see your brother again? I’d explained what Ryker had said to me the last time I was there. And the times after that, he refused to leave his cell to see me. I had been cut off, and I would be a liar if I said it didn’t hurt. It hurt because he had a son, and he’d made no effort to even want to know about him. No, instead, Heath had stepped up to the plate and blew me away. I still struggled with how fast things changed, but I didn’t want to dwell. I told myself to be adaptable. Whatever the future brought, I’d face it with my head held high.
But it would have been difficult on Heath too. He’d gone to see Ryker after I did, and when he came back, he said the meeting had gone nowhere. That Ryker had got up and left him when he asked to talk everything through. Since then, he didn’t want to talk about it. He was hurting. Ryker was his brother, after all.
“So tell me about the fight?” I said, breaking the silence between us.
“You’re half-asleep, Allie. I think the last thing you want to know about is my fight.”
“What does it matter if I’m half-asleep?”
He chuckled. “Because e
very time I talk about a fight, you get concerned and work yourself up about them. You dwell on every bruise I have and how many times I got hit. I’d rather not talk about it. You need to sleep. Not be concerned over something silly.”
“Silly?” I repeated, raising a brow in offense. “Is it wrong that I worry about the man I love?”
He looked at me then in the warmest way, like I’d just made his night by telling him he was the man I loved. That look – it tightened my heart and made me hot all over.
“Yeah,” he finally said, quietly, “it’s very wrong. I’m a big boy, beautiful. I don’t need your worry. It’s me that worries for you and Kayden.”
I smiled and kissed him softly, rubbing my nose tenderly against his. “We’re fine. We’ve got you and that’s all that matters.”
Again, that warm look. He stroked my cheek, whispering, “I won the lottery the second you asked me for help, Allie. You’ve changed me. Everything that’s happened between us has changed me.”
“I know,” I said with a slight frown. “I just wish you wouldn’t obsess about money so much. It’s hard seeing you fight and work over time so much. It’s not easy feeling like I can’t contribute just to ease your workload.”
“You know why I’m fighting to get as much money up. When Kayden got sick and rushed to the hospital, I felt helpless. If it’d gotten any worse – if he’d been seriously sick in any other way – I wouldn’t have been able to afford his treatments. It was the scariest night of my life. I just want to make sure we’re taken care of so that never happens again. I never want to feel unprepared.”
I nodded, thinking back on four weeks ago. Kayden was just two weeks old when he caught the cold. I’d panicked when his fever kept rising. We rushed him to the hospital and had been there the entire night, waiting for the fever to go down while the nurses tried to reassure us it was going to be alright. It hadn’t been for Heath. When he’d felt how hot Kayden was, his face had paled significantly, and I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering his own brother – the one we’d named Kayden after – who had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when Heath was just six years old. He didn’t talk about it often, but he’d spoken about how devastated his mother had been, and how she’d never been the same after that. So naming him Kayden was a way for me to show him that the memory of his youngest brother could still live on.
