by London Hale
Never again.
“I should’ve known. I…” I blew out a breath. “I just wanted you to be happy. Even if it wasn’t with me. After all those years of his bullshit and lies, I should’ve been able to see through him, but he’d made it sound like you were happy…with him. And you never mentioned anything whenever we talked…” I placed my plate on the coffee table, then scrubbed a hand down my face. “Maybe if I had seen through him, you and I would be somewhere else now.”
“Like where?” she asked, her voice soft. She leaned toward me, her plate discarded on the table.
“Where?” I reached out, brushing her damp hair behind her ear, then trailed my finger across her jaw and down her neck, smiling as goose bumps erupted on her skin. “Name it. Temperance Falls, here, my bedroom, fucking Japan—as long as we were together, it wouldn’t matter where.”
She leaned into the hand I’d wrapped around her neck, my thumb brushing against her pulse point. “How would we make it work? Right here and now…how would we be a couple when you live on the island and I’m here?”
I straightened, darting my eyes between hers, not even attempting to push down the hope climbing up my throat. “However we needed to. Temperance Falls isn’t that far away. I’d drive here. You can drive there. Weekends, vacations… And in between, there’s always phone sex.” I shot her a smirk.
She laughed and ducked her face. “You’re not exactly the type of guy I see being satisfied with phone sex.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a read on her. Trying to figure out what she was really asking. “This isn’t just any phone sex we’re talking about—it’s phone sex with you.” With a finger under her chin, I turned her head so she looked at me. “Is this about what Barry said?”
She shrugged. “I could never make him happy, and knowing I could disappoint you…that I might not be enough…”
“Sunshine…” Even though we were only six inches apart, it was too much. I gripped her by the hips and tugged her right into my lap, settling her knees on either side of my hips. Willing my cock to settle the fuck down because now was not the time to get hard. Or harder, as it were. I cupped her face, pulling her down so I could feel her breath against my mouth. “You made me happy when we weren’t together. If you were mine? I’d be the happiest man on the whole fucking planet.”
She closed the last couple inches, brushing her lips against mine. “Even if you don’t get to see me every day?”
Groaning, I covered her mouth with mine, unable to stop when she was so close. Unable to stop from tasting her, from pressing against the small of her back and grinding her down on me. To hell with acting like just being around her didn’t get me hard as steel. Let her feel what she did to me.
I pulled away, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Even then.” I trailed my hands up and down her back as she melted into me. “If you were mine, you’d know that means I’d be yours, too. Just yours.”
Hannah sighed into my mouth, her hands fisting the front of my T-shirt as she slid her tongue against mine. Jesus, had it really only been a day since I’d last tasted her? Since I’d last swallowed her breathy moans, since she’d ground herself down on my cock? How the hell was I going to last when we were apart?
Didn’t matter how, just that I would. I’d deal with it, doing whatever it took to make this work between us. Hannah was worth every bit of sacrifice I could possibly make. And I’d make them all for her.
“Luke?” She panted, tipping her head to the side when I moved my lips down her neck. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
And every night for as long as she’d have me. With her ass gripped in my hands, I stood from the couch and walked down the short hall, finding her bedroom on the second try, my attention distracted as she nipped at my neck all the while grinding down on my cock. “Shit, sunshine.” I kneaded her ass, pushing her against me. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes, so that means a lot of naked time.”
“Oh, damn.” She pushed away from me, and I reluctantly let her down until she stood in front of me. And then she untied her robe and let it pool at her feet. I knew it—completely fucking bare. “Better be careful. It gets chilly in here at night.”
“I can see that,” I said, my voice low and gruff. “Or, are these for me?” I gripped her around the waist and leaned down, taking one pert nipple between my lips.
Her hands flew to my hair, holding me to her as she moaned deep in her throat. I smiled around her breast before switching sides, sucking her deep and making her arch into me. Her tits were small and perky and so fucking responsive.
“Someday, we’re going to see if I can make you come with just my mouth on your tits.”
“Not today?”
“No, not today,” I said as I guided her toward her bed and didn’t stop until she was lying in the middle, her legs spread the tiniest bit. Goddamn, she was a fucking goddess, and I hadn’t yet had a chance to really look at her. This weekend had been about rushed, secret encounters. But, tonight? Tonight, I was going to savor.
She made a move to cover her breasts, no doubt uncomfortable as I stood there and stared.
“You remember what I said the first time in the boathouse?” I waited for her nod before continuing. “Good, then you know I want to look at every inch of you.”
“But you’re still dressed.”
“You want me naked, sunshine? You just had to ask.”
“Please. I want to see you.”
I didn’t take my time stripping down, instead ridding myself of my clothes as quickly as fucking possible. I grabbed my wallet and dug out the backup condom, tossing it on the pillow next to her head. “Should’ve brought a box with me.”
She giggled, her tits bouncing slightly with the movement. “I don’t think we can go through a whole box tonight.”
“No?” I asked, picking up her leg and pressing a kiss on her ankle. Letting my tongue stroke the sensitive skin. I moved slowly up her leg, brushing my mouth over every inch of her. “I think we might need two.”
Her laughter cut off on a moan when I licked the crease between her leg and her pussy. “Luke…”
“Hmm?” I asked as I started the torture on the other leg, working my way up to where she was already swollen and wet for me.
“I want you inside me.”
“’Fraid I can’t do that yet, sunshine.”
“Why?” she asked, shifting under my wandering mouth. “I’m…I’m wet enough.”
Just to torture us both, I ran a finger through her slit, spreading her wetness. “That you are. Dripping just for my cock, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why I can’t give it to you yet?” I asked, then licked across the top of her mound.
She groaned, slipping her fingers into my hair and trying to push me down to where she wanted me. Seemed forty-eight hours of me worshiping her pussy with my tongue was enough to get her past her hesitance in that area.
“No answer?” I teased, dragging my bottom lip across her lower stomach as she panted, her head tossing back and forth on the pillow. “Because I’m going to worship this beautiful body. I’m going to spend as long as it takes until you realize you”—I nipped at the slight flare of her hip—“are the only one I want.” I moved up, licking the underside of each breast. “That I love each bit of you, want your scent all over me.” I moved down her body again until I hovered over her pussy, then I leaned in and swiped my tongue straight through her slit, letting it flick hard against her clit.
She gasped and bucked up against my mouth, using her grip on my hair to tug me closer. “There, Luke. Please, there.”
“You want me to lick your pussy? Suck this sweet little clit into my mouth?”
“God, yes.”
I licked her once more, then pulled back, using my fingers instead. “I will, but first I need to tell you something.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. And I need you to believe me.”
“Anythin
g, Luke, just please—” She moaned as I pinched her clit between my fingers.
“Listen. Are you listening?”
“Yes, yes…”
“A million women could come prancing through the brewery, buck-ass naked, and not a single one would turn my head.” I showed her mercy, stilling her rolling hips with my hands, my thumbs pointed toward her pussy to spread her wide open for me. Her clit was swollen and peeking out from under the hood, just begging for my mouth. “Not when I get to call you mine.”
“Oh God, I’ll be yours, Luke. Only yours.”
Christ, hearing that, I couldn’t wait another minute. I sucked her clit between my lips, sliding two fingers into her pussy and groaning at how wet she was. Gone was the shy girl who didn’t even want me to give her a lick. In her place was a woman who was too desperate to come to care what she did. With her hands clutched in my hair, she ground her pussy against my tongue, rolling her hips in the perfect rhythm to send her hurtling toward her climax.
“Shit, I’m gonna come. Luke, I’m—”
Not daring to stop what I was doing, I groaned against her, licking her as she screamed her release, no longer needing to stifle the sound.
When her tremors finally ceased and her hips stopped rolling, she tightened her fingers in my hair. “Now?” she asked, trying to slow her breathing.
I reached for the condom, sheathing myself before settling between her spread thighs and sliding into her, nice and slow. “Now,” I said, kissing up her neck as I lifted her thigh up and over my hip, sliding even deeper into her.
I caught her moan in my mouth, kissing her as I pumped into her body—the body that fit so perfectly against mine it was like she was made for me. After twelve years, there was no way in hell I was letting her go.
“Now,” I said again as I rocked us toward our release. “Always.”
Being without Hannah while we’d lived it two different places had been exactly as hard as we’d thought it would be. It’d meant late nights and early mornings, hundreds upon hundreds of miles put on my Jeep as we’d worked around Hannah’s hellish schedule, and an expert understanding of Skype.
Jesus, the Skype calls. Even better than phone sex? Video sex.
There’d been the reassurances, too. After she’d spent so long with an asshole like Barry, I made it my mission to show her exactly what it was like to be with someone who loved her more than himself. Someone who would drop what he was doing and drive two hours after she’d had someone code in the ER and needed a warm body to snuggle with to help wash away the memories. Someone who would order her Hawaiian pizza and have it paid for and delivered when she was too exhausted from a double to even think straight. Someone who made sure her gas tank was always full and her favorite coffee was always stocked. It’d turned out washing away her fears and apprehensions had been easy, considering I put her first in everything and Barry never had.
As for him, he’d come slinking back to Hannah only a couple weeks after she’d told him never to come by again—just like I’d known he would. Fortunately, it’d happened on a night I’d been staying there. Answering the door in just my boxer briefs and telling him Hannah was passed out on the bed and too hoarse from screaming to hold a conversation was probably a dick move, but it got the point across. He never bothered her again.
And Barry’s and my relationship? It was exactly as dead as he’d left it ten years ago. I no longer had the compulsion or the desire to breathe life into it just to keep it afloat. So I let it go.
As much as I hated him for what he’d done to Hannah, I also had to admit he played a role in where Hannah and I found ourselves now. Which was, finally, back in Temperance Falls. Together.
Yesterday, I’d borrowed a truck from a friend and went and got my girlfriend. Hannah hadn’t wanted to keep much of her stuff, selling off most of her furnishings one by one when she’d gotten the job offer at Temperance Falls Hospital. She’d said her apartment had never felt like hers, anyway. So we’d packed up what she’d wanted to and driven home…where she belonged.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and already I was antsy as hell because she wasn’t by my side. We’d separated that morning, me going to the brewery and Hannah saying she’d come by and see me before too long.
Too long had turned into hours, which had turned me into an asshole. Rain battered the roof of Pops’ Hops, making my cock tighten in my jeans. Ever since the boathouse, when I’d tasted her for the first time with the sound of the storm going on outside, the rain always made me horny as fuck. Hannah shared my sentiment, sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night if a thunderstorm rolled in, stroking my cock until it was hard as a rock and then hopping on to take what she needed.
And yet she wasn’t here.
“Don’t tell me I have to give you another lecture about those mugs,” AJ said, brow raised as he looked at the glass I was drying vigorously.
“Fuck off.”
With a laugh, he shook his head, filling a glass with our specialty monthly brew for one of our regulars currently perched at the other end of the bar. “Why don’t you do everyone a favor and go check on the tanks? You’re going to scare off our customers with your face.”
I grumbled the whole way, but I did as he suggested because the bastard was right. I couldn’t help it—now that Hannah was mine, really and truly, and she was here, I wanted her next to me whenever fucking possible. She didn’t start at the hospital for three more days, and I wanted to soak up as much of that time as I could.
Fifteen minutes later, I’d checked the tanks, making sure all the temperatures were correct, before heading back to the front, ready to pull my hair out from all the waiting.
But there, sitting at the bar and leaning toward AJ was my girl…my sunshine. Damp strands of hair stuck to her face, her bright red Pops’ Hops T-shirt spattered with rain droplets. No matter how many times I saw her, she never failed to make me stop dead in my tracks. Especially when she smiled.
I narrowed my eyes when I realized she was smiling at something AJ was saying, and with the way my jackass best friend was leaning over the counter, he was flirting and flirting hard.
Fuck and no.
“—just a year is all,” AJ said as I walked toward Hannah on the other side of the bar. “Before a severe labrum tear.”
“Ouch, that’s a rough injury,” she said. “That must’ve been awful, getting a chance like that and having it taken away.”
I came up behind Hannah, bracing my hands on the bartop on either side of her. “Are you seriously using your ‘poor me, I lost my career in the majors’ bullshit on my girlfriend?”
Hannah leaned back against my chest, tilting her face up to look at me, and this time the smile was all for me.
AJ rested his elbow on the bartop and glanced at me, sly grin on his bastard face. “That’s my best story, and you know it. Don’t you have something else to do? Hannah and I were just getting reacquainted.”
“I can reacquaint your ass with my boot, if you’d like.”
The steel in my tone only made him laugh harder, but he knocked twice on the bartop and turned to go. “I’ll see you around, Hannah.”
Before she could even utter a hello, I spun her around on the seat and pulled her straight into my arms. Ducking down, I nuzzled her neck, breathing in her scent, her hair still damp from the rain. “Where’ve you been?”
“I’m guessing you missed me,” she said, running her fingers through my hair.
Instead of answering her, I pulled back and nipped at her bottom lip.
She smiled, her hands cupping my face. “I was at your mom’s. We were trying to change out her planters for the season, but the rain stopped us. She sent me home with some cookies, though. Told me to tell you not to eat them all.”
Her words washed over me, soothing a place inside that had been restless since she’d left this morning. I didn’t know where to start—the fact that she’d been at my mom’s and how happy I was that their decade-long separat
ion hadn’t fractured their relationship, that they’d clicked again, just as they had when we’d been in high school. Or at the fact that she was already calling our place home. She’d spent a single night in our bed, in the space that was now hers, too, and already she was comfortable enough to claim it.
And I wanted us there immediately.
She brushed a finger over my brow. “What’s that face for?”
“That face is because it’s raining and you aren’t riding my cock.”
“Hmm.” She leaned in, brushing her hand across the front of my jeans as she lowered her voice. “Does the brewery have a janitor’s closet we can hide away in? For old time’s sake?”
Oh Jesus. An internal war went on, part of me wanting to drag her back to the office, not caring who heard her scream my name, while the other part wanted her at home, in bed. Legs spread, tits on full display, riding my tongue for hours. I reached down and cupped her ass, tugging her closer. “It has an office, but I want you spread out on our bed.”
She smiled up at me, making no move to remove her hand from between us. “Think AJ will mind if I steal you away?”
“He can deal with it.” I lifted my head, calling over to him. “Hey, AJ!”
He didn’t even turn around, just waved me off, telling me to get the hell out without saying a word, all the while in conversation with a customer. Then he flipped me the bird. Man, I loved my best friend. Even when he hit on my girl.
“He says he’d be glad to watch the place for a while.”
Hannah laughed, pressing her forehead against my chest, then looked up at me, her lip caught between her teeth. Happiness shining in her eyes.
I reached up, brushing my thumb over her bottom lip. Fantasizing about all the things I was going to do to that mouth once we got back to our place. “You ready to go home?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, because I want to make the most of these next three days before you have to start at the hospital. And by make the most of them, I mean I want you naked as much as fucking possible and riding my cock. Or my face. I’m not picky.”
“Such a charmer.” With her fingers tucked into the waistband of my jeans, she walked backward toward the door, tugging me with her. “C’mon, my love. Let’s go listen to the rain.”
