She tipped her head to the side. “Why?”
“So you’ll come back… with me.”
“Well”—she looped her arms around my neck—“I do love it, and it has distracted me, so if I were you, I’d start talking.”
Taking the opening she’d just handed me on a silver platter, I didn’t hesitate. “Go out with me.” Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she nibbled on the plump flesh. My entire body tightened in response, but I ignored it and kept talking. “Just one date. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“Ty—”
“Heidi, I am begging you,” I said, blocking whatever bullshit reason she was about to hand me for saying no. “Just give me one chance.”
Tears clouded her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“Yeah, I do,” I argued. “One date or not, I’m asking you to risk your heart.”
She nodded but said nothing in return, so I continued, trying my best to drive my point home. “Something you need to realize is that even though you’re terrified I’ll hurt you, I’m already being torn apart over this shit.”
“I don’t mean—”
“It’s not your fault,” I quickly added, not wanting her to feel an ounce of guilt. I may have thought the reasons she pushed me away were bullshit, but they mattered to her. That meant something. “You have a past and so do I. That’s a fact. But I am damn sick and tired of them holding us back from what we both want.”
Her eyes slid closed.
I still didn’t let up.
“I get that you don’t trust me, and I sure as hell don’t blame you for it, but if you don’t let me in a little bit, I can’t right a single damn wrong.”
Opening her eyes, she looked up at me as tear after tear fell down her cheeks. I couldn’t stand the sight of them. Cupping her cheeks, I wiped them away with my thumbs, catching as many as I could.
“Baby, please don’t cry. Seeing you upset tears me up inside.”
A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “You’re asking an awful lot from me today.”
I shrugged a lone shoulder. “That’s because I’m a needy fuck.”
She giggled, and the sound went straight to my scarred and twisted heart. “Remember the other day when you were waiting for me in Kyle and Carissa’s kitchen, and I told you that I’d only go out with you under condition?”
I nodded. “Course I do.”
“Good because that condition still applies. If you want me to say yes, then I need to know why me.”
Fuck, not this again.
“Does it really matter that much?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I didn’t understand this shit at all. Wasn’t it enough that I wanted her? That I needed her more than I needed my next damn breath? I wasn’t sure how to show her, but I’d find a way to prove how special she was.
“All my life I’ve waited for someone other than my family to see me as someone more than the deaf girl who talks funny,” she answered, her beautiful voice shaking. “I want to trust that you do, but part of me doesn’t believe that someone like you could ever want someone like me.”
She had lost her damn mind.
“Heidi”—a humorless chuckle spilled from my lips—"we’re gonna need to work on your self-esteem, Angel. You’re gorgeous. As in, drop dead gorgeous. I’ve had to run off more than one man from sniffing around you, and I doubt I’m done."
Thoughts of Weston came rushing back, and my anger rose all over again. Gritting my back teeth together, I fought to keep it under control and hidden from her gaze.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head the slightest bit.
“Then explain it to me because I’m lost.”
“You’re the lion,” she muttered, “and I’m the lamb.”
Clarity struck, and I suddenly knew exactly what she meant. I was the torturer, and she was the tormented.
I pressed my forehead to hers. “You’ve been watching Twilight again, haven’t you?” I teased, not missing the chance to lighten the heaviness that surrounded us.
“Oh shut up.” She rolled her eyes. “I was only trying to make a point.”
Trying to make a point or not, I couldn’t resist giving her a hard time. “You know that vampires don't sparkle, right?”
She giggled, and the tension that lined her shoulders moments before vanished. “How would you know? Have you met any lately?”
“Kinda starting to wonder about your sister.”
She jerked her head back and looked up at me, her brilliant blues the size of saucers. “What? Why?” Her brows furrowed in confusion. “What did Carissa do?”
“Let’s just say that I saw Tuck with his shirt off at the station the other day, and he had one helluva bite mark on his shoulder.”
Jumping back and free of my hold, she reached out and smacked my shoulder. Face scrunched, she looked at me in disgust. “That’s just gross!” she hollered. “She’s my sister!”
“She’s also a biter.”
Covering her ears with her palms, she shook her head back and forth. I watched, completely mesmerized as her shiny black hair whipped all around her gorgeous face, catching the afternoon sunlight just right. “Oh my God, I’m scarred for life!”
I couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from my lips.
Dropping her hands, she glanced at the water over her shoulder. “That water is clean, isn’t it? I mean, it looks crystal clear but…”
“It’s clean. Chase and I swim in it all the time.”
Eyes twinkling, she gripped the hem of her shirt in one hand. “Thanks to you, I feel awfully filthy.” A wry smile spread across her face. “I think I need to wash the ick away.”
Before my slow-as-hell brain could compute what she meant, she ripped her shirt over her head, revealing the baby pink bra covering her tits and the silver piece of jewelry that dangled from her belly button.
“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled, feeling my cock harden. “What are you—”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth making it impossible to speak when she unsnapped the button on her shorts, slid the zipper down and shimmied out of them, leaving the denim on the grass-covered ground.
My mind blanked.
The tiny panties she wore, combined with the colorful swirls of ink that decorated her right hip were my undoing. “When the fuck did you get a tattoo?” I gritted my teeth as thoughts of someone touching her skin long enough to ink it bounced around in my head.
She turned to the side, giving me a better view of the bright flowers painted on her milky flesh. “I got it a week after Lily Ann was born. I wanted something that represented her and Carissa etched on my skin, so I had Casper down at Kings of Ink draw up a design.” She pointed at the tattoo. “These are their birth flowers. When I have kids of my own, I plan to add theirs to my other hip.”
Out of everything she said, my mind latched onto one thing. “You want kids?”
“Of course I do.”
“How soon?”
Her shoulders shook from laughter. “Why? You planning on giving them to me?”
“You’re damn right. If anybody else thinks of getting near you with their dick, I’ll castrate them.”
She thought I was joking.
I wasn’t.
Shaking her head, she quickly removed her hearing aids and wrapped them in her discarded shirt. Then she turned toward the water, giving me a spectacular view of her perfectly round ass and the string that disappeared between her cheeks. I sucked in a breath. “Fuck, Heidi.”
The woman was trying to kill me.
She looked at me over her shoulder, a blush staining her cheeks. She couldn’t have heard the words I’d spoken, but she knew what kind of view she’d just given me. “You coming?”
I raised my hands and signed, yes.
Pulling my eyes from hers, I ripped off my boots and socks before removing my cell phone, wallet, and keys from my pockets. After dropping them to the ground, I started to unbuckle
my belt.
But then I stopped.
There wasn’t a thing in this world that I wanted more than to strip down and follow her into the lake, but I knew it was a bad idea.
If she so much as looked at my hard cock, I’d lose the waning control I still possessed and end up fucking her in the water, the consequences be damned.
As tantalizing as that thought may have been, I couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready, and as messed up as it may sound, neither was I.
I hated waiting, but I had to win her heart before I allowed myself to take her body. I may have been a bastard in the past, but with Heidi, I wanted to do things the right way. I didn’t want to have any regrets; I had enough of those already.
Much as it sucked, my clothes had to stay on.
“Hey, Casanova!”
Heidi’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts.
I looked up, meeting her gaze.
Hands on her hips, she stood in knee-deep water. “You coming with me?”
My chest filled with warmth as my hands moved. Just try to stop me.
I didn’t waste another second before heading straight for her, the woman who unknowingly held my bleeding heart in the palm of her unsure hand.
Ten
Heidi
It was late afternoon when Ty parked his truck in Kyle and Carissa’s driveway. The sun had already begun to sink below the horizon, and before long, the lightning bugs would be out in full force.
It was my favorite time of day.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I looked over at Ty as he shifted the truck into park and killed the engine. After pulling the keys out of the ignition, he unbuckled his seat belt and turned, facing me.
A slow smile spread across my face when I took in his mussed hair and wet clothing. “I can’t believe you got in the water with all your clothes on.”
“Didn’t have any other choice. After that little striptease you gave me, my pants had to stay on.”
Shaking my head, I laughed. “I didn’t give you a striptease. I just wasn’t dumb enough to get my clothes wet like you, ya big doofus. Besides, what’s the difference between what I wore and a bikini?”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer.
“Nothing, that’s what.” I made a point of looking at his crotch, the need to ruffle his feathers overwhelming me. “And just so you know”—I pointed at the front of his pants—"you may have been fully clothed, but your pants didn’t hide much."
It was the truth.
Judging by the bulge I glimpsed when he first made his way toward me in the water, there wasn’t much that could’ve hidden it. I may have been more inexperienced than most women my age when it came to sex, but I’d seen enough dicks—thank you Tumblr—to know that his package was bigger than normal; a fact that wasn’t the least bit surprising.
Nothing about him, from his hard body to his gorgeous face was average.
So why would his cock be?
“You always wear a thong to swim in?”
“No, I don’t usually wear anything,” I teased. “I was only trying to be considerate today. But who knows what’ll happen next time. Maybe I’ll throw all my southern-belle manners out the window and dive in wearing nothing but my birthday suit.”
His eyes blazed with undeniable lust.
The sight went straight to my lower belly, making my thighs clench.
“I’m not the one to tease, Heidi,” he said, his voice deeper than moments before. “Trust me on that.”
Unfastening my seatbelt, I turned and climbed to my knees, resting my butt on my calves. Excitement rolled through me as I fingered the silver necklace I wore around my neck, fiddling with the simple charm Ashley had given me for my birthday months before.
“Why shouldn’t I tease you?” I asked. “Especially when it’s so much fun.”
He raked his tongue over his bottom lip. My breath hitched as I studied his expression, trying to get a read on his thoughts.
Before I could figure him out, he tensed his shoulders, reminding me of a lion ready to pounce. “This is why.”
Before I realized what was happening, he lunged for me and grasped my hips.
I squealed in both excitement and fear when he lifted me the slightest bit and flipped me to my back, depositing me on the bench seat. My back melted into the soft leather as his big body loomed over mine, caging me in.
How he’d managed the ninja-like move in such a small space without hurting himself or me, I’ll never know.
Taking my wrists in his hands, he pinned them against the seat next to my head. I struggled against him in response, wriggling my body, and jerking my arms in an attempt to free them from his grip.
My efforts were in vain.
Ty was too strong, his hold too tight.
Besides, it’s not like I truly wanted to get away.
Held captive beneath him, knowing my body was completely vulnerable, sent me into my tailspin. My brain screamed that this was a bad idea, but my body begged for more as lust raced unchecked through me, electrifying my skin and awakening a desire I’d never known before.
I panted as I stared up at him, my eyes trying to read his for a second time.
Tightening his hold on my wrists, he raked his gaze over my quivering body in return, drinking me in. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
I shook my head, my chest rising and falling in rapid succession as I waited with bated breath to see what he would do next.
“How?” he asked, seemingly confused. “How can you look in the mirror every day and not see what I see?”
I inhaled, trying to steady the erratic beating of my heart. “What do you see?”
“Perfection.” His one-worded reply hit me straight in the chest, and I felt one of my walls crack right down the center. “The only thing I see when I look at you is perfection.”
Wrapping a hand around the base of my neck, he caressed the skin above my pulse point with his calloused thumb.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. “What are you doing to me?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
I sucked in another breath, trying to free myself from the fog clouding my head. I couldn’t think, and my guard was down.
Neither were good when Ty was near.
I needed my shield in place, and I needed my crumbling walls standing. Earlier at the lake I’d let them waver, but I needed their protection.
Without them, I could feel myself slipping, falling straight into his waiting hands. “Ty, I can’t…”
“Do you want me to stop?”
My mind and body warred with one another, making me feel as though I was being torn apart from the inside out.
One screamed for me to put an end to what was about to happen, while the other begged and pleaded for his touch.
It was a war in which my body won.
“No.” The world around me shifted. “I don’t want you to stop. Keep touching me.”
I fell silent as he removed his hand from my neck and slipped it beneath my shirt, resting his warm palm against my soft flesh.
Clenching my eyes shut, I turned my head to the side and squirmed, fighting against the voice in my head that screamed how wrong this was.
You’re letting him get too close, it said.
Ty’s hand moved to my hip, then up my side, distracting me. I gasped when his thumb brushed the underside of my breast, and my body grew warmer as his proximity wreaked havoc on my system.
This is a bad idea, I told myself. Like, real bad.
I jerked in place when his full lips latched onto the sensitive column of my throat. Eyes wide open, my hands instinctively flew to his head and slipped into his hair. I arched my neck, giving him better access.
He groaned in response.
Forcing one knee between my hip and the back of the seat, he trailed his fingers over my belly and down my thigh.
The moment his hands slipped beneath my shorts and slid around to cup my bottom, I melted, becoming bonel
ess.
Tugging on his hair, I pulled his mouth free of my neck as he held me in the palms of his hands, kneading my flesh in a way that made me want to lay my body bare for him to devour.
I surrendered to him, ready to give in to any demand he placed on me.
My heart was strong, its steady beat mighty, but I was weak when it came to the man holding me, his eyes locked on me.
Wanting his taste on my lips, I wrapped his damp shirt in my hands and pulled him toward me. “Kiss me.” Mere inches separated our mouths. “Prove that you want me. Then I’ll say yes to one date.”
He pulled his hands from the back of my shorts, a wolfish grin tipping his lips. “I’m about to convince you to go on a helluva lot more than one.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, he was on me. Lips, teeth, tongue—he plundered my mouth, stealing my breath. Chest pressed to mine, he slipped a hand between us.
A hand which dipped below the waistband of my shorts and over the top of my wet panties, outlining my damp lips and teasing the most vulnerable parts of me.
I gasped, then moaned as I spread my legs wider, a silent invitation for him to keep touching me.
It was an invitation he accepted.
Sliding the fabric to the side, he traced my slit before circling the needy button of nerves that screamed for his touch.
I arched into him, close to losing my mind, and wrapped my arms around his strong back. Digging my fingers in his cotton-covered skin, I prayed that my nails would nick him, leaving marks that I put there.
Wanting him to touch me faster, to apply more pressure where I needed it most, I dug my heels into the seat beneath me and lifted my hips.
Knowing what I needed, Ty pressed his thumb against my clit and slid a finger inside me, testing my tightness.
I gasped when he ripped his mouth from mine. “Goddammit, Heidi,” he hissed, his eyes glazing over. “You’re ruining me.” Eyes sliding closed, he shook his head. “Fucking ruining me.”
Every Wrong You Right: A Redeeming Love Novel (Book 6) Page 8
