by J. M. Madden
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she stopped in front of his bedroom door. Inhaling into her nose and out of her mouth, she tried to prop her flailing courage. Chad was an honorable man. He wouldn’t turn her away. Even if she couldn’t follow through with what she wanted to do.
Raising her fist, she knocked softly.
“Yeah.”
Turning the knob, she leaned her head around the edge of the door. “May I come in?”
His eyes narrowed, but he nodded.
Lora stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her. She pressed her back to the wood and crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
Chad had just gotten out of the shower. Dark curls stood out from his head where he’d run the towel over them. The expanse of his chest looked so warm and welcoming.
“What do you need, Lora?”
She choked out a laugh. “Well, since you ask…”
Brows lifted, he waited.
“I want to see what my limit is. I can’t…guarantee we’ll go all the way, but I want to explore and see. I know this is terribly unfair to you.”
Chad shook his head and took a couple of steps toward her. “It’s not unfair to me, but I think we better talk about this before we jump into bed and expect everything to be hunky-dory. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself if you looked at me like you did him. I was there, remember? Are you sure this is the right time?”
Lora cringed, just a bit. “I know it’s not ideal, but I’m tired of living with him on my shoulder. I can’t do anything without worrying. I’m ready to take back my life.”
“Okay,” he said softly, stroking her hair back behind her ears. “But let’s start with baby steps.” He took a step closer. “Will you let me give you a hug?”
Just the thought of his arms around her set off a war inside her stomach. Yes, she wanted to feel the security of not being alone. She wanted to burrow into his spicy scent and block out the world. But the absolute spike of terror the thought of being restrained set off was almost debilitating. Oxygen became sparse in her lungs and she gulped in air.
But wait. This is Chad, she told herself again. Sexy Chad that wanted her more than anyone else she’d ever seen.
Straightening her spine, she nodded.
Chad lifted his arms around her and pulled her in against his chest. Lora fought not to struggle and focused on his collarbone. Inhaling the scent of his skin, she tried to count down from one hundred. But as the weight of his arms settled around her neck, she tensed. Chad immediately eased the pressure and she was able to hold herself together.
Lora felt like she was dancing on the edge of a cliff, daring the wind to push her over, but she knew she needed to do this. She wanted to do this.
Chad pulled back and cupped her face, pressing a kiss to her lips. Lora frowned as he stepped away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Chad winked at her and crossed to the bed. He nodded his head to the other side. “I want you to lay down on the bed. I am going to lay down beside you and we’re going to talk.”
After the initial spike of fear, Lora could actually breathe, and just talking sounded like a good idea. She padded to the other side of the mattress as he removed his prosthetic, setting it to the side. Chad sat back and arranged the bedding so that they slid under the sheet. They were both still completely dressed as they laid down shoulder to shoulder, her left side to his right.
“I will never judge you,” he whispered into the darkness, his words hitting her heart like a cannonball. “What was done to you should never happen to any woman. I know you feel like you need to make a stand against him, but I don’t want you to rush this. I plan on being here for the long haul, no matter what. Okay?”
She nodded against the pillow, wiping the tears from her temples. She laced her fingers in his and turned on her side to reach her other arm across his chest. There was no fear as she squeezed him.
They lay there for a good while, and the steady thump of Chad’s heart was almost enough to put her to sleep, but she wanted to relish the feel of his arms around her for as long as she could. “I miss this,” she whispered.
“Hm?”
“This closeness. My parents were close like this, from what I remember. After Dad died it was just the two of us and we did good. Mom made sure we had a stable home. She was an accountant and she worked hard to keep a roof over our heads. I moved away to college, but I was close enough that I went home every weekend. Then one day, my mom didn’t call like she normally did. So I called her. The phone rang and rang before the neighbor lady picked up and told me that my mother had had a heart attack.”
His fingers tightened on hers and he rubbed her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“I think it was why I fell for Derek’s line so hard. I just missed being close to people. And we had that for a while, but he ruined it.”
“If he wasn’t raised that way, maybe he didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“He called me clingy.” The thought of the way he shrugged her off flashed through her mind.
“So, he didn’t know how to deal with your affection,” he stressed. “Had you been with anyone before him?”
“I had been with one other guy once, but it didn’t develop into anything.”
Chad stroked her arm again. “Then you found the exact opposite kind of guy you needed. Abusive, narcissistic and cruel.”
Lora choked out a quiet laugh. “I realize that now. Where were you and Cheyenne to tell me this back then?”
Sighing, he rubbed his shoulder into hers.
They fell asleep that way and when Lora woke a few hours later, she was glad that he hadn’t taken her up on her offer. It had been impetuous and could have ended in disaster. Chad had known that.
She listened to him snuffle slightly in his sleep. He didn’t snore very much, but he didn’t seem to actually hit a good relaxing, REM sleep. Though he didn’t move from the bed, he moved a lot, turning his head, shifting his shoulders. Twice now he’d gasped and groaned, jerking as though he’d been hit. When Lora tightened her arm across his chest, his arm had tightened between them and he’d settled down.
But then toward morning, the mood of his dreams seemed to change. She thought he moaned her name and his hips flexed upwards. Lora’s body heated. He was dreaming about her.
“Oh God,” he moaned.
His hips surged up again as if searching and before she could talk herself out of it, she burrowed her hand beneath the sheets and under the waistband of his sweats.
They each cried out at the same time, for different reasons. Chad surged up into her hand and Lora was stunned at the need she felt in his hot body. His right hand covered hers and he surged up again. The delicate skin covering him glided over his rigid length and she pulled away enough to dance her fingers along him, amazed at his size. Chad growled and she wrapped her fingers around him again, moving her fist up and down. His hips surged and released in counterpoint to her movements, getting tighter and tighter to his body. Legs moving restlessly beneath the sheet, he started to pant. Lora looked up at his face in the light from the bedside lamp that they’d never turned off, and her heart contracted. The scrunched look on his face spoke of pain, but the sounds he was making were all pleasure.
She looked down at his hand covering hers and knew he was close. Milky fluid seeped from the end of his dick, giving her strokes a soft clicking sound now. His mouth opened in a wordless cry as his hips surged faster, and then he was there. Bucking, groaning, he ejaculated across his lower belly and their joined hands.
Lora’s clit tingled and she almost came herself. Chad’s hand that was covering hers fell away, but she continued to work her hand, making him flex and pant, till he pulled away. Lora looked up and found his eyes trying to focus on her. “I guess I should be embarrassed,” he told her, “but I’m totally not.”
He sat up and looked at the mess on his belly, grinning. “Damn.”
Reaching over the side of the be
d, he grabbed his discarded shower towel. He took her hand in his and cleaned every finger, smiling at her. Then he moved to the mess on his belly. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Lora couldn’t contain her own grin. Getting him off like that had been empowering, and definitely more satisfying than any other sexual encounter she’d had in years.
She flexed the muscles of her lower core and could feel the lubrication her own arousal had created. Glancing at the alarm clock on the bedside table, she shifted. “I should probably go back to my room.”
“Just wait,” he told her.
Tossing the towel to the far corner of the room, he laid back down beside her, but kind of up on his elbow. His heated gaze glanced down her body and she knew for a fact he had to have seen the hardness of her nipples. She knew he had when he reached out and danced a fingertip at the very crest of her left breast. Lora jerked at the touch but prayed he would do it again. He did. Slowly circling her nipple, he leaned forward to press a kiss to her shoulder.
“I can feel your need, Lora. Will you let me ease you? Like you eased me? I’ll go slow and we’ll stop at any time, but I want to make you feel as good as I do right now.”
Unable to do anything else, she nodded her head, her eyes sealed shut. “Can you just go slow please?”
Chad nodded immediately, the touch against her nipple retreating. “I won’t move on until you tell me to.” For several long minutes he glided his hands between her nipples, but didn’t do any more than that. The entire time he did it though, he whispered to her. Gentle encouragements and compliments, things she’d never heard from anyone before.
“You are such a perfect handful and your nipples are so hard.”
By the time he tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, Lora was ready for him. Levering up, she whipped it over her head, leaving herself bare. If the light had been any brighter, she probably wouldn’t have been able to do it. But the bedside lamp had a low-wattage bulb in it, and she was on the shadowed side of the bed.
Chad groaned when he felt the heat of her skin and he leaned down to inhale. Lora shuddered at the feel of his head at her breast and she cupped him to her. As he moved to lave her nipple with his tongue, she cried out, her hips flexing. She felt the touch of his other hand at the waistband of her sleep pants, but he just moved a finger back and forth, tickling, arousing. If he had done anything other than that, she probably would have freaked. He was making it a point that she had to encourage everything he had done to her.
Lora closed her eyes for the briefest second, checking for fear, but there was none present. Not one little speck. Chad was not the kind of man to deliberately hurt a woman.
But he did know how to please them. She knew that even with as little as they’d done.
His gentle, chaste touches at her waist were beginning to drive her insane. Lora flexed her hips, needing his touch to move lower. Instead, he sat up and reached down the length of her legs. He danced his fingers across her ankle, up her shin, all around her knee, then slowly up her inner thigh. With a gentle nudge, he spread her knees.
The muscles of Lora’s thighs quivered. His touch through the thin cotton of the sleep pants was maddeningly slow, but she didn’t want to speed him up. This moment was too perfect.
Chad lay back down beside her, again taking her breast into his mouth. As he suctioned her deep, he cupped the heat of her pubic area with the width of his hand. Lora cried out at the touch she’d been hoping for and rocked against him. Goosebumps chased all across her body as sensation overwhelmed her. Covering his hand with her own, much as he had minutes before, she rocked against the pressure of his fingers through the cloth, chasing her pleasure. He was patient as she rocked against him for several long minutes, pressing kisses all along her side and across her belly. As her legs started to twitch and shift, he used the barest hint of teeth on her nipple. Lora moaned and arched as her body shattered into a million pieces. She panted for several minutes as her body flooded with joy.
It was the best orgasm she could ever remember having and as she closed her legs around his hand, holding him close, twitching, she knew she wanted another. Reaching up, she dragged his mouth down to hers, turning on her side toward him. Chad was more than willing to accommodate her, slipping his tongue inside to duel with hers. She flexed her hips again and he seemed to understand what she needed without her saying a thing. Removing his hand, he reached for the elastic of her pants, brushing his fingers beneath her waistband. Impatient, she grabbed his hand with her own and wedged it further down, through the wet curls at the juncture of her thighs to rest against her outer labia. Lora cried out as a single finger slid between her lips, and commenced to circling her clit. The aftershocks from the previous orgasm still had her body humming, so when he stroked her clit this time, directly and not through the fabric, it was cataclysmic.
Lora cried out, burrowing her face into his chest as Chad worked his finger high, then low, but he didn’t penetrate her. In the crazy back corner of her mind, she made note of that, loving that he was still allowing her control.
He bumped over a particularly good spot and she clutched his hand. “Oh, right there.”
Three, four, five times he stroked that same place and scalding heat poured through her as her second climax slammed into her. His touch eased to just the right pressure as she rode the wave then began to calm, until he stopped altogether.
Sighing, more relaxed than she could remember being in years, she reached her arms around him in a giant hug. He withdrew his hand and squeezed her back. His lips nuzzled her ear.
“You are so damn sexy.”
Lora’s throat tightened with appreciation. Accidently on purpose she brushed her hand down his front, not surprised to find him as hard as before. But he withdrew her hand gently. “I think we’ve done enough for tonight.”
She agreed, but neither one rushed to leave.
“I should go back to my room before Mercy wakes up.”
But she hated to move. Chad’s arms were so warm. Then he dragged the sheet back over them and she couldn’t move.
“Just a little bit longer,” he whispered.
Since she was just as reluctant to part, she closed her eyes.
CHAD WOKE AS the sun began to creep through the window. Lora was snuggled in his arms and he hated to disturb the serenity of the morning, but they were going to be interrupted soon. His gaze tracing over her face, he debated leaning down to kiss her, but he didn’t want to spook her. Instead, he squeezed her hand.
Lora blinked awake and when she saw him looking down at her, she smiled. It was the most beautiful awakening he had ever seen and he leaned down to press a kiss to her full lips. “We’re going to shock some people if we don’t get moving.”
She stretched her arms over her head and her breasts popped out from beneath the sheet.
Chad groaned and leaned down to lip her nipple. “We are so going to be caught.”
Lora giggled and rolled to the side of the bed, scrambling for her discarded t-shirt. Chad shifted to a sitting position, reaching for his leg. Rolling the sleeve over his stub, he positioned his leg over the cup and pressed down.
She stopped in front of him before she opened the door and tilted her chin up, as if waiting for a goodbye. Not wanting to disappoint her, he walked forward and dropped a kiss to her mouth. “Thank you for coming to me.” He grinned. “And with me.”
Lora gasped, her eyes shining before she shook her finger at him. But her eyes sobered. “I do want to thank you. You knew exactly what I needed last night. More than I did, actually.”
He shook his head. “I can’t take credit for your courage. If you hadn’t come to me, I’d have left you alone until you were ready.”
Her eyes watered at his words and she reached up to press a kiss to his lips before stepping out the door.
Chad ached with need, but that was a minor irritation. Lora’s wellbeing was paramount, and if a set of blue balls was what it took, than he would do it many times over
. That kind of trauma carried its own kind of PTSD. Hopefully she’d gotten counseling for the issue. He would have to ask her about it.
Gathering his jeans and shirt, he headed down the hallway for a quick shower. Yesterday had been surprisingly busy and he wanted to be ready for anything.
In spite of being on heightened alert, nothing happened. Chad knew from previous experience that it wouldn’t come until they relaxed their guard. At least, that’s how it usually happened.
It was a good thing nothing did happen, because his mind was shit. Thoughts of Lora the night before jogged through at totally inappropriate times, arousing him and leaving him wanting. Yeah, she’d jacked him off, but that just didn’t satiate as well as a man and a woman being together.
When he went to bed that night after Lora and Mercy had turned in, he waited, unable to sleep. Every little noise in the house snapped his eyes open. Flynn and Harper were on duty, so he knew that the house was secure, but he wanted Lora to come to him again. She would be satisfied at least as much as last night.
When the alarm clock flipped two a.m., he conceded that she probably was not coming that night.
Then he started to wonder why she wasn’t coming. Had the night before spooked her? She had come to him, so it wasn’t as if he’d coerced her into it. She could have stopped him at any time.
By three a.m. he was tired of worrying and forced his mind blank. He needed to be sharp for the next day.
Chapter Thirteen
LORA LOOKED UP from the eggs she was beating to watch Chad appear from the hallway. Damn. So lean and tall, with his cowboy boots, he looked like he belonged out here on this wild place. Well, other than the ball cap. She wondered if he ever wore a traditional cowboy hat.
Chad grinned and she realized she was staring. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she looked back at what she was doing. “Do you like scrambled eggs?”
