by Tessa Bailey
“You can’t hurt me, Sage. You’re amazing. Everything you’re doing is right.” His fingers tightened around the strands of her hair. “And you can stop if you want to.”
“No.” She lowered his zipper and Belmont bit down on his lower lip until it bled. “I’ve wanted to touch you this way forever.”
He was still in awe over that revelation when Sage reached inside his underwear and took hold of his erection. Euphoria singed his nerve endings. He made a choked noise as his ball sack tightened with such speed, he thought he might spend himself in her hand, just from that one single touch. Paired with her gorgeous mouth falling open, her hazel eyes clouding, holding back was nearly impossible. It had been so long since he’d stroked his own flesh, the very connection of skin on skin caused moisture to crown on the head.
“Belmont,” Sage murmured, giving him a firm jack of her fist. “You have to tell me what you like. What feels good.”
He was still seeing bursts of light from the first stroke. Having her ask for instruction in that sweet voice almost overwhelmed him. “I haven’t…in a while. But I’ve always gone fast.” Holding her gaze so he could spot any signs of doubt, Belmont slipped a hand into his pants and covered Sage’s grip with his own. He pushed their joined hands to his base. “Oh, Jesus…” He sucked in a labored breath. “Press down hard when you get to the bottom. I like the way it feels when there’s…force there. On my…”
My balls. He couldn’t say a word like that to Sage, could he?
“You can say anything in front of me.” Their mutual grip glided up, up to his tip, ripping an animal groan from Belmont’s throat. “I like hearing you say these things. It makes me—”
“What?”
His eyes fell and remained riveted on her neckline, where her small breasts shuddered up and down, while their hands increased the pace of their strokes. “I think it makes me want sex.”
“Yeah?” The atmosphere started to grow woolen and slow around him, heat building behind his ears, in his throat, at the base of his spine, between his legs. An intense twist spun faster and faster in his stomach like a top. “Are you wet just like last night?”
Her nod was vigorous, along with the pumps of her fist.
“I might die knowing that.” Lord. She was perfect now, moving in the exact way he needed to get rid of the pain. Where would it land? On her dress? Was he an evil man for liking the idea of her being painted in his lust? His abdominal muscles started to quicken, but he bore down on the oncoming blast of sensation, wanting to prolong the anticipation as long as possible. Who knew when she’d touch him again? It could be hours or days or years.
Words clamored inside his throat, looking for a way out. I like hearing you say these things, she’d said. “I think about licking that place where you’re wet. Constantly. I think about how much you’ll like it, if I do it right.”
“You would,” she wheezed. “You would do it so right.”
A vision robbed him of reason. Sage letting her knees fall open, those shoes with the buckle resting on his shoulders. He’d have to take her panties off. That would be his job. The responsibility of making Sage naked from the waist down was what pushed Belmont into the point of no return. Knowing the end was near, he finally stopped avoiding the sight of Sage’s pumping hand on his flesh. His head fell forward, his chin burying itself in his chest. And he would never forget it, the slick movements of her white hand climbing and sliding, climbing and sliding down his swollen cock. “I can’t hold it in anymore.”
“Don’t.”
Belmont dropped his mouth down to snare hers, wanting to swallow that single word of permission, to show her how grateful it made him, but the kiss turned into more right away. Their lips were coated in steam from hot, rapid breaths and their tongues met without delay. Eager, willing, desperate. She moaned, causing more moisture to seep from his tip…and there was no more waiting. The combination of her incredible mouth, moving in time with her stroking fist, was a heaven he’d never dared dream of.
But he couldn’t ruin her dress. She’d put it on for him. He could still see her on the top of the porch, pride straightening her back.
Her teeth grazed his tongue and that shock sent searing pressure climbing up his cock. With a strangled shout, he twisted a hand in the hem of Sage’s dress and held it high, at the notch of her throat, watching in awe and disbelief as white ropes tugged from his body, striping Sage’s smooth, slight curves.
“Jesus, Jesus…Sage…I’m all over your belly.” He pushed the words out through clenched teeth. “Look how gorgeous you are.”
His climax seemed to go on forever and Sage’s reaction only made it more potent, more unbelievable. Watching him go over the edge seemed to elevate her to another plane, as well. She was sobbing by the time he finished, her hazel eyes glassy and unfocused. Her thighs flexed and chafed against each other, that triangle of sunny yellow cotton at their apex leaving nothing to his fevered imagination. They were damp with his come, molding them to her…pussy. He still wasn’t sure if he should call it that, but he knew—he knew—that she wanted the same kind of pleasure she’d just given him. It was there in the red of her cheekbones, the shuddering of her stomach.
Belmont was never more thankful that he carried a handkerchief out of habit in his back pocket—usually to wipe away sweat while working on the boat—because he needed to help Sage feel good and he couldn’t do that until he cleaned her up. Maintaining his hold on her dress with one hand, he whipped the material free of his back pocket and wiped away what he’d done. What she’d done to him. “I didn’t want to get your dress.” Was this his voice, so ragged and deep? It belonged inside a nightmare, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Sage, I won’t ever let anyone else touch me there. Never. Even if you don’t ever do that again. It was so good…so perfect…and then you kissed me and I’m yours forever. I just need you to know that.”
“I know, Belmont,” she whispered choppily. “I know.”
She knows. She knows. Thank God she knows.
* * *
Sage was going to explode.
There had been times on the road trip where she’d been aroused by Belmont. So many times. Those rare moments he smiled from the driver’s seat, just for her. That morning when she’d spilled hot coffee down her knuckles and he’d blown on the raw skin, his expression pained. And once when his lips had accidentally brushed her earlobe. Oh yeah, she’d been hot with serious frequency, with no real satisfaction to be had, because the only true way to relief was Belmont. She’d learned that last night.
Maybe last night was the reason her hormones were going wild now. She knew what was possible. Coupled with her front-row seat to Belmont’s groaning, shaking orgasm, and having the evidence of it soaking her panties, she was in dire need of touching. Of…mastering.
Belmont finished cleaning her off and they stared at each other, time seeming to pass too fast and too slow, all at once. “I’m keeping this,” he rasped, turning the handkerchief inside out and tucking it into his front pocket. Then he fastened himself back into his pants, the movement shifting the veins in his hands. “I don’t know if that’s something people do. But it’s something I’m doing. I’ll keep anything that reminds me of you.”
“I don’t care what other people do.” Sage eased the hem of her dress from his fist and let it drop. “Maybe you should cut it down the center and give me the other half.”
“I will.” His nostrils flared, eyes glazing. “After I use the dry side to wipe my chin of you.”
“Belmont.”
Her shock was short lived when he swept her up into his arms, marching toward the bleachers. Sage had a feeling there wouldn’t be an apology for manhandling her this time. No, there was boldness to him that hadn’t been there before. Her doing? Sage’s head spun at the possibility her touch had changed him in some way for the better. As she watched his profile, her breath caught at his intensity. His determination. It hardened him even more than usual, turning his jaw to granite, his
arms to unbreakable steel. “Tell me you trust me to take care of you,” Belmont demanded, settling Sage onto the edge of the bleachers, four tiers off the ground and level with his huge, heaving chest. “Tell me you know I’ll move my tongue around until I find the right spot. Until I learn.”
“I trust you,” Sage breathed with zero hesitation. Because it was the truth.
Briefly, his eyes closed. Muttering her name again and again, Belmont whipped off his coat and laid it down behind Sage, using their pressed-together foreheads to recline her. Once he’d laid her flat, he seemed to…expand, his presence growing larger, looming above her. “I’ve needed you like this.” He trailed his open mouth through her cleavage, all the way down to her belly. And those hands—those giant, calloused hands—climbed up her stockings, pausing at the knees, before traveling higher. “I’ve needed you laid out on your back. Needed to hear your breath and have you watch me, wondering what I’m going to do. To you.” He lifted her dress, gathering the material around her waist, his gaze riveted on the yellow fabric between her legs. “Is it still wet?”
“Yes,” she managed.
“Not just from what I did…” He kissed the spot where her belly met the panties. “But from you wanting me, too?”
“Yes, Belmont.”
The heel of his palm pressed down on Sage’s mound and every muscle in her body jerked, a half moan, half gasp flying from her mouth. So he did it again. And again. Until her hips were lifting off the wooden platform in a rhythmic dance to meet him. “Can I call it your pussy, Sage?” His breath fanned the insides of her thighs. “I need to know before I do my job and take off your underwear. Before it tempts me.”
His tone, those forbidden words coming from Belmont, caused her stomach and thigh muscles to contract. Hard. “You can call it w-whatever you want.”
Those blue eyes locked on hers, from all the way down her body. “I want you to call it satisfied afterwards. That’s what I want more than anything.”
A groan built in her throat, the urge to speed him along fierce, but she knew better than to rush Belmont. Knew he always delivered, whether he made a person wait for words…or kisses. She stabbed her teeth into her lower lip as Belmont began sliding the panties down her legs with the utmost care, his breath hissing when they reached mid-thigh. He paused for several heavy beats, before ripping them down the remaining distance. “Lord above,” he breathed, a split second before he lunged forward and fixed his open mouth over as much of Sage’s private flesh as he could manage, his lips stretching wider and rubbing, moving in a circle, opening her folds and spreading her dampness with every hungry movement. “It’s sweet,” he groaned. “It’s so sweet.”
“Oh…please…” A tremor moved through Sage’s knees and Belmont grasped them without delay, filling her needs like they were his own. His mouth continued to slip through her wetness, exploring, kissing her with stiff lips, as his hands glided down to her ankles, lifting them to rest on his too-broad shoulders. “T-too much. So open.”
His lips were shiny when his head came up, his eyelids at half-mast. “Be vulnerable for me, Sage. Sweetest girl. Beautiful, so beautiful down here.” He pressed long, lingering kisses on her core, wreaking havoc on her senses. “I’ll slow down. Go slower and lick until you want to open your legs even wider. I’m begging you to let me keep you spread. Please. It’s hard not to be greedy when you’re the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
By the time his speech ended, her back was arched in lust for his mouth. Had she really meant to close her knees? “Yes, I will. I will. Just kiss me there again.”
She’d barely finished speaking when Belmont resumed those writhing circles with his lips, reminding her of the way they’d kissed during his orgasm. All-out wet and shameless and starved. Through the haze, she watched his arms flex as they gripped her hips, the muscles shifting in his cheek as his mouth opened and closed, his eyelashes dark on swarthy cheeks. And then his stiff lips closed around her clit and she screamed. Was instantly a mess, yanking his head closer with desperate fingers.
“Theretheretherethere,” she chanted, bucking on the bleachers. “Don’t stop.”
His growl into her flesh was one of dark interest. His thumbs dug into her hipbones once, before both hands slid between her bottom and the bleachers, cupping and lifting. He ground her into his enthusiastic mouth, giving her no place to turn but pleasure. Mind-blowing, shaking, moaning pleasure. His sensual attack on her clit went on and on, the entirety of his lower face entering the mix, pushing and sliding and nipping until oblivion rolled through Sage.
“Belmont!”
“Again.”
“Bel—”
“Again. Please.” His shoulders pressed down, bringing her ankles up near her ears…and Belmont’s tongue sank into her heat, dragging back out with a savoring lick. “Again.”
He made love to her with his tongue, thrusting it in and twisting his face right and left, before withdrawing it slowly, moaning deep in his throat as he went. The very act of watching Belmont performing an act so sexual would have been enough to push her into a second climax, but she’d lost control of her body at that point, so she didn’t have a say. Wave after wave of brutal warmth undulated in her stomach, bringing her hips off the bleachers without a mental command. The image of Belmont winked in and out as her eyes went blind, her screams sounding as if someone else were issuing them far off in the distance.
His long middle finger shoved into her contracting center right when she required the sensation of being filled and pleasure wrung her dry. Her body twisted on the bleachers, feet scrambling on Belmont’s back as he grunted and growled against her flesh, that finger pushing deep, deep as it would go until she swore to God, her life began and ended with that single, thick digit. “Good, so good…Belmont, I’m…”
He licked her right inner thigh, from the knee to her core. “You’re what?”
“I’m satisfied,” she murmured, her head lolling on the wood. “You satisfied me.”
“Mmmm.” Something primal snapped in his eyes, the glow they cast so beautiful she couldn’t get a decent breath. It appeared Belmont couldn’t, either. He dragged his lower lip through his teeth and removed the handkerchief from his pocket, his gaze never leaving her. She watched through a fevered fog as he wiped the sheen from his mouth, side to side, then ripped the material down the middle with the use of his teeth. “We’re two halves of a whole, you and I, Sage. I know there are things we need to work on. Me, mostly. I need work. But I know your heart, sweetest girl. You wouldn’t have given yourself over to me like that if you didn’t believe. In me. In us.” He tucked one half of the handkerchief into her panties, then dragged them up her leg, gently arranging them back in place. “So no more trading places for secrets. Anything you want to know about me, you ask and I’ll tell you. I’ll tear myself down the middle and let you see it all.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sage didn’t want to sit down in a restaurant, so Belmont went into a Dairy Queen and ordered chicken sandwiches to go. He was simultaneously anxious leaving Sage in the parked car and grateful for ten minutes alone. He needed to retreat into his head and wouldn’t have Sage feeling self-conscious over his silence. She seemed to understand. Of course she did, his Sage. His Sage. There was no debate on the topic now. He’d come here knowing he’d made mistakes and she was graciously letting him correct them.
God, he loved her. He loved her so much, his bones felt like they were made of liquid as he walked back to the Suburban. His heart hadn’t quit jackhammering since they’d left the gymnasium, hand in hand. Relief and fear and elation and determination had made permanent homes in his stomach, taking turns sending signals to his mind. I love her. There’s a chance she’ll love me back and make my life worth living. It could actually happen.
But he was lying by omission to her.
Belmont blew out a shaky breath. He’d never been anything but truthful with Sage. Sure, he continued to reveal his feelings for her in increments, out
of worry that the entire thousand-ton magnitude of his obsession could scare her away. Not telling her that come tomorrow morning, he would be leaving for the mine and working off her father’s debts for far longer than the two months she’d expected? That was a betrayal of her trust. And it was making him ill.
There was nothing he could do about it, though. He knew enough about Sage’s backbone to sense she would dig her heels in. She wouldn’t understand that he would face any hell during the day, as long as he had the privilege of holding her at night. And it would be hell. Day in and day out. Belmont hadn’t allowed himself to consider descending into the darkness tomorrow morning, but with the moment looming close, his nerves were pulling taut. The only thing that would get him through the inundation of memories would be the knowledge that Sage waited on the other side.
God willing, she would still be waiting, once she knew he’d withheld information about her father and Augustine. Just until tomorrow.
His only option was to show Sage he was capable of overcoming the past, so they could have a future. Part of him even looked forward to that intangible point in time when she would smile over her pride in him. Unfortunately, he didn’t see a way around just going in. Not giving her an opportunity to stop him. Because God knew, if a pleading, tearstained Sage tried to stop him from doing anything and he was forced to deny her, it would rend him in two.
When he opened the driver’s side door, Sage smiled over at him shyly and Belmont almost blurted out everything, right then and there. He handed her a chicken sandwich instead.
“Thank you.” She started to unwrap the meal and stopped. “I know what you said about no more places and secrets, but I thought we could go see the church. If you wanted to.”
