by Jess Bryant
“Where’s my brother?” He growled against her throat.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Not here. Told him to get lost.”
He smiled against her skin because he loved that answer. Jemma had kicked his brother out of their apartment before coming to seduce him in the shower. His girl knew what she was doing and hadn’t intended to take no for an answer.
They were both completely naked and he groaned as she peppered kisses against his neck, his jaw and up to his ear as he walked. He palmed her cute, round ass as he slammed the bedroom door behind them and then dropped to sit on the edge of his bed with her firmly planted in his lap. She shifted until she was right against his erection and he struggled to keep his brain firing on all cylinders.
“Jemma, look at me…” He tilted her head back until their eyes met. “What do you want, baby? Tell me what you want.”
“I thought I’d made myself clear.” She bit her lip, a soft smile spreading across her face, “I want you to make love to me.”
His heart tripped up in his chest. There it was. The thing he’d been waiting to hear from her again for five long years. But it had been a long and emotional day. There were so many things between them that were still up in the air. So many things they still needed to talk about. He had to make sure she understood what he wanted too.
“Are you sure?” He brushed her damp hair back, purposefully meeting her eyes, “You need to be sure because I told you before, when I take you to my bed, you’re mine Jemma. I’m never letting you go again.”
“Promise?”
He choked at her easy nod, “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t.” She brushed his damp hair back too, “Don’t shut me out and you won’t.”
Cash groaned and before he had even make a conscious decision, he was kissing her. Lips and tongue and teeth, the teasing kisses from the past few weeks were gone, buried under the need to claim this woman as his once and for all. He was done walking away from her. She didn’t want him to so he wouldn’t. She wanted him, then he was in. All in. He plundered her mouth, marking it as his territory. He wrapped a hand in her hair, holding her close, barely resisting the urge to pick her up and slide her down on top of him right then and there.
He broke the kiss to twist them around, laying her down on his bed so he could loom over her. He took a precious minute to suck in much needed air and stared down at her. She was gorgeous, curvier than she’d been the last time he had her naked. He’d seduced a girl that first time. This time, he had a woman beneath him, his woman.
“Last time we did this, we were kids. It was fast and sloppy and I know I hurt you.” He planted a soft kiss to her forehead, “I don’t want to hurt you this time.”
He knew she understood what he was saying when her gaze met his and held. He had hurt her in every way that first time. He was built big and she was so small. He’d stretched her and since they’d been so young, so inexperienced, the both of them, he hadn’t taken the time to prepare her. She hadn’t cried, not when he took her virginity. That had come after, when he took her heart and smashed it to pieces.
“You won’t. I trust you.”
He swallowed hard, “I don’t want you to regret us this time.”
Jemma smiled softly, warmth filling her eyes as she reached up and cupped his cheeks, “No regrets, not anymore. I want you to make love to me, Cash.”
He tilted his mouth to her palm, planting a kiss there as well. He couldn’t stop kissing her. For all of his years, even all of their time apart, Jemma’s were the only kisses he remembered. Strawberry lip-gloss kisses when they were kids and slightly sloppy kisses the first time they’d come together. Stolen kisses and passionate kisses since they found their way back to each other. He could spend the rest of his life kissing this woman.
He trailed his lips across her jaw, “I’ve missed you so damn much baby.”
“I missed you too.” She whimpered and twisted as he trailed his hands down her body, pausing to tug on her nipples, “Cash, please, I need you now. No more waiting. No more teasing. Now.”
His fingers slipped down her belly, earning another shudder and causing him to growl when he discovered how wet she was for him. He wasn’t going to hurt her this time. He swore he wasn’t. It felt just as rushed, just as frantic, but it was all different this time. They both knew what they were doing now. They were making a conscious choice to be together, despite the hurt, despite their past. They chose each other. They chose this. Now.
“Cash…”
He groaned when his name came from those lips in that needy voice. She was hurting and she needed him to relieve the ache. She was begging him, begging for him. He’d take care of her this time, make sure she was always taken care of, always had what she wanted, what she needed. She would always have him.
He slid over her, positioning himself and then forcing her to meet his gaze, “You’re mine Jemma.”
“I always have been.”
With her words ringing in his ears, he pushed himself inside her. She cried out and he groaned as he worked himself in, deep inside her tight little body. Heaven. Home. Warmth. Safety. Acceptance. Love. Jemma was everything he’d ever missed in his life. He paused for a moment, buried deep inside of her and tried to regain his bearings, tried to fight the reckless urge to lose control and thrust hard, but she was having none of his control now.
Her nails scored his back as she lifted her hips, taking all of him, forcing him deeper than he would have gone so soon, “More. Everything. Don’t hold back.”
“Everything.”
He began to thrust and she met him, their bodies colliding as nature took over. He kissed her as their bodies pounded together hard and fast. Her nails dug into him and he relished the bite of pain. He loved thinking about how he would look after. Marked. She was marking him. The look of pleasure that took over her features had him rushing towards his own ecstasy and he knew that he was totally and completely screwed.
For so long he’d told himself that this was the only woman for him. He’d always known it was true. There had been other women but none of them had come close to taking her place. He hadn’t felt anything for them. Being with them had been a physical function for his body but his heart hadn’t been involved. His soul certainly hadn’t. But with Jemma, every part of him was involved, all of it, physical and emotional tied together so tightly that there was no denying that joining them was an act of completion.
There would be no going back from this. Not this time. There would be no moving on, not that he’d ever really succeeded at that. It was Jemma or it would be nothing for him from this moment forward so he had to find a way to keep her.
He couldn’t let her go again. He wouldn’t lose her. Whatever it took, he was keeping her with him, where she belonged. He would just have to do better. He would have to be a better man. He had to do whatever it took to deserve her this time.
“Oh God. Oh Cash.” She moaned as her body began to clench beneath him, “I… I…”
“Come for me baby, give me everything.”
“Cash!”
She screamed his name as her orgasm hit her and he growled as her body tightened around him like a vise. The primal, animal part of him howled with pleasure that it was his name on her lips. He wanted everyone to hear, wanted everyone to know that she was his. He wanted to mark her, claim her in some way, every way, so that the world would know that she belonged with him.
That was the last semi-coherent thought he had before his own release dragged him under. He groaned, holding her tight, pumping deep as he came inside of her. He heard her gasp, felt it the moment his release spilled into her and triggered another orgasm from her, dragging him even deeper, taking him into her body. She wrung every drop from him before he collapsed against her.
“Oh… my… God…” Jemma panted as they both struggled to regain their breath. “We’ve gotten sooo much better at that.”
A smile curled at his lips as he kissed her softly,
groaning as he rolled to the side before he crushed her, “Damn right we did.”
“You learned some new tricks.” She giggled and he pulled her into his side, pleased to note her ludicrously happy expression.
He’d made her happy. That was his new sole mission in life and he’d accomplished it tonight. On what had been one of their worst days. He was tired, exhausted, but sated and satisfied. He had Jemma in his arms and he’d managed to make her happy which put a smile on his face that nothing could erase.
“No, it’s just never like that with anyone else. Only between us. It’s never been that good with anyone else because it was always supposed to be us. We belong together.”
“Mmm…” She cuddled against him, “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“I’ve been waiting five years for that, for you. Five years of expectations and you blew them completely out of the water. You’re better than any fantasy I could have dreamed up and trust me, I dreamed of this a lot in the years you’ve been gone.”
“Let’s not wait another five years to do it again.” She grinned as she rolled up onto his chest and he groaned as her legs spread wide around his hips.
Good lord, she was incredible. She sat upright, her red hair wild about her shoulders, one stray strand curling lewdly around the tip of her nipple. His palms immediately rose up to her chest, cupping her full breasts. She moaned, her head falling back as he toyed with her nipples.
“We’re going to have to wait at least five minutes, babe. I need some time to recover. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
She bit her lip, her smile bright as she met his gaze again, “I’m sure I can think of some way to spend the time.”
Jemma teased his body with kisses and touches. Caresses that made his every nerve ending sing. And his body responded just as it always did with her, coming to life. Minutes? With Jemma, it took moments.
Because their bodies were meant to come together, be together. Because she had been made for him and because he had been made for her. She wanted and so he would give. He’d give her everything. She already had his heart. She always had.
“Again, baby?”
“Always.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sunlight was filtering in through the cheap blinds on the window, casting golden shadows across the most beautiful chest she’d ever seen. Jemma had barely slept. They’d both barely slept. They’d been up all night, making up for lost time. They’d kissed and touched and made love until they fell asleep for a few hours and then they’d reached for each other and started all over again. They’d finished their last round of mind blowing, body numbing, oh my God sex an hour ago and Cash had finally succumbed to the mortal need for rest.
The man was… incredible. Strong and confident. Gentle and sensitive. He was the most difficult kind of complex, the kind that was hidden beneath a façade of simple. Because on the outside, that’s what he was, a simple man.
He’d scraped by in high school and never gone to college. He worked with his hands doing hard manual labor and lived paycheck to paycheck. He was a jeans and t-shirt guy and he didn’t need anything more than what he could earn honestly. He was a simple man that cared more for the people he loved than for himself and that was what made him so impossibly complex.
He would choose everyone else’s happiness over his own. He would willingly go without for the people he loved. He would hurt himself in order to protect her, would walk away from her, again. And she didn’t know how to get past something so deeply ingrained inside of him, not when she loved that part of him just as much as she feared it.
His anger issues didn’t scare her. She knew he would never raise his fists to her, not in a million years. Not after seeing the kind of damage Decker had done to Chrissy with his, not after being on the receiving end of those outbursts. His temper didn’t scare her. She would fight and argue with him until they were both blue in the face. She was a redhead. She had a temper too. What scared her was his ability to completely shut down and shut her out.
Last night, he’d been prepared to walk out of her life for good. She’d realized that somewhere between Houston and Old Settlers and spent a good portion of the drive watching him from beneath her lashes, trying to figure out what to do about it. Even still, actually seeing him turn and walk away without so much as a word had shocked her and chilled her to the bone.
So she’d done what she had to do. She’d gone after him. She’d gotten naked. She’d seduced him. She’d also tried to talk to him and make him see reason but she didn’t know if she’d truly gotten through to him or not. And even if she had, she didn’t have any guarantee that the next time he got upset about something that he wouldn’t try to shut her out all over again.
All she could do was try to be there for him and pray that he let her in. She hoped he would, that he could, because after last night, she knew she didn’t want to live without him. Maybe it was because of their history, or the fact that they both had issues to overcome, maybe it was simple chemistry or maybe it was something bigger than either of them but the fact was this: They were meant to be together.
She traced her fingers over the dark lines of the ink that branded his chest for the twentieth time since she woke in his arms. He’d tattooed her name on his body when she’d already been long gone, when he couldn’t have known she would ever come back. He’d marked his body, permanently, with her name and the symbolism of what he had done, the magnitude of that kind of commitment, touched the very depths of her soul.
“Mmm…” Cash groaned, shifting as he woke so that his arms wrapped around her and tugged her closer, “Is this a dream or are you really here?”
She smiled against his shoulder, “I’m really here.”
“Thank God.” His voice was gruff from sleep, gravel and steel, “I’ve had these dreams about you for so long, if I woke up to find out last night was another one I’m not sure I would have survived.”
“Yeah? What kind of dreams?”
“Keep touching me like that and you’re gonna find out.” He caught her fingers and pressed her hand firmly against his chest, stopping her teasing motion.
“Promise?” She grinned when he chuckled and then, when they fell into silence she sighed and broached the far more serious topic at hand, “I was worried you’d try to kick me out when you woke up.”
His eyes finally opened, those intense blue orbs searching her face out instantly. His brows furrowed and his lips thinned. Something dark clouded his face and she squealed when he flipped them easily, putting her back to the mattress as he came up on an elbow to loom over her.
“Why would I do that when I’ve finally got you exactly where I want you?”
“The same reason you let me go last time, to protect me.”
He only shook his head, “Baby, I told you last night. You’re mine.”
“But…”
“I let you go once. I gave you a chance to go and find someone else, find someone better, and you failed. You came back to me. Now you’re mine and I’m not letting you go again. You’re stuck with me Jemma.”
Her heart thumped hard in her chest. She thought she’d seen all of the many faces of Cash Bomar but this one was new. Sweetly possessive. She’d seen him cocky before sure, but this was tinged in something softer. He wasn’t convinced he was the best thing for her but his words told her he didn’t intend to push her away again.
Sweet, complicated man.
“There’s nowhere else I want to be Cash.”
“Good, because this is where you belong.” He brushed a light kiss across her lips and her heart melted.
She traced the edges of the tattoo again, still marveling that her name was imprinted on his skin. She didn’t have any tattoos. She’d always thought they were a beautiful way of expressing oneself but she’d never found anything she liked enough to want it on her body for the rest of her life. Despite his brother’s profession, Cash had only the one, just that one word in simple black ink, which somehow ma
de it even more important.
“You can ask you know.” He sighed, rolling back to the bed and pulling her against him again.
“What?”
“Anything. Everything. Whatever you want to know, just ask.”
Somehow, she doubted it would be that easy. Cash was an intensely private person. He wasn’t a big talker, about anything, particularly not his emotions. He kept his feelings tied up inside of him but if he was offering to let her wade around on the other side of his wall, then she was fully prepared to go marching through laying siege and claiming her territory.
“When’d you get it?” Her hand rose to the tattoo again and his much larger palm met hers, wrapping their fingers together and resting their joined hands over his heart.
“The day you left town…” He frowned, “Or a few days after. I don’t really remember.”
“You don’t remember the exact date or you don’t remember getting the tattoo?”
“Both.”
She groaned when he went quiet, as if she would ever be satisfied with that answer, “Explain?”
“Okay…” He took a deep breath, blew it out and then began slowly, “I knew you were leaving but the day you actually packed up and drove out of Old Settlers, it really hit me that I’d probably never see you again. I knew I’d lost you for good that day so I did what you’d expect any man to do when the love of his life left him… I got drunk.”
Jemma shifted closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder and pretending to ignore the fact that he’d just called her the love of his life, “You were eighteen. Where’d you get the alcohol?”
“I’m a Bomar. We’ve got anything even half illegal stockpiled. I stole a case of whiskey out of Decker’s stash and drank until it stopped hurting so damn much.” He sighed, “Or I didn’t… I don’t know because I blacked out. I don’t remember much about those first few days you were gone. I got drunk and I stayed that way until Colt finally managed to get the bottles away from me and sober me up.”
