Soft Wild Ache (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  He opened his door and was at mine in a second. "Come here. Now." He lifted me from my seat and straight into his arms.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck as he said my name against my lips. "Rachel. Say it again. Tell me you don't want me to stop because, angel, I don't know if I can."

  "I don't want you to stop." I pressed my lips to his throat, feeling his pulse jumping under his smooth, warm skin. "Beau, I - last night—"

  "I pushed you too hard, I know."

  "You didn't. You made me feel." I cleared my throat. This was not a sin, no matter how much it felt like one. "You made me feel things I wasn't used to feeling but..." I lifted my chin and looked him in the eye, wanting to see his face when I said, “But I want you to make me feel them again."

  His growl terrified and thrilled me in equal measure. He swept me up into his arms and somehow managed to unlock the door one-handed while the other hand held me tight. "I can do that," he was murmuring against my neck. "We've got all night, angel, and I want to show you all the ways I know to make you feel good." He set me on my feet just inside the doorway to my room and looked me full in the eyes. "I need to tell you something."

  I held my breath. "What is it?"

  He shook his head, looking both amused and exasperated at once. He lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed them firmly. "When I came out to pick you up, it was with the idea that I wanted to get to know you." The gleam in his eyes grew wicked enough to make me catch my breath. "I'm planning on doing just that."

  "You are?"

  "First question." The light brush of his lips against my earlobe had me shivering. "What do you sound like when you completely lose control?"

  "I don't know."

  He grinned. "Let's find out."

  With an easy authority, he steered me back into my bedroom until the backs of my knees caught against the bed and I sat down. With my heart in my throat, I looked up as he lifted his shirt over his head and casually discarded it. He looked down, a smile curling his lips. "Do you want to touch me, Rachel?"

  I wanted to do that more than anything I'd ever wanted in my life. My hands trembled as I lifted them to his naked stomach. When my fingers brushed his skin, his abdomen twitched and then tightened and when I looked up again, I could see that his breath was coming faster now.

  Until now, I had never really known what it felt like to be powerful, but knowing that this man was just as affected by my touch as I was by his made me want to laugh in triumph. I looked up at him and slid my teeth across my bottom lip. "Oh shit, don't do that, Rachel," Beau growled.

  "Do what?"

  "That thing with your lip. You really have no idea how sexy you are, do you?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Here, let me show you."

  He leaned over me, backing me up until I was flat on my bed looking up at him. He was so close to me that I could see the way his beard swirled around his jawline. When he lifted my tank top, I flinched, only a little, but he saw and took his hand away, leaving my breasts still hidden as he ran his hand over my skin and around my waist. Even being this exposed to him felt like a sin.

  But if this was sin, then I was the best kind of sinner.

  He exhaled and then lowered his lips. Even as he was kissing my navel, I felt that ache in between my legs. "Unf." I was making sounds and lifting my hips, aware that he was doing something that was disconnecting my mind from my body, but powerless to stop it. His mouth traced a line right to the very top of my waistband, and that was when he looked up with his eyebrows raised.

  I heard his unasked question and exhaled. "I don't want you to stop."

  He hummed his approval, thick fingers tugging at the waistband of my heavy work pants. It was only at the last second that I remembered I was wearing my usual underwear - high waisted and generously cut - the kind of panties that Everly had laughed and called granny panties. I'd assimilated as best I could to the secular world, in every way but in my underwear. "Don't laugh at them." I put my hands down to cover up, suddenly ashamed.

  He looked up at me and placed his hand over mine. "There's nothing to laugh at." He gently lifted my hand and then smiled. "Except maybe at the fact that you think these would stop me. Rachel, you could be wearing a clown costume right now and I'd still think you were the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  I believed him. That was the most surprising part, the part that made me allow him to tug my pants down over my hips. He was watching me intently as he peeled my socks from my skin, rubbing circles in the center of my heel until I sighed in pleasure, and then brushing his hand back up my calves. I believed him when he told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world, because there was nothing but truth on his face when he gently nudged my thighs apart. There was nothing but bliss on his face when he bent his lips again, and when I said his name, there was only worship in that sound he made.

  I believed him. I believed in him.

  It had been so long since I had something that made me feel like I belonged. I wanted to belong to Beau. I wanted to be his and let him care for me. I wanted to fall back and know that he'd be there to catch me. I wanted to trust in him. Could I trust in him?

  He sighed again as if he could hear my racing thoughts. "Angel, I want to kiss you now."

  "Yes." I tilted my head up to reach for his lips and he chuckled.

  "Not there."

  When his finger brushed against my panties, I inhaled sharply, embarrassed at how the cool fabric betrayed how soaked they'd gotten. Without me even realizing. But the noise Beau made was pure admiring approval. "Just like that," he murmured, and I realized I was arching against his hand. "This is gonna be the answer to my question, sweetheart." A choked sound escaped my lips when his finger brushed the epicenter of the ache. "How you sound when you lose control? I want to find out." He exhaled as he leaned over me, and his hazel eyes were the whole world. "Will you let me find out?"

  My chest was so tight I could barely breathe. Just the thought of him kissing me... there... had my whole body on fire. I wanted it, but there was no way I could survive seeing it. I reached up to flick off my bedside lamp, and the darkness settled across us like the chaste dresses and underskirts I wore when I was one of the Chosen. Normal and claustrophobic at the same time. The second he disappeared from view, my thoughts started to turn around on themselves, settling into panic.

  Beau reached over and flicked the light back on, and I was startled to see his face so close. "I want to see you."

  I swallowed. Nodded. Because - I believed him. And I didn't want to feel like I was alone in the dark anymore.

  He bent to brush my lips sweetly with his, and then pressed his hand between my legs. He sat up a little and my mouth fell open at the warmth and pressure. He stayed perfectly still, letting me get used to the feel of him there, the first time anyone had ever touched me in that place. The muscles in my thighs jumped and a strange clenching sensation wracked through my core. The ache became a pounding throb that pulsed through my whole body. I lifted my hands, letting my fingers brush up his arms and then across his chest.

  I arched up to him. "I don't want you to stop."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Beau

  Her heat was nearly scalding me. It was pure torture to sit here, with only a millimeter of drenched cotton separating me from what had to be the most perfect pussy in the world.

  But I needed her wanting. I needed her desperate. This was new to Rachel, her virginity was glaringly obvious from her nervous gestures, her awkward passivity. I wasn't going to push her. Even though every cell in my body was screaming at me to dive between her legs and make her come until she went blind from pleasure, I needed to hold back until I was certain she was certain.

  And so I waited.

  Rachel squirmed underneath me. A beautiful thing. With the light on, I could see that flush creeping across her chest. She was running her hands all over my skin - quite nice in its own right - but even better was the look of undisguised fascination in
her eyes. Fascination and... hunger.

  "I don't want you to stop."

  She must have read my mind because she said it right as she arched herself into my hand. My fingers slipped along that heat. "Fuck." I brushed them back up again until I found that place that made her inhale sharply and squeeze her eyes shut, and then began to move them right... there. In slow, tight circles at first, while she pressed into me and then pulled away.

  It had been years, nearly a solid decade, since this had been enough to get me off. Dry-humping a girl over her clothes? It shouldn't have been enough, but it was so much more than that with Rachel. With Rachel, just the sight of her bare tummy had me sweating. The way her hair had come loose from her braid in sweet tendrils had me completely undone.

  I let her squirm and shiver until a low moan fell from her lips, surprising us both. "Right there, huh? Is that the spot?" I moved forward, needing to watch her face, and planted my hand by the side of my head, propping myself above her. "That's a beautiful thing, yes, just like that. God, you are so beautiful Rachel." I moved my fingers faster over that drenched cotton. The scent of her desire filled my nostrils. "You are so fucking beautiful." I was cursing now, starting to lose it. All the blood in my body was rushing to my dick, leaving nothing to think with.

  Rachel moaned again, opening her mouth as if to scream and then swallowing it back down again. Frustration rose off of her and almost shimmered in the air. Immediately, I understood. That whisper of cotton was suddenly an insurmountable obstacle.

  I leaned down to lick and suck at her neck as I shifted my hand. Slowly - testing her reaction the whole time - I slipped my fingers underneath that cotton barrier. When they found the slick skin hidden underneath, Rachel made a sound.

  The sound.

  The one I'd been wanting to hear.

  The one she made when she lost control.

  It surprised her. I could see it in the way her eyes flew open, like some part of her awareness was still too nervous to give in. But when my lips closed over the top of her breast, nipping through the fabric, that noise rose in pitch. High and keening, she gasped, and I leaned in to capture that sound with my mouth, my fingers working faster now, bringing her up and up until she went suddenly stiff, a gasping moan dying in her throat, replaced with...

  A scream.

  Rachel screamed against my mouth and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. She came like nothing I'd ever seen before, shattering from the inside out. I pressed my lips to her neck and felt her pulse race under my tongue, and my own pulse beat a frantic tattoo in my ears. And when her scream fell away in a dying gasp, she inhaled sharply as her eyes flew open and she rasped out a guttural, "Fuck!"

  I sat up and stared at her.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh no!"

  I froze. This was it, this had to be her line. Rachel reacted to cursing like she did to loud noises, jumping nervously and staring in the direction of the offending sound. I'd pushed her too hard. I opened my mouth to apologize, but then her eyes went wide and mischievous. "Holy... shit!"

  "Holy shit," I echoed, for different reasons. I leaned over to cover her mouth with mine before I accidentally professed my undying love for her. Because holy shit was right.

  She threw her arms around my neck and pulled me to her with such enthusiasm that I nearly exploded right there. "Wow."

  The scent of her arousal was still clinging to my fingers, driving me insane with the need to taste her. "I'm not done."

  Her eyes went wider.

  I grinned. "I told you I was going to kiss you too."

  "You are."

  "Not there."

  Her chest hitched a little as I slid down the bed and yanked her panties down. My hands were almost trembling in my haste to see her, bare before me. She lifted her hips obligingly, trusting me, and that made me all the more frantic to put my face there and breathe deeply.

  She smelled like every delicious thing I'd encountered, and she tasted like heaven on a plate. Her nervous gasping died away the second my tongue slid against her, and she and I both groaned in unison. I tried like hell to slow down and savor this, but the need to consume her, to devour her and claim her and make her come with my tongue was overpowering me now. I pressed my hands down on her thighs, holding her in place, the better to lick and suck and kiss. I could feel her muscles quivering under my hands, could feel her pussy clenching whenever my tongue slid inside, and I knew she was close, so close.

  I spread my hands under her and lifted, kneeling upward so that her hips were off the bed. The view of her - her smooth skin, her hair splayed across the pillow in a wild tangle unlike anything I'd ever seen on her before - had me harder than I'd been in my life, and I set to work devouring her from this angle.

  She arched, grinding herself against me, taking what she wanted, and I gave her all I had. When her legs splayed out in a sudden electric shock, I held her in place, not letting her shy away from the shockwaves that coursed through her body. And my reward was the music she made as she came on my tongue, and the way she shattered into a million pieces before opening her eyes and staring at me.

  My heart thudded in my ears as I quickly shucked off my jeans. Her eyes went wider as she caught a glimpse of me, but when I pulled the condom from my wallet, they filled with sudden fear.

  All at once, my heated blood cooled, as if ice had been suddenly dumped in my chest.

  "Rachel."

  "It's okay. I'm okay." She tried to smile. "I'm good. So good."

  But there was still that panic in her eyes. Slowly, I leaned down and pulled my pants back up.

  She sat up. "What are you doing?"

  She was still flushed and beautiful. My lips still tasted of her, and my fingertips still burned with the feel of her skin under mine. Her cries were still echoing in my brain and there was nothing I wanted more than to make her scream while I was inside of her but...

  I leaned down and kissed her once. "I'm good."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  She sighed a little, and I couldn’t help but catch the relief in it before she smiled. "I don't think I could move."

  "It's okay." I grabbed my keys.

  She rolled over and reached for me. "Stay?"

  I licked my lips. “I was hoping you'd say that."

  I slid between her warm, soft, floppy body, wedging myself between her and the wall. When she sighed against me, molding herself to fit alongside me and pulling my arm over her, I knew I hadn't been lying just for her sake.

  I was good. So good.

  Really.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Beau

  Yes. Blue balls are real. The pain is real.

  But the ache in my groin was all but drowned out by the sheer pleasure of having Rachel waking up in my arms.

  The morning light was seeping in through the uncovered window and the sound of the creek was a constant babbling murmur outside. I shifted a little, feeling the stiffness from being jammed into a too-small bed for the night, but it was worth it when I looked over and saw her stirring.

  She sniffed and made a small mewling noise of protest that had me shushing her and brushing back her hair in sleepy contentment.

  She stretched and shifted. And then kicked out with her leg, catching me right in the shin. "Ow!" I was suddenly quite awake.

  "Shit!" Rachel had apparently broken her own cussing taboo forever. She rolled over to face me, adorably covering her mouth. "I... forgot you were here."

  "You sleep like a dead person." I yawned and reached down to rub my leg. "I checked a few times over the course of the night. Just to make sure you were breathing."

  "I know." She glanced down sympathetically and put her hand over mine and we rubbed my leg in tandem. "Comes from growing up with nine brothers and sisters."

  I froze. “Nine?” When she didn't correct me, I whistled, impressed. "And here I thought I had the surplus of siblings."

  "It might be more now." She sat up, tugging he
r shirt back down over her stomach, much to my sadness.

  "Yeah?" There was a story here. A clue to who she was, who she'd been and what she'd fled from. I held still, the way I would when I spotted a deer in the woods. Not wanting to spook her.

  She was staring at some spot on the wall. It was probably sleep that made her eyes look so tired, but her sigh made me wonder if it was something more. "Chosen families are big," she said carefully. "We... they... believe in collecting souls. So not only do you have large biological families, but we... they... adopt kids out of foster care a lot too. I've been gone two years now. So that's plenty of time for my mother to have another baby and maybe even adopt one too." She sat up straighter and seemed like she was trying to shake the sadness off, but it settled back down around her shoulders like a shawl, making her slump. "My mother writes to me maybe once every couple months or so, but she doesn't tell me much that's important."

  "Your mother writes to you?" This was news. This was definitely surprising news, and it banished that last bit of ache from me when I realized that this - her sleeping in the same bed as me, her confiding these secrets to me - was a far bigger step than her having sex with me. This mattered much much more. "I have to confess, that's surprising to hear. I thought you'd be—"

  "Cut off completely?" She slid from the bed and looked at me, then exhaled something that might have been a laugh before looking down and twisting her bare toes on the floor. "My... leaving. It was... I wasn't kicked out if that's what you're thinking. And I didn't... run away in some kind of dramatic night escape."

  She must have seen the surprise on my face because this time her laugh was more genuine. "I know. Sorry to disappoint you. But I left because..." Here her words tripped up like she was about to reveal something before she caught herself. "It was a kind of mutual decision. Because there really wasn't a..." She sighed heavily again and looked at the window. "Place for me," she finished hurriedly. "There wasn't a place for me there anymore."