"Do that again."
He chuckled. "This?" He nibbled at my earlobe.
"No at my..." I swallowed and steeled myself to say the word. "My breast."
"Your tit?"
I turned and saw he was grinning evilly. I licked my lips. "Bite my left tit, Beau," I commanded, relishing the strange taste of the word in my mouth. "Fucking bite it."
His eyes went wide. "Fuck me," he murmured and bent to do exactly what I'd asked.
The sharp pain melted into the most delicious heat. I moaned again. "Other one."
"You're killing me." The strain in his voice made me shiver and then I yelped when he nipped and sucked at my right... tit. "God, Rachel. Tell me you're ready. Tell me again."
"I'm ready." I swallowed and then grinned. "Beau."
"Yes. Yes angel, yes."
The words came out with no hesitation. "Fuck me, Beau."
It was like a tether stretched to its limit suddenly snapped. Like a dam filled to capacity suddenly burst. Three words holding everything back suddenly giving way. I felt the strangest sliding inside of me, like I was being fundamentally rearranged from the inside out. I wondered if I was even me anymore because I didn't recognize the biting, sucking, kissing woman who was tearing at Beau's closed like she was possessed by Satan himself. I barely knew who I was as I yanked his jeans down below his hips and nearly swallowed his cock whole. I didn't know who it was that laid back and spread my legs and let Beau bury his face between my legs.
But I liked her.
I liked being her.
Beau grunted as his tongue found my center, my... pussy. "You're so wet already," he groaned, almost like it pained him. "God, Rachel, you taste so..."
"I want to know."
He drew back and looked at me. Me, it was me who said those words. Neither one of us could believe it. "Kiss me," Beau ordered.
I sat up and pressed my lips to his. "Is that what I taste like?" I asked.
"So sweet." He slipped his hand between my legs and rubbed until he had me gasping, then brought his fingers to my lips. "Lick, right here." His eyes went wide when I did. "You're fucking amazing." His voice broke in a rasping growl. He seized my braid again and held it tight in his fist while the other hand returned to the place between my legs. "Angel, I don't want to hurt you," he said, watching me carefully. "So I want you to come for me. Can you do that for me? Can you come right on my fingers.? Yes. Right like that, oh my God I love how you watch me. Keep your eyes right here, angel."
I could feel him moving, but whatever he was doing was lost in the waves of sensation that were coursing through me from his fast moving fingers.
"Right like that."
I gasped, my chest hitched.
"Right, just like that, just like that, come for me, Rachel, oh God. You're coming, you are, oh fuck, I can feel you!"
I screamed and the world shattered right as a hot, bright burst of pain flashed and then melted away.
I looked down and saw that Beau was inside of me. "Oh my God."
"Shh," he murmured, stroking my hair. "I'm right here. This is as far as I'm going to go," he soothed as I gritted my teeth against the impossible fullness. "Even though I have to tell you it's killing me. You feel so good, angel."
"I do?" The thought emboldened me, and I was filled with the urge to start moving. I arched my hips, gasping when he sank into me even deeper and his eyes went wide and then narrowed. "Is that good too?" I wondered.
My answer was his growl. He cradled me backward until I was on my back and he was over me, and even though I was vulnerable to him now, I felt so much power when I saw the way his face contorted in pleasure.
"Only just..." he gasped as he moved, the tiniest of strokes.
I inhaled sharply and he sank all the way inside of me, right up to the hilt.
"Fuuuck." His eyelids fluttered, beautiful dark lashes shadowing the hazel. "I want to fuck you right like this, Rachel." His hips jerked as his muscles quivered with the strain of holding back. "But baby girl, if I do, it's going to be too much for you. I want you to be on top of me."
I gasped as he bent down and rolled us as one and suddenly I was the one looking down on him. I froze in place, hardly believing the position I was in. Chosen women weren't in charge. That wasn't how we were raised. We were raised to be helpful and provide solace to our husbands and -
"Ride me," Beau said with a gasp. His hands brushed up to my waist and then down to cup my buttocks. He lifted me once, just to show me what to do. And I suddenly remembered.
I wasn't a Chosen woman anymore.
I was Beau's woman.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Beau
She knelt upward, long hair tumbling free of her braid in a wild tangle. Her eyes met mine for one second and then she closed them in bliss as she slid down, taking me in completely.
I struggled to let her take her time. Because she felt so fucking good. Had it felt this amazing before? I couldn't even remember a time before Rachel, and I didn't want to either. I wanted to be right here, with her, watching as she found her rhythm and her mouth fell open as it started to feel amazing for her too.
"Fuck." She started grinding herself into my pubic bone. Her short, shallow strokes were driving me crazy, but then there was the way she kept cursing. "Oh shit, Beau. Oh... shit!" and that was more than enough to make me lose my mind.
"God, I love it when you cuss," I encouraged her, gripping her by the hips and guiding her higher. The rough slap of her skin on mine was almost as amazing as the sound of her fumbling and stuttering when she realized how much she was losing it. "Say all the filthy words, Rachel. Look at my cock. Your greedy little cunt is swallowing it right up."
She turned even redder at my coarseness, but it turned her on too. Leaning back, she began to ride me in earnest. I was mesmerized by the way her perfect tits bounced, the way her hair swung like a pendulum, tickling my thighs. "Beau, it's, oh it's close, I feel it."
"Yes." I moved my hand, positioning one behind her ass, giving her the leverage she needed to slam herself down, while with the other, I slipped to the front and pressed my thumb right to her clit.
Her eyes flew open. "Oh! Fuck!" Her hips bucked wildly, and she ground herself frantically against my fingers, using the friction to get herself off.
And then it happened.
Rachel fell apart.
A shattering moan raked up from deep within her and I felt her clench me tightly from within.
"Oh fuck," I groaned, not even worried about whether I was making sense anymore. 'Shit, shit, shit."
She came with a cry, tossing her head forward and falling against my chest. I sat up to meet her, hugging her tight to me as I drove myself into her from below, cursing mindlessly as I felt her cling to me. We rocked as one for only a moment before my own control shattered and I buried myself in her with a guttural roar.
I might have blacked out. At the very least my sight dimmed, tunneling down to a pinpoint to focus only on a freckle on her skin. I stared at that freckle as my heart thudded to quiet, mind empty of everything but three words. "Rachel—"
"Oh my God, Beau." She sagged and then fell in a heap to the side before I could catch her, and then giggled as her eyes closed. "I feel like I'm drunk."
I grinned even though the moment to tell her had slipped right through my fingers. "Just call me Long Island Iced Tea," I teased her as I leaned in for a kiss.
She huffed out a scandalized gasp and then socked me lightly on the shoulder, then fell back again. "Hitting you took all my energy. I need a nap now."
I kissed her sleepy eyes and slipped from the bed. Quietly I knotted off the condom and slipped it under the tissues in the trash. Then I looked for my washcloths, discovered that I hadn't unpacked them yet and ended up wadded some tissue and running it under warm water. "Here, for you to..."
I stopped in the doorway. Rachel - naked and beautiful, with her hair tumbling around her like a blanket - was fast asleep in my brand new bed.
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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rachel
Beau's house was still empty, but my heart was so... fucking full.
I finally understood why the Chosen elders warned us so strenuously about the dangers of sex. Because now that I'd had it, it was all that I wanted.
I'd woken in the late evening to find that Beau was watching me sleep. It had been gentler that time, Beau acutely aware of how sore I had to be, but I'd flipped him onto his back and showed him I was doing just fine.
He seemed to like that.
He also liked it when he finally folded himself around me and I'd fallen asleep in his arms, but he liked it even better when he woke up with my hand around the erection that had started pressing into my lower back. That time we'd both been too exhausted for much athleticism, but we made up for it in tenderness.
Now I was awake in this strange, empty house, rifling through the few small boxes he'd brought over in the car yesterday as if what was his was also mine. "There's gotta be a mug in here somewhere." I tried to catch my yawn before it split my face open, but Beau chose that moment to wander bare-chested into the kitchen and laugh at me.
"Tired?"
"Someone kept me up all night," I grumbled.
He puffed up proudly. "Someone didn't seem to mind it so much while it was happening." He reached past me and pulled out the big blue mug of his that I liked the best. "I'd say we broke in the new bed pretty well. I slept like a baby."
I smiled down at the coffee he was pouring for me. He must have slipped out of bed this morning to make sure it was brewing. If I hadn't been sure about loving him before, now I was certain. "No, you didn't. I've never heard a baby snore like that before."
He froze, making me burst out laughing, but he looked terrified. "I snore?"
I reached out and touched the tip of his nose. "No. And even if you did, that'd be okay. I can sleep through anything. My house was always noisy growing up."
Beau's expression took on that one of wary eagerness. I'd noticed it whenever I made passing mention of where I grew up. It was like he desperately wanted to ask me about it but was afraid of what he'd find out. I cleared my throat. "My sister Rebecca - you met her, you remember." Beau grimaced. "She snores like crazy, but would never admit it. 'It's the walls creaking,' she'd say. Or, 'I was just going to wake you up, I can't sleep through your snoring.’" I shook my head. Rebecca was slippery that way, never letting herself get pinned down, always ducking and deflecting. I knew that was how she was, but her words were still playing in the back of my brain on repeat. “Why should I care? Because obviously you don't!"
Beau's voice brought me back to myself. "Did you have to share a room with her?"
"Of course. There were four of us in the room and whatever baby had been born most recently."
Beau blinked, but then just nodded. "I shared a room with my brothers a lot when we were on tour. I never could figure out who the snorer was. It seemed to change every night."
I opened my mouth to tell him that sharing a hotel room was nothing like how it'd been for me but then paused. He was trying to reach out to me. Even though we'd grown up so differently, there were still so many things that were the same.
I went up on my tiptoes and kissed his nose. "Shower?" I asked.
That seemed to pique his interest.
After we'd run the water cold and shivered into our clothes, Beau took me on a tour of the property. We ducked under the boughs of the conifers and blinked in the patches of sunlight that filtered down through the green. On the other side of that stand of trees rose a field of waist-high grasses with a huge granite boulder rising in the center like a stone ship in a sea of green. We lay there watching the clouds, letting the sun-warmed rock make us sleepy, then Beau heard my stomach growl and yanked me to my feet. "I had an idea."
His idea turned out to be - fishing.
Ripples were studding the weed-choked pond at the bottom of his lawn. Mayflies and midge danced crazy circles on the surface, and every so often the buzzing silence was broken by the might splash of a fish nabbing itself dinner. Beau strode down the lawn with the swagger of someone who already looked at this place as his. I swelled with happy pride for him.
Right up until the moment he handed me the pole with a condescending smile. "Have you ever been fishing before?"
I stared at him incredulously. "Are you really asking that?"
He raised an eyebrow and I let out a disbelieving laugh. "Beau, the Chosen are taught from a young age how to be self-sufficient." I cast out my line with an expert flick.
"Well okay then." He took a respectful step back. "Should I just shut up and let you do your thing?"
"Fish do like it better when it's quiet," I teased, softening my words with a smile. He grinned, running his tongue over his teeth in a way that made me excited about how much trouble I was getting myself into.
But then my rod dipped, and the bobber disappeared with a loud gloop sound. "I've got one!"
Beau shifted like he wanted to help me reel it in, then took another step back. "You good?"
"I'm good." The fish fought hard, but I'd landed much bigger ones. I'd helped pull newborn calves into the world. I wielded a mop and a twenty-gallon bucket whenever there was a spill at work. The fish really never had a chance.
A rainbow trout flopped onto the grassy banks. "Oh God," I groaned. "I hate watching them flop."
"I know." Beau looked a little green.
"Where's your knife?"
He blinked at me, stunned, but when I put my hand out, he knelt down and pulled it from the tackle box. I quickly put the fish out of its gasping misery.
Beau gaped. "Jesus," he muttered. "Where did I find you?"
I laughed, feeling light and proud. So many of my skills didn't translate into the secular world. I barely understood my smartphone and I'd never sent an email until Everly helped me set up my account. But this was something I knew. Something I was good at. I quickly set to work gutting our lunch.
Beau went back to the house to fire up the little charcoal grill he'd bought from the outdoor store yesterday. I hummed to myself as I filleted the fish, tossing the guts back into the pond for the other fish to feast on. When Beau came back with a plate, I deposited two beautiful fillets onto it for him.
Beau looked down, then without warning, he yanked me to him. "I smell like fish guts!" I protested as he peppered my forehead and cheeks with adoring kisses.
"Don't care," he mumbled, turning me around and backing me toward the house.
The coals had gone out by the time we got to them, meaning Beau had to light the grill again. That was the only thing that went wrong on that otherwise perfect day.
That night, after we'd showered and before he fell asleep, Beau wound his hand into my braid and used it to pull me closer for a kiss. He fell asleep with a smile on his face and his fingers in my hair.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Beau
It was moving day.
My mother wiped her eyes surreptitiously on the hem of her blouse as she went through the cupboards one more time. "You sure you don't want the mug you gave me for Mother's Day?" she asked, holding up the battered white ceramic piece I'd festooned with Finn's and my handprints at age nine.
I went over to her and kissed the top of her head while simultaneously taking the mug from her and gently setting it on the counter. "Okay, first thing? I gave that to you, so it belongs to you. Second?" I laughed as I leaned down and pawed through the box she'd been filling. "We already have this stuff, Mom. You don't need to give us your..." I paused and pulled out a strange tine studded implement. "What the heck is this anyway?"
"A pastry cutter." She took it and put it back into the box.
I reached in and took it back out again. "Mom." I tried to keep any exasperation out of my voice. Her eyes were already shining with tears. If they started to fall in earnest, I would lose it. "I'm never going to use a pastry cutter."
"But Rachel might." She took it out of my hand
and put it back in the box with a look like she was daring me to defy her one more time. "She's a very good baker, she'd probably appreciate having a nice piece of equipment like that." Her nostrils flared. "It is a very nice pastry cutter, Beauregard.”
My full name. Shit. I threw up my hands in surrender. "Fine." A faint beeping that had been in the background suddenly got louder and I heard my brother's shout. "That's Finn with the moving truck anyway." I kissed her on the head again. "I gotta go help him load up."
Three strong brothers should have made short work of the boxes, but when you threw in a bossy sister and a father who considers his packing skills to be one of the most impressive things about him, it meant that loading the moving truck took a lot longer than it should have. Rather than stick around and mediate the spats between Jonah and my father about where the best place to stash my upright piano (I was leaving the grand at my parents' since it had been my grandfather's) I decided to head over to the house and do one last spot clean. Because with Finn as my roommate, it might be the last time the place was ever cleaned again.
When I got to the house, I stood in the driveway for a moment, taking a deep breath. This was going to work. I scanned the lawn, wondering why it looked so empty, until I remembered that all growing up I was used to seeing our lawn spread out with our various projects and all the discarded bikes and bats and balls we always dragged out whenever we were home from a tour. I wasn't used to things being so... sterile. Even the air smelled faintly of bleach.
Then I sniffed again and realized that smell was coming from the house. The doors and windows were all opened. I definitely had not left them that way when I'd locked up last night.
"What the hell?" I called out as I nudged the door the rest of the way open.
Faint music wafted out from the kitchen. The sound of an angel singing. "Rachel?"
Soft Wild Ache (Crown Creek) Page 13
