Capturing her lush, bottom lip between my teeth, I’d slowly released it as I pulled nearly all the way out. Nipping a little too roughly at the end and earning a shocked breath that faded into a moan when I slammed back into her. Crushing my mouth to hers in a kiss that was rough and fevered—a claim and a plea.
I’d made a path down her jaw and throat, stopping to tease the sensitive spot at the base of her neck when the responding sound almost made me lose my mind.
By the time I’d made it to her breasts, worshiping and teasing and torturing as I moved inside her relentlessly, thoroughly, her legs were tightening around me. Her nails biting into my shoulders and back, deep enough to pierce. Her breathing uneven and mixing with her moans and pleas.
“I can’t,” she’d whispered, eyes locking with mine and head moving faintly. “I can’t do anymore.”
A wicked grin had spread across my face as I captured her nipple between my teeth, her body trembling beneath mine as she watched me.
With one last kiss to her breast, I’d laid my forearm near her head and rested my weight on it as I moved up to brush my mouth against hers.
Claiming her softly, matching the slowing rhythm of my hips as I pulled back to look at her.
My hand lightly raced down her body and moved between her thighs.
Her gasp ripped through the room and filled my veins.
“We’re just gettin’ started,” I’d said as I brushed around her clit, moving closer and closer to that barbell that still had me twisted up in the most carnal of ways.
She cried out, all pleasure and satisfaction, before I had covered her mouth with my own. Swallowing her moans as I drew out her orgasm.
Relishing in the way she trembled beneath me. Gripping my cock and taking as much as she gave to that kiss between pleas for more.
We’d continued like that throughout the night, early morning. However you wanted to look at it. Going and going, giving and taking, until we were both trembling. Only to go again and again and again.
Every time, she would reach for me as I gathered her close, whispering, “Need you.”
Words I was sure I’d waited my entire life to hear.
Words I’d ended up resenting hours later.
Now, nearly twenty-four hours after I’d finally made Emberly Olsen mine, I was there. Waiting. Wondering. Hating that I’d let this happen again. Still unable to sleep.
So, I’d spent the past hour since Sawyer left going through my phone, listening to the dozens of voicemails that I’d neglected since leaving Beaumont.
Nearly all of them said the same thing.
People wondering where I was. Why I’d vanished. If I was okay. If I knew . . .
Not one of them was about the furlough ending, and that was all I cared about.
Once I’d finished with that, I’d forced myself to go through the texts. Carefully reading and slowly gathering the same thing I’d just been listening to, over and over.
But more and more frequently, the calls and texts had been coming from one person: Gabriela.
With a sigh, I tapped on her name and held the phone for a handful of seconds before lifting it to my ear.
“Oh my God, Cayson!” she answered mid-ring, her voice groggy but clearing up every few words. “Where have you—I’ve been going out of my mind. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Are you okay?”
“Gabs, you gotta stop,” I said once I was sure she was done.
A choking sound came through the phone, and then a deeper voice spoke up in the background. Muffled, confused, slightly worried.
“It’s Cayson,” she told him before chastising me, “You can’t just leave the way you did. You can’t just—why won’t you tell me if you’re okay?”
“Think you knew I wouldn’t be okay.” My tone hinted at everything I wasn’t saying and forced a few sobs from her. “I will be, not that that’s something you get to harass me about all day, every day.”
“You left.”
“No shit, Gabriela.”
More cries sounded before she brokenly said, “My phone is constantly going off. People wanting to know where you are, where you went, if you’re okay. And I don’t know the answer because you didn’t just leave, you vanished. What am I supposed to tell them?”
Considering my phone hadn’t stopped going off either, I already knew all that. “I don’t know. Don’t respond for all I care, I haven’t been.”
“I don’t have that luxury when they’re also at the door, Cayson!”
Sadness wove through me, my head bouncing a little. “Right now, that isn’t my problem.”
I looked up when the front door opened and shut. My body going tight as if I needed to prepare and guard myself when I heard a second voice—one that didn’t belong to anyone who was supposed to be in this house.
Gabriela was crying between apologies that were long past having any meaning, but I didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t take my stare from the bedroom door.
“What can I do to get you to come back?” Gabriela continued as the door opened and a wide-eyed girl slowly eased her way into my line of sight.
Drowning in a sweatshirt that fell to her thighs, covering the way her thin pants stretched and clung to her subtle curves.
Face bare of any makeup and so damn beautiful it hurt.
Worries and unknowns bleeding from her as she watched me.
“No matter what happened, I’ll always love you, Cays,” Gabriela choked out. “You’ll always have a place in my heart and my life.”
“I have to go,” I muttered before ending the call and letting my phone drop to the bed.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be awake,” Emberly said, hesitation wrapping around each word.
“And yet, you’re here.”
Her shoulders sagged as she pressed her hands to her stomach as if she was trying to hold everything inside. “To talk,” she said, trying to sound firm and failing. “If I’d let you walk away and stay away, it would’ve been because I felt guilty. But I don’t. I’m wrecked over the possibility of not having another night with you.”
“Just a night?”
“No, I—” Her hands moved, lifting to her head and pressing there for a moment before falling to her chest.
She did that a lot.
I’d noticed it when we were younger too.
When Emberly was struggling with whatever she was feeling, she pressed her hands to her body as though she could contain her overwhelming emotions or help release them. Her stomach, her head, her chest . . .
It had always been innocent and endearing and so Emberly that it was a struggle to sit there and watch her do it then.
“You,” she finally said. “Wrecked over the possibility of not having you.”
“Need you.”
“I’m here.”
I cleared my throat and tried to clear my head of last night. “Funny when just this afternoon, Sawyer told me you were getting married ‘or some shit.’”
“I’m not,” she said quickly, body bending with her heaving breath. “Oh my God, we’ve never been—it’s never been anything like that. Sawyer always made fun of me because he knew I didn’t want that with Kip.”
“Right,” I said once she was done. “He ended up telling me that too after Mrs. Hedrin came through your shop. Said you were gonna lose your mind if Kip proposed only to backtrack and say you might end up surprising him by having a ring on your finger the next time he saw you. When I asked why he thought that, Saw just shrugged and said, ‘She says she can’t stand him, but I think it’s just an act because he moved away. If she really couldn’t, she would’ve stopped fucking him a long time ago.’”
Emberly’s eyelids fluttered shut.
A jagged breath broke from her.
“And after I’d already seen you wrapped around him, kissing him as he walked you back into your place?”
Emberly’s eyes had popped back open as I spoke, her face draining of color and her body swaying. �
�N-no. No, oh God, no.”
“Think it’s safe to say a night was all we’re gonna have.”
“No, that wasn’t what it looked like,” she said, her voice strained as if she’d tried to yell but it came out a whisper. “I’d thought you left. I’d thought you were gone. And I was devastated and crying, and then there was a knock. I’d hoped it was you, so I ran to answer the door, but it was him. As soon as I registered it was him, I turned my head away from the kiss and made him put me down and demanded to know why he was there. You saw the worst part—the part I was too stunned to react for.”
I wanted to believe her.
Really, I did.
But I had a history of trusting too easily.
Still, I listened as Emberly rushed through her conversation with Kip, stumbling over words and gripping at her chest as if she were about to burst.
“Did you tell him y’all were done?” I asked after she told me about finally finding my note—too late.
“Ye—” She blinked quickly as her eyes unfocused. My sharp, disbelieving laugh seemed to snap her back because she looked at me pleadingly. “He has to know!”
“No. No, he doesn’t.”
She fumbled for her bag and then her pockets, clearly looking for her phone when she said, “I’ll call him now and tell him those exact words if everything I said earlier wasn’t clear enough.”
“Emberly, it won’t matter,” I said calmly even though I felt anything but. “Because he still won’t believe you, and you’ve given him every reason not to.”
“That isn’t true!”
“He thought he was gonna marry you. He was gonna give you a ring. Jesus, the town was sure you were gonna marry him.” I lifted a hand before letting it fall to the bed as past betrayals mixed with this.
Funny how this seemed to cut me in a way the past couldn’t.
“I’m not touching that.”
“Cayson—”
“Goodnight, Emberly.”
She rocked back as if my dismissal had been a physical blow, her face crumpling with regret and pain and denial before she straightened. Shoulders back, chin lifted and wavering as she held my stare.
Resolve and a hint of chagrin storming those hazel eyes.
“Yes . . . okay, I was sleeping with Kip. A few times a year,” she said meaningfully. “He was also the only person I’ve touched since you left Amber because no one was ever you.”
My expression fell and my heart stuttered before taking off in a dead sprint.
I was hearing her wrong. I had to be.
“I needed someone to take the pain away. He was that someone.” Emberly’s words had started off shaky, but her tone hardened and teeth clenched when she continued. “You can’t fault me that when you’ve had girlfriends and you lived with one of them for years,” she ground out, pressing her tightly curled fist to her chest. “I had to listen to Sawyer go on about them. I had to listen to him telling me about this last girl—Gabriela—and how serious y’all were.”
The pain and jealousy that stole across her face stunned me and had my blood pounding.
Had me straining to remain where I sat with my arms folded tightly over my chest when all I wanted was to storm across the room and crush my mouth to hers.
To pour all the years of my own jealousy into that kiss and erase all of hers.
“And throughout all of that, I was only seeing Kip every three-to-four months on what I thought was a hookup-only basis. Even then?” An uncomfortable laugh fell from her lips. “Those times were when I needed to take the pain of you away. When I was so broken over hearing about your girlfriends or missing you to the point of agony. Yes, he helped. Yes, he was what I needed in those times. But it was always only temporary because he was never you.”
On fire.
My blood was on fire.
Pounding through my veins and demanding I take the girl in front of me.
Claim her.
Worship her.
Love her.
My body trembled with the restraint it took to stay on the bed, watching her when I wanted to devour her. My pulse erratic even as my mind tried to force me to see reason.
“You can’t stand me.” The words were low and grating. “You’ve never been able to, and for good reason, as you’ve continued to remind me.”
Her face creased, head bouncing in something like a nod before shaking furiously. “So, imagine how confusing it was for me when I’d realized I had fallen in love with the boy who lived to torment me,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “Imagine how devastating it was when that boy left.”
Everything had gone still at her confession.
My heart, my trembling limbs, my racing mind.
Only to return with a vengeance as my need for her came back stronger than before. As I thought through all the time I’d missed with her because I hadn’t known.
Because I’d been so damn sure she’d been in love with my brother.
“I told you, I knew you,” she said through clenched teeth, voice wavering. “I saw you. I saw the person you didn’t want others to see, and I fell for that boy even when you tried to make me believe he didn’t exist.” Her hands lifted to her temples, resting there for a second before they roughly fell. “When you left? You destroyed me—not that you knew or cared. I waited for nine goddamn years for you to come back even though a part of me knew you never would.”
I was across the bed and clearing the distance between us as if my life depended on that moment.
And then her face was in my hands, and my mouth was pressed to hers, moving and begging entrance. A whimpered cry got lost in the kiss when she opened for me, her tongue teasing mine softly, hesitantly. Forcing a low groan from me because I knew there was nothing hesitant about this girl when it came to the two of us together.
Tipping her head back, I brushed my lips over hers once . . . twice . . . and then she was reaching up on her toes and crushing her mouth to mine. Trembling in my hands when I nipped at her lip and clinging to me as I took more of the kiss.
More of her.
We stumbled back, one of my hands reaching out to soften our fall as we hit the wall. The kiss only broke for the second it took her lips to curve up in amusement.
And the soft giggle that sounded in her throat?
God damn.
My fingers raced down her body, twitching with need as I filled my hands with her rounded ass before I was lifting her. Pressing her against the wall and growling into the kiss when she rocked her hips against my hardened dick.
The thin material of her stretchy pants and my sleep pants was nothing.
Would be nothing to rid so I could sink into her.
Another rock and a shiver raced through her body. Her lips parting and stilling against mine as a stuttered breath tumbled free. The moan that left her when I pressed harder against her filled my head and my veins until my blood roared with need.
Seconds since I’d lifted her, and her forehead was already pressed to mine. Breaths uneven and body strung so tight as she hovered on the edge.
And we were still fully clothed.
I looked into her heavy-lidded eyes, gravel raking up my throat when I asked, “That fast?”
She gave a faint nod and whimpered when I shifted my hips. “You.”
I slanted my mouth over hers and ground my cock against her, that slight movement enough to push her over. Swallowing her moans and feeling every tremble as if it were my own.
She was gripping at my shoulders and tugging at my shirt, murmuring incoherent pleas as she tried to pull it up.
I wanted to let her.
I wanted to peel down her pants, drop to my knees, and devour her. Draw out her orgasm and send her into another and another until she was too weak to stand. Take her to bed until the moans and pleasured screams that had been haunting me all day filled the room.
But this was already too much when there was a lifetime of regret between us that we were pretending wasn’t there.
“Sto
p,” I whispered against her lips, stealing one last kiss before lowering her to the floor and gently removing her hands. “We have to stop.”
“What?” It was nothing more than a dazed breath as she curled her fingers around mine and angled her head for another kiss. “Why?”
“I’m not gonna sleep with you again. Not yet,” I added quickly when she jerked back, rejection flashing through her eyes. “There’s too much history that we still need to sort through so it won’t continue building and destroying us before we can begin.”
Relief and acknowledgment and worry burst from her in a dizzying wave. Her shoulders sagged and her eyelids fluttered shut as she once again pressed her forehead to mine. “Agreed.”
“And not until Kip knows without a doubt y’all are done.”
Her eyes flashed open, brows furrowing. “There’s nothing to end,” she said softly, urgently. “There has never been anything with him that edged into relationship territory.”
“Doesn’t matter, Emberly. He sees it differently, and I won’t do that to someone else—even him.”
“Okay. First thing in the morning, I’ll call Kip.” She spoke without hesitation, but as soon as she finished, she wavered, her tone wary when she asked, “What happens next?”
“With us?”
“I agree with you, there’s a lot we need to bring to the surface and wade through. But that’s a lifetime’s worth of pain and secrets . . . so, until then?”
“Talking,” I said dryly. “A lot.” The corner of my mouth kicked up in a smirk when her eyes rolled, and I lifted a hand to brush my fingers along her jaw. “First? I’m taking you to bed and falling asleep with you in my arms.”
“Is that allowed?”
My chest shook with a muted laugh. “Allowed?” I teased. “I don’t know, we should probably keep it down so my parents don’t hear.”
She shoved against my stomach before grabbing at my shirt and pulling me back to her. “You know what I mean.”
I dipped down to brush my lips across hers, pulling away before I could deepen it, before I could get lost in her again.
“I could fall into you and stay there without a care for the world. Get wrapped up in your body and wanting to discover all the ways to make you sigh. I need to avoid that just for a little while. But I’m not about to let you go either.”
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 22
