I lifted up higher on my knees and trailed my hand across his ribs and down those carved lines of his stomach. His eyes narrowed at me as I gently touched the back of his wrist where his fingers were still toying with my aching clit and slick folds. I brushed my fingers over his knuckles and then reached behind my rocking hips so I could scrape my fingers over the hair-roughed skin of his thighs. My destination was clear and his breath exhaled in a long sigh as he continued to watch me closely. It was bolder than I had been but I wanted him to break so I could let go and allow my body to float away on the river of pleasure that I could feel building and threatening to overflow against his touch.
“Honey.” There was warning in his gruff word but I ignored it and leaned back until I could get my fingers on those tight, sensitive, and delicate globes that rested between his spread legs. His entire body jolted at the first touch of my fingers to the soft skin. His freckles stood out starkly on his cheeks and across his nose as his features pulled taut in concentration. It was obvious he was having to make a real effort to keep his impending orgasm at bay and that knowledge made me feel more feminine and desirable than anything ever had. I’d been told I was beautiful since I was a little girl but watching Wheeler fight to keep control was the first time I really felt beautiful and wanted. I was driving him crazy and I loved it because I knew there would be no punishment, no blame or judgment, when I forced him to break before I did. It was give-and-take and I loved that it was my turn to give because as wonderful as he made taking feel, I wouldn’t be okay until I knew I could give just as good as I was getting.
I fondled the paper-thin skin, used my nails carefully, and tossed my head back so that the ends of my long hair pooled like silk across his lap and my stroking hand. I closed my eyes and let him lift me up and drop me back down at a rate that was far faster than I had been moving on him before. The longer my hand stayed between his legs, the harder he thrust up into me, his narrow hips lifting clear off the mattress as he barked my name and growled dirty words of warning. I was a little dizzy and entirely lost in sensation as his hand left my hip and settled on my breast. The double stimulation of his fingers on my clit and my nipple had me gasping and moaning his name. There was no longer a rhythm either of us was following, we were simply grinding, rocking, bouncing into one another, desperate to fulfill the lingering promise of pleasure.
He pressed down hard on my clit and pinched my nipple between his fingers, giving the stiff peak a tug that I felt all the way between my legs. I grasped his sac in my palm and gave the hot, tight skin a squeeze that made his eyes slam closed and that had his teeth sinking into the flesh of his bottom lip. It was an image that would stay with me forever. A second later, his head fell back and he let out a groan as his whole body shuddered and quaked below me. I felt his cock jerk inside of me hard and hot. His hands drifted lightly across my skin, trailing wetness and marking his place like he might need a reminder where he left off when he came back to his senses. He didn’t need to worry about it because as soon as he found his finish, mine chased right after it. It hit me in a rush that had my body bowing and then collapsing on top of his like every single thing holding me together had unraveled.
I was a boneless heap on top of him as he lifted a hand to stroke through my hair. He was petting me much the same way I petted him and I realized we both had jagged, pointed pieces that could do with a little bit of soothing. I closed my eyes and absorbed what peace of mind and security in the arms of another person felt like. This was safety. This was the shelter I had been looking for in the storm of my life for so long.
“I’m supposed to take care of you, honey.” His voice was raspy from satisfaction and sleepiness. It was late and we’d been at each other since we stepped into the fancy hotel room.
I stifled a yawn and snuggled deeper into his chest. We were covered in sweat and sex but I didn’t care. I wanted to stay as close to him as possible. “And I’m supposed to take care of you, Hudson. That’s what being all in means.”
His fingers twisted in my hair and his breath feathered across my forehead and he let out a chuckle. “If you took any better care of me, I would be dead.”
That made me smile as pride and a sense of rightness settled around me like the warmest of blankets. His fingers moved to my spine and traced each and every bump before he yawned and told me, “I gotta get up and take care of business. We both should probably shower unless you want to be stuck together all night long.”
I rubbed my nose against the snarling wolf face and made a noise of protest as he rolled out from under me and extracted himself from my clinging limbs. “I want to be stuck together all night long.”
He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he turned and walked toward the bathroom. It was like watching a canvas full of the most beautiful art ever created move. The way his ink flexed and shifted with his skin was something so fascinating I couldn’t look away from it and I wanted to ask him to stand still in front of me so I could examine it all and see if I could figure out what part of his story the picture told.
He thought his wolf was alone searching for its mate. I needed to tell him he was wrong; it was there to guard his soft heart and gentle soul from the ugliness of the world around him. He needed that beast to keep the bad things at bay.
The sight of him coming back to bed was even better than the one of him walking away. Of course, my gaze was drawn to the swirling ink that dipped low below his belly button and flanked either side of his mahogany-tinted happy trail. I couldn’t imagine how bad that had to hurt but the pain he must have endured was so worth it. All I could think of when I looked at the black ink was tracking every single line of it with my tongue. He was so different from anything I’d ever known in all the best ways and I desperately wanted him to know that I appreciated those differences on a very visceral and primitive level.
He was watching me with a knowing glint in his eyes and a grin on his face, which made me blush. I was getting ready to tell him to stop staring at me when the shrill sound of a phone going off broke the erotic haze that we had been surrounded in since I asked him to have sex with me. I still couldn’t believe I’d had the nerve to do it, but as muscles twinged with pleasant soreness, I was so glad that I had. He made me push past the fear. He wasn’t simply fighting my demons for me, he was giving me the strength to do battle with them on my own. I would do my best to slay them all and proudly step over their wilting bodies if it meant walking toward him and whatever a future filled with him and not fear would look like.
His phone had fallen when he stripped in the bathroom earlier; he was looking for it there when suddenly it stopped ringing only to start up right again. When he came back he was holding it with a pained expression on his face. “It’s Kallie.”
I could tell he was torn between wanting to answer it and wanting to pretend like he and I were the only two people in the world. I crawled underneath the blankets so that I was covered up and told him, “You need to answer. What if it has something to do with the baby?” Reality wasn’t exactly welcome but there was no getting around the fact that both of us had things in our lives that we were going to occasionally trip over. He was there to catch me when I stumbled earlier and I was determined to do the same for him.
His gaze shifted from me back to the phone, and when it started to ring for the third time he touched the screen with a sigh and sat naked on the edge of the bed as he offered up a strained, “Hey, Kallie, what’s up?”
He looked over his shoulder at me and I was surprised to see a heated red move into his cheeks as he blushed, his side of the conversation giving a clear indication that Kallie wanted to know why he didn’t answer the first time she called. “I was busy and it’s none of your business what I was doing. What’s so important that you’re blowing up my phone instead of sleeping?”
His comment had me looking over at the digital clock next to the bed. I was stunned when I saw that it was past midnight. No wonder I felt like I could hardly keep my ey
es open.
Wheeler cleared his throat and lifted a hand so that he could run it over his face. “If you’re ready for that then I can be there. Your parents aren’t my biggest fans at the moment, though, so you might want to give them a heads-up you’re inviting me over.” His tone was sharp and there was no missing the accusation in his tone. He sighed again after listening to whatever the voice on the other end of the phone was saying for a long couple of minutes, then told his ex, “I told you I would be there and I will be. I really think things will be easier for everyone once the air is clear. Your family loves you.” He’d thought they loved him as well and it had taken something away from him when they shut him out after he canceled the wedding. Whatever he was walking into for his ex and their baby had to be a pretty big deal for him to willingly go where he knew he was no longer wanted. “All right, I’ll see you this weekend.” His gaze shifted to me and his lips twitched. “I have something I need to tell you too.”
He went quiet as Kallie questioned him, and when he spoke it made my heart speed up. “No, it’s got nothing to do with me and you, Kallie. Remember when I said I was fucking and not dating?” He winked at me as I kicked him lightly with my blanket-covered foot. “Well, I found a girl I want to do both with, and since I’m planning on keeping her around for the foreseeable future, I figured I would fill you in.” There were more words I couldn’t hear, which made him sigh again and roll his eyes toward the ceiling. “You don’t get a vote where my dick goes, Kallie. Like I said, we can talk about this later. I’ll see you Saturday.”
He flipped the phone closed and tossed it on one of the nightstands next to the bed. Neither one of us reacted when it started to ring again. This time he ignored it, and threw himself back on the bed and covered his eyes with his arm.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked the question knowing what the answer would be as he shook his head in the negative.
“No.” He lifted his arm and turned his head so he could look at me. “That’s not true. I do want to tell you what it was about but I can’t until after this weekend. The reason Kallie and I didn’t work out is more complicated than the fact that she was unfaithful, but I can’t lay all her business out there until she comes to terms with it herself. She was calling to tell me she’s ready to start being honest with the people that love her.”
I cocked my head to the side and considered him for a silent minute. “She isn’t thrilled with the fact that you’re seeing me?” I hated that a sliver of doubt worked its way underneath the confidence I’d slowly been building since I decided he needed a dog. If his ex, the mother of his child, didn’t want me in his life, I knew that could eventually make things very difficult for us.
He barked out a bitter-sounding laugh. “Oh, she doesn’t mind that I’m seeing you now. She’s upset because she knows I’ve been looking at you for a long time. Her ego is bruised and I think her feelings are hurt, which tends to make her act like a two-year-old.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “What do you mean you’ve been looking at me for a long time?”
Suddenly he rolled over so that he could crawl up the mattress and settle himself next to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. His lips touched my temple and then brushed across my cheek. “Do you remember the night she showed up at Dixie’s right after I left her, and she saw you, or rather saw the way I looked at you. She figured out pretty quickly that she was no longer the woman that had my attention. I told you, honey, I saw you and I couldn’t stop looking.”
I gulped and reached out to put a hand over his heart. “I hate confrontation. She was so angry and upset. I couldn’t get out of that apartment fast enough.” I tapped my fingers on his tattooed skin in time to the rhythm beating under my palm. “I didn’t want her to see the way I was looking at you.”
His arm tightened around me and his lips hit my ear. “How were you looking at me?” His words made me shiver as I tilted my head back so I could meet his questioning gaze.
“I was looking at you the way I used to look at men before I was scared of them, the way I looked at them before I knew how dangerous they could be. I was looking at you like I found something special, and I knew if she saw it, she was going to want to take you back. She was very, very foolish to throw what she had away. I was looking at you like I would never let you go if you were mine.” I let out a yelp as he pulled me, blankets and all, over the top of him. His arm locked around my waist and his cheek settled on the top of my head as he held me to him like he was the one that was never going to let go.
“I’ll make sure you don’t ever regret looking at me like that, honey, because I’m looking back at you the exact same way and that’s what has Kallie all riled up. I watched her with blinders of youth and infatuation on. I had huge blind spots where she was concerned and we both know it. When I stare at you, my eyes are wide open and there isn’t anything that makes me want to look away from you.”
I yawned and snuggled down into his embrace. “Hard to watch where we’re going when our eyes are on each other and not on the path we’re taking.”
He chuckled against my hair and wrapped his other arm around my shoulders so that I was effectively trapped in his hold. I waited for alarm to wake my sleepy senses up and for panic to make my body stiff but neither showed up. I wondered if it was possible to fuck the fear away because it was nowhere to be found as he yawned and told me confidently, “Doesn’t matter what the path we’re on looks like as long as we’re walking it together. If I stumble you can be there to help me up, and you know I’ll do my best to never let you fall.”
He had a point. I’d been struggling to make my way uphill on my own for so long that the idea of having someone there to offer me a boost, to pull me up when it felt like I couldn’t take another step, was so overwhelmingly comforting that if I hadn’t been exhausted I probably would have burst into tears again. Wheeler could pull me up and I would help him over the rocky terrain that was waiting for him as he adjusted to being a new father. Everyone always said you should never hike alone and the wisdom in those words was very apparent.
I was woken up the next morning by insistent hands covering my breasts and warm lips tickling the back of my neck. It felt like I had only closed my eyes a couple minutes ago but I wasn’t going to complain when one of those hands trailed across my tummy and his knee made room between mine so he could situate himself behind me. His teeth dug into the spot on the curve of my neck where I had left a mark on his collarbone the night before and we both let out a strangled groan as he entered me from behind. It was a long, slow press that stretched overly sensitized muscles and burned in a delicious and unforgettable way. Everything felt amped up, hotter, harder, and more intense. It was a sensation overload and felt like I was drowning in pleasure and satisfaction.
It wasn’t until I came on a strangled scream, my body clamping down on his as I writhed and wiggled in front of him, that I realized the reason it felt so good was because there was nothing between us. He pulled out of me, my body greedily trying to keep me exactly where he was, and rolled on his back, his hand wrapped around his slick and glossy erection. His face had an almost pained expression stamped all over it. I watched entranced for a long minute until I realized he was going to finish without me and that was simply unacceptable. That erection was mine. I owned that impending orgasm and I fully intended to take it.
I twisted so that I was lying horizontally across the bed and reached out to replace his fist with my own. His eyes drifted shut and his fingers found my hair as I brushed my nose across those stark black tattoos that marked his lower abdomen. His happy trail tickled my nose as I dipped my tongue into the shallow indent of his belly button.
“Poppy … I’m close. That’s a lot.” His voice was shaking, letting me know exactly what was going to happen if I got my face any closer to that throbbing hard flesh that was pulsing excitedly in my hand. He was always looking out for me even when it went directly agains
t what he really wanted from me.
I looked up at him from under my lashes and gave him a grin. “Don’t worry about me, I’m good.”
And I was. There was none of the tingling terror from yesterday under my skin. The only thing I could feel was the desire to know what his coming undone tasted like. I had a feeling it was going to be flavored with victory and triumph. Putting the tip of my tongue on the slit that was already leaking pearly fluid, and circling it around, I found that he tasted like man and musk with a tiny bit of me thrown in just to keep things interesting. He said my name as his hips lifted off the bed, his hand fisting my hair at the back of my head.
“I need you to suck it, honey.” If he was asking I knew it meant he really needed me to do it, so I opened my mouth and took him in. The thick vein that ran underneath the shaft throbbed against my tongue as I took the swollen length in as deep as I could.
He swore, long and loud, as he wrapped his heavy hand around my much smaller one and squeezed it tighter than I would have dared. He showed me what he needed and told me that he wasn’t going to blink as long as I had his dick in my mouth. He shifted restlessly beneath me and I heard my name barked in warning a split second before his release hit my tongue in a salty, furious rush.
When I lifted my head, his eyes were locked on mine. His dimples flashed and he reached out to rub his thumb across my bottom lip. I chased the touch with my tongue and blinked at him when he asked me quietly, “Are you ever going to stop surprising me?”
I sure as hell hoped not because every time I surprised him it was me figuring out the person I was supposed to be, the woman I was always meant to be. It was my heart speaking for itself after far too long.
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