All I want is to give Avery everything I can and more. I want to be all that she needs. For a long as I breathe and as long as she’ll let me.
I’m in my head while I watch Jo take the steps to the porch slower than usual when the front door opens. Ship comes bounding toward me with his tail swishing excitedly behind him. It doesn’t matter how many times he jumps up at me for attention, Avery is the only thing I can focus on.
Our surroundings fade and the world falls away as she stands on the top step looking at me. Her smile is a little guarded at first, making my chest tighten with the thought that there’s a chance she’ll be torn from me in the near future. Still, that doesn’t stop all the other thoughts from going down a torrid track.
Holy shit!
I have to take a moment to pick my jaw up from the ground with how stunning she looks. The white dress she’s wearing makes her tan glow. Even though she’s wearing flat sandals, her legs look long and endless, perfectly sinuous as they disappear beneath the loose skirt of her cotton lace dress.
When Cap falls at her feet, Avery half crouches and half bends to pat his head, making her tousled curls cascade over her face. Incapable of looking away, I take a half step forward, urged by the needy hum in my fingers to run through those luscious strands.
The very first instant I laid eyes on her, I thought she was pretty, but man do I feel like a fool for not realizing just how exquisite she is. Then she starts toward me, and my heart goes into overdrive. It takes everything in me not to fucking stare her out and drool like one of the dogs running around us.
“Hey, Doc!” Avery sings bashfully when we’re a few feet away.
Her voice has that nervous, high-pitched edge to it that draws me closer, in spite of feeling nervous myself. With Jo watching us, I might as well be back in high school, picking up my date with her mom watching me in warning.
Don’t fuck this up, and don’t hurt my girl!
“Sunshine,” I manage, but jeez, I’m so out of practice with the serious dating thing that we both stand there looking at each other.
I know I’m meant to compliment her, but I’m still trying to catch my breath. Which is impossible as the gentle breeze wafts her honeyed, floral scent my way, making my mouth water with the need to taste her again.
I have no idea how I’m going to make it through tonight with the way she’s looking at me, gnawing on her lip with a half-lidded gaze that calls my dick to attention.
“You ready?” I finally ask.
“Mmhmm.”
There’s a shy awkwardness between us that hasn’t been present in this way before. An underlying excitement that knots the pit of my stomach while I watch her sway in the breeze.
“How was Mark’s?” I ask in order to break the stiffness of the moment. “I bet Iris was excited today.”
“You’re not kidding! I’ve never seen her so happy and…” Avery draws in a deep breath like she needs to steady herself.
She’s wearing her emotions on the surface, and I know that tonight needs to be perfect. This has to be the best night of her life. I need her to see what it would be like with me.
“She couldn’t wait for me to leave. Too bad Charlie wanted to give me a makeover.” Avery tips her head to the side, looking a little abashed, while her hot pink, freshly manicured fingers tug at her earlobe.
“You didn’t need it.”
Taking a deep breath, she beams at me, her hand falling to splay beneath the curve of her breasts, making it impossible for me not to fixate on the low V. The way they sit high and full…
Now’s not the time to be a fucking perv, asshole!
I force my eyes back to hers, pausing momentarily on the column of her neck as she swallows and then on the way she rolls her bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it.
“Garrett…” Her whisper is croaky as she comes closer.
Coral glossed lips rub together, and my dick threatens to mast at the audible pop and the springing thought of what they might feel like squeezing around it. It’s not the first time the thought’s crossed my mind, but it’s almost impossible to shake myself free of it as she licks across the perfect line of her teeth.
Fuuuuck…
I have no idea what’s wrong with me. Only that our secret kisses and my fleeting tastes of her have awakened a hunger I haven’t felt in a long time. A hunger I can’t imagine having for any other woman. I’ve never craved anyone like this before, and it says a lot because of all the stupid shit I’ve done in my life.
Grabbing her hand, I lace my fingers with hers, walking her around the front of the car to the passenger side.
Avery pauses when I open the door for her, eyes widening on the corny, light-hearted gift I left on the seat before a laugh bursts from her. It’s perfection. Addictive too. I wish I could rewind and replay it on loop.
“I told you…” I grab the Care Bear and turn it over in my hands before handing it to her. “My cheese game is strong.”
“No lie, huh…”
“I wouldn’t ever do that to you.”
It’s the stupidest thing I could’ve said right now because it sobers the moment for a beat until slowly the serious expression morphs into a faint smile that brightens fondly as she tells me, “I was obsessed with these as a child.”
“Was? You hum the theme tune all the time.”
The pink flush of her cheeks deepens as she looks over the bear, and then in a move that surprises the hell out of me, she hugs the damn thing.
“Not gonna lie, sunshine, it feels pretty fucked-up to be jealous of a stuffed animal.”
With a deep inhale of the toy’s blue fluff, she looks up at me, thick lashes framing moss-and-gold-flecked eyes. “Care Bears feel different to other stuffed toys when you hug them.” Avery licks her lip coyly and then adds, “This one smells good too.”
As though it was a prompt, I inhale deeply at her statement. Her scent fills my lungs, drawing me nearer. The closer I get, the more she squeezes the bear to her chest, making it hard to look anywhere except for her breasts, and damn, I want to pull the thing from her grasp and take its place.
Goddamn, she’s so sexy with her soft smile and fluttering lashes. All I want to do is jump into my car and pull her up onto my lap. I want to hold her as close as she’s holding that bear and kiss the breath right out of her lungs.
Taking the gift from her, I sit it on top of the dashboard before I help her up and lean across to plug the belt in.
Man, I don’t think I can take the way my heart is beating so fast, making my blood pump hotter around my body. Goose bumps break out across the back of my neck with a barely controllable shudder as her heavy exhales cover my skin.
My sight lowers, fixing on her bare thighs. Now that she’s sitting, the skirt seems shorter. I have to bite down on my lip to stop the groan that rumbles at the back of my throat. The need to touch her and explore every magnificent inch of skin is so heavy that it congeals the air around us. The mental image of slipping my hands beneath her skirt, feeling the physical warmth of her flesh and the goose pimples scattered over it…
God, I’m going straight to hell for this is all I can think as my fingertips burn with the need to bury themselves in her flesh. My mind becomes convoluted with images of what she would look like beneath me and the sounds she would make as I kiss every inch of her body.
I wonder if she’s as wet as I imagine her to be. As needy as her breaths make her out. Pulling back with a rough skim of my hand over my face—as if it might help stow my errant thoughts—I shut the door and round the car, noticing how she’s holding the bear again when I get in.
Without another word, I try to collect my breaths and myself while we drive away from the ranch.
Chapter Nineteen
AVERY
Flustered, it doesn’t matter how hard I try to focus on the road, all I can feel is Garrett’s presence. His scent fills my lungs, seeping into my bloodstream, warming me from the inside out as I squeeze the burning energy vibrating thro
ugh me into the bear on my lap.
Again, the pang to let him in hits me hard. I wasn’t sure what tonight would entail—a part of me was dreading the possibility that he might realize that being with me is more of a headache than he’s willing to take on. Hell, he might still come to that conclusion, but the gesture, as mushy as it is, puts me at ease. It ignites fresh hope inside me.
Where there’s hope, there’s love. Mom’s voice fills my thoughts. When I catch a side glance of him, the butterflies that have been fluttering in my belly since this morning dart in every direction.
Every action Garrett takes is so sincere, so thoughtful, that I can’t help let my guard down. I feel things I’ve never felt. From the way he looks at me, to the way he touches me, there is a reverence—a care—that no one has ever lavished me with.
Our gazes catch for a heated second, leaving me incapable of thinking of anything other than the way his hands grazed my thighs as he buckled me in. The way his hot breath tickled over my skin, seeping under my skirt to my—
My thought slams to a halt as the car swerves to the side of the road, and before I’m fully aware of what’s happening, Garrett’s hand is curling into my hair, tugging my face closer to his as he leans across the console and presses his mouth to mine. Hard, as though he needs me desperately. I yelp as his teeth sink into my bottom lip with a deep, guttural groan that vibrates all the way through me.
There’s a seismic shift with the way he’s touching me and taking—taking as though there is nothing he needs more than me.
“Oh…” The whimper escapes me with the desperate lick of his tongue into my mouth, swirling over mine to a low growl. And God, he tastes so good. Minty and sweet. The citrusy tang of his cologne that fills my lungs is maddening in a way that consumes every breath, heartbeat, and sense, leaving me wanting more of him unlike I’ve ever wanted anything else in this life.
“Garrett,” I moan as he pulls away slightly to look at me.
The hand still clutching at my hair presses to the curve of my neck, the bite of it shocking my roots with a current that travels all the way to my core, a tidal wave of desire that completely overtakes me. His uncontrolled force surprises me, leaving me in a frenzy of lust and confusion.
The force and slip of his usual control is empowering, building an inferno deep inside me that flames higher with the urgency of his kiss.
I’m completely lost in him, in the way he licks over my top lip with the tip of his tongue, his blue-green eyes brighter than ever around his obsidian pupils.
One of my hands clasps around his bulging shoulder while the other flattens to his hard stomach, and as it slips lower, I feel the heat of his need below my wrist.
Yearning pulses through me, pooling between my thighs. I’ve never felt this wanted or needed before. As though I hold the power, because as much as he takes from me, he gives me more with his desperate groans and his control-strained touches.
“Fuck, Avery, you need to tell me to stop.” He looks down on me, licking his lips before he bites down on them as though he’s hopelessly trying to hold himself back. “Tell me to take it easy on you.”
“No.” I shake my head, pulling him closer. “I-I like it. Like this. I like it this way.” I twist my hand in his shirt, luxuriating in the way his body is racking as violently as mine to our proximity.
“You want me to stop, sweetheart.” Eyes screwed shut, he rolls his forehead over mine.
It’s as though I can hear his silent pleas for me to do as he’s asking…begging, but I can’t. I won’t.
I want more. I want him to be the only mark on my body, my heart, and my soul that burns after tonight. Garrett could overshadow all my scars if I let him. And now more than ever, I want to open myself up to him. To let him lighten my darkness. I want to allow him to eradicate the pain with my longing ache for him.
“I want to do the right thing, Avery. Sunshine, let me do the right thing.”
“This doesn’t feel wrong, Doc.”
Clutching at the open collar of his striped Oxford shirt, I pull myself as close as I can with my seatbelt still on and the center console in the way.
Kissing the corner of my mouth, he inhales deeply. “I’m trying to be a good person…trying to deserve you…”
“You are,” I tell him, my voice breaking with the agony my need is clawing at my insides. “You do.”
It’s me that might never be enough. Even so, I want to know the extremity of his affection and desire for me. It’s a risk that I can’t shy away from anymore.
“Fuck.” His curse rumbles from his lips with a vigor that sparks bright in my chest, igniting life into every wilted and battered shadow of my being.
For so long everything has been so dark and muddied, and somehow, he’s brought color to my entire existence when the only place I could find it before was in Iris. It’s inside me now.
“I’m going to pull back now, and we’re going to have dinner…” He swallows hard before he continues. “Because I want to romance you. It’s what you deserve. Is that okay with you?”
I swallow just as hard, nodding while he reticently does as he said, watching as I fall back into my seat, panting and clawing at my thighs with the frustration of my longing. While I focus on the sun and sea embroidered on the blue bear on my lap.
The sun isn’t setting quite yet, but the sky is dimming slightly with the expectation of it. I thought we were going into Virginia Beach, but we’re navigating a dirt road on the side of a cliff. As Garrett keeps driving, I look around while trying to figure out where he’s taking me.
“We’re almost there,” he tells me, turning into a precariously narrowed downslope.
My entire body is still humming from our kiss. Water is still pooling in my mouth at the scent of the leather and his cologne mixed with the briny sea air. The more I think about it, the faster my pulse flutters, erratic in its rhythm as it builds up and slows with my nerves and the excitement of being with him.
“Where are we?” I ask as he takes a U-bend into a wider area where he parks.
Getting out, Garrett rounds to my side. My heart is up in my throat as he helps me out, sitting the Care Bear in my place before threading his fingers with mine.
“We’re right at the bottom, over there.” He points down over the edge of the rock face as he walks me hand in hand. “Do you want to check on Iris?”
I feel myself flush because he must have noticed the way I’ve checked my phone a few times in the last ten minutes.
“No, Charlie is sending me photos. I don’t want to be overbearing, you know?”
“You’re not,” he tells me, leading me down the last steep part of the path. “It’s okay for you to worry. Good moms do.”
“I’ve been neurotic about keeping her close since we’ve been here.”
“It’s understandable.”
“Tonight is the first time I’m letting go and that I’ve not been with her ever.”
“Ever?” Garrett helps me down to a rocky shore that’s a little mossed over.
Small rock pools are beginning to fill with the incoming tide. I’ve never been somewhere so secluded and untouched. Although, there is a long jetty that he takes me up, and at the end is a stunning polished white sailboat.
“It’s always been me and her. Iris is my best friend in a lot of ways.” Something that I know isn’t normal for most people, but it’s the way our life has been, until now. “Anyway, I’m meant to be focusing on tonight, not talking about my abandonment issues.”
“You can talk about whatever you like, Avery.” Garrett pauses in front of the redwood-accented boat. “Past, present…anything. I’m big enough and ugly enough to handle it.”
He steps into the boat, letting go of my hand before grasping me around my waist and lifting me on board. My arms wrap tightly around his shoulders. I’m certain my feet touch the deck, but with him holding me…I feel weightless. And when his arms envelop me, I press my lips to his on pure instinct.
I�
�m still for a moment, waiting for him to take over. His loss of control and composure around me is…intoxicating. I crave it like my lungs burn for air when I hold my breath, and the very first rush of it is glorious.
It’s so freaking sexy. The thought makes me blush with how close we are. It sounds so loud in my head that I’m certain he can hear my internal swooning over him.
It hits me then that I don’t want him to take over. I want to kiss him.
Licking over his lips, I twist my fingers into his hair, like he twisted his hands into mine earlier. The low, pleasured rumble that vibrates from him makes my heart race. My skin feels alive all on its own as the soft breeze wisps over it.
When I kiss the perfectly defined dip of his cupid’s bow, Garrett opens his mouth a fraction, enough that my bottom lip slips between his. Letting myself go, I deepen our kiss, savoring the roll of his tongue with mine, the way his groans meld with my soft moans into an electric melody that amps up the need to get closer.
God, I want him so bad.
If I could sink into him completely, I would. This blissful feeling of being wanted in return is so heady, leaving me giddy and wanton.
Wanton. I can’t remember ever feeling like this. I can’t remember ever kissing anyone like this. Like my entire life depends on the taste and feel and connection of our mouths. I thought I disliked these kinds of kisses, but it’s obvious that it wasn’t the action, it was the man. And the man I’m kissing now is unlike any other I’ve ever known.
Although I don’t want to stop, I need to come up for air. With my lungs burning and my heart thundering, I touch my forehead to his. The tips of our noses press to one another, our bodies completely flush.
The feel of his hardening cock pressed to my belly makes me squirm.
I did that. My kiss did that.
Gleeful pride spreads through me. I’m enthralled by the feeling, completely thrilled.
“You are not ugly,” I rasp, opening my eyes to find him already watching me.
Garrett chuckles, nudging the tip of his nose over mine playfully even as his arms tighten around me right before he presses a lingering, chaste kiss to my semi-gaping mouth.
Endurance: A Salvation Society Novel Page 17