And then he came back to me and pulled me snug into his arms.
Again with the too tired to fight.
“You wanna sleep that off or you wanna talk?” he asked.
There was a lot I wanted.
But it didn’t seem I ever got it.
“Baby?” he prompted.
“Go to sleep,” I mumbled.
“All right,” he whispered, tucking me closer.
I sucked a huge breath into my nose and didn’t know I didn’t let it out until Boone ordered, “Let that go, Kathryn.”
I let it go.
He tucked me even closer.
Damn.
Boone started twisting my hair around his fingers.
No one had ever done that to me, and it felt really nice.
Crap.
I started relaxing.
Boone relaxed with me.
I would never have dreamed it would happen, but I suppose after that mammoth crying jag, it was bound to.
I started getting drowsy.
So much so, I didn’t stop even after Boone muttered, “And I fucked up, doin’ it fuckin’ huge, making it so you don’t feel safe to lay your shit on me.”
I said nothing.
And minutes later, I fell asleep.
* * *
I woke to a room brightened by strong Denver sun coming from behind the blinds.
I also woke up alone.
Boone showing the night before came immediately to mind, but I wondered if I’d dreamed that since he was not there.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw the pillows on his side were all dented and smushed, like they had been the mornings after he’d spent the night with me, rather than askew and/or tossed off the bed with only the ones I slept on smushed, like they were when I slept alone.
The mystery of what happened to Boone was solved when he strolled in wearing his skivvies (nice…shit) and carrying two mugs of coffee (sweet…shit).
His green eyes came to me before he came to me.
He sat on the bed and twisted my way.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
Had I failed to mention I really liked his voice?
Shit!
“Hey,” I mumbled.
He offered me coffee.
I pushed up on an arm, slid a bit away from him (the bed wasn’t big, so I didn’t have far to slide, but I did it).
I saw his lips thin as I did this, but he kept the coffee held out to me.
I took it.
He let me have a sip before he asked, “You up to talk?”
Nope.
I was not.
To communicate this, I said, “I’m not really sure what there is to say.”
“Kathryn, sweetheart,” he started, careful and gentle, “you promised not to let me fuck this up and I promised the same thing.”
“And then we fucked it up,” I replied. “The end.”
His tone was far firmer when he said, “Kathryn.”
“I told you,” I began to remind him, “that if I lost you, I wouldn’t be able to hack it. I lost you even before I really had you and last night proved I couldn’t hack it.”
“I’m right here,” he pointed out.
“And what’s gonna set you off to leave again?” I asked.
His head twitched.
He stared at me hard.
Then his face got soft.
Yikes.
That look on him was gorgeous.
Oh fuck.
I was thinking that was not good.
“I’m not your dad, Rynnie,” he said in a voice as soft and gorgeous as his face.
Yeah.
Oh fuck.
This was not good.
“I know that,” I replied.
“What’d he do to you?” he asked.
I didn’t answer that.
I proclaimed, “You know, I’m good. With my life, that is. I mean, it’s good to know about Angelica’s bullshit, so I appreciate you bringing that to light. But I’ve had time to think about it,” I had not, yup, again going with my first reaction and not thinking things through, “and I’ve pretty much got it going on without the drama of a dude blowing through my life.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
Uh.
What did he just say?
“I kinda know where I’m at, Boone,” I told him snippily.
“Where you’re at is you’re building that wall back up to keep everyone out, namely dudes who blow through your life, so they can’t break your heart like your dad did.”
You know what?
This really sucked.
I did not need guys thinking I was freaky because I liked my hands bound when I got fucked.
And I did not need guys thinking they could do whatever they wanted to me because I liked my hands bound when I got fucked.
But what I really did not need was a whip-smart guy who could read emotional situations rationally and figure out what I was thinking even when I didn’t know I was thinking it.
I took another sip of coffee.
“I’ll reiterate,” Boone said. “I fucked up huge the last three days, and I knew that before I got your last text, but definitely after last night.”
I felt my cheeks start to heat.
Okay.
What was that?
I was blushing because I was embarrassed?
What was I?
Fourteen?
“And I’m sorry,” he went on, thankfully not noting the blush verbally, though his eyes strayed to it. “I cannot say it enough or mean it enough. You just have to take me at my word on that and I’ll make it so you can do that because I’m gonna prove it by not fucking up that huge with us again.”
“What if I say I don’t believe you?” I tried.
“Rynnie,” he whispered.
And I failed.
But seriously, I could see it all over his face.
He knew he fucked up. He was sorry he fucked up. And I knew that not only because he’d now said it repeatedly, but that was what was all over his face.
And it might not have sounded like a knight’s vow, but I’d lost it last night, and he liked me, so something else written on his face was that he really did not like that he put me through that, and he wasn’t going to put me through it again.
To end, we were good together, when we weren’t fighting. I knew it. He knew it. So it was worth working it out.
To communicate I conceded this, I looked away and took another sip of coffee.
I swallowed and then didn’t have my cup in my hand anymore.
This was because Boone apparently read my nonverbal concession, took the mug away, set it aside, his with it, and then he had his back to the headboard, and I was curled in his lap and locked there with his arms.
Man, he was good.
And man, it felt good, being locked in Boone’s arms.
“So now we’re gonna talk,” he declared.
We’d been talking.
But I caught his drift.
“I do have a defense,” I began. “Considering not every day does a girl have some sex offender bent on destroying her life in the near term, and in the long term altering it forever, shot dead on her back deck. And you know the other extenuating factors of the day. But that does not negate the fact I went off half-cocked and didn’t think about where you were at about all that, or where Smithie needed to be with all of that.”
“I appreciate that, honey,” he murmured. “But you were right. I did it in the wrong order. I should have come to you and then you could have told Smithie.”
Okay, here was the hard part.
Well.
Whatever.
We were talking, we’d both screwed up, we were trying to fix that, and not being forthcoming was not the way to do it.
So, since there was nothing for it, I gave it to him.
“I would never have told Smithie, only partly because I knew he’d do what he did, but mostly because I didn’t want him worried about me.”
> “Right,” he murmured.
“So, you know, obviously…” ugh, this was not easy, “if something bad happened with all that, that would have been on me.”
His murmured, “Right,” that time came slower.
But it also gave firm indication that was the end of that.
And really, that might have been the best of all of this (outside sitting in Boone’s lap, and of course, Boone being there at all) because Boone didn’t belabor it.
I said it. He heard it. He didn’t push it or dig in about it, rubbing it in where I’d gone wrong.
He let it go.
So I let out a breath.
“Okay then, you gave me that,” he said, but he wasn’t done. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Boone—”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“You’re not responsible for what happened.”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
Whoa, there.
I shut up and took him in.
“And I walked out on you because I failed you, and thinkin’ on it, for too fuckin’ long, I get where that was coming from because I failed Jeb too.”
Oh boy.
There it was.
“Stop it,” I whispered.
“I failed him.”
“We can talk about that later. But let’s get this straight now, you didn’t fail me.”
“Ryn—”
I put my hand over his mouth and repeated, “Stop it.”
He settled in.
I took my hand from his mouth and asked, “You wanna know what I’ve really been thinking about these last days?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking that when I feel something huge, I go off, riding that feeling wherever it takes me, and I say shit and do shit that I really should not. So getting to the meat of the matter right here, right now, with you and me, in order not to fuck us up again, I’ll try to do my best not to do that again. But maybe we should have some kind of other-times safe word where, if I start to do that, you can say that word, it’ll trip a switch, and I’ll take a beat and maybe not fuck shit up so badly.”
“You were right to be angry,” he noted.
“Thanks for that, but I took it too far,” I replied.
He gathered me closer, falling to his side, so I was half on the pillows, half on the bed, and Boone was half on me.
And super close.
Hmm…nice.
“You gave me that, I’ll try to curb the drama, and pull back on the pride. And to do that, I’ll get a safe word too,” he said.
“Okay,” I whispered, because with him on me, in my bed, his face that close, and us in full-blown making-up mode, I was losing interest in our conversation and hankering to move from the verbal making-up part to the physical one.
Still.
There were important things left unsaid.
“When you get in a mood, you interrupt me a lot,” I shared.
“Safe word on that too, baby.”
Well, that was easy.
I moved to the hard part.
“We should probably talk about Jeb,” I noted cautiously.
“And we should probably talk about how hard you fight letting yourself have an honest reaction when that reaction is something you apparently consider weak, like crying, and the fact you get embarrassed by it when you do,” he returned.
Um…
“Later,” I mumbled.
“Yeah,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
Oh yeah.
“We good?” he asked my mouth.
He was going to kiss me, so to my way of thinking, we were way good.
“Yeah, baby,” I answered.
He slanted his head and kissed me.
It was definitely a make-up kiss, deep, long, wet, awesome.
Then he broke that and touched his mouth to mine briefly before he took it again in a we’re-about-to-go-at-it kiss that was harder, deeper, longer, wetter and way, way more awesome.
We made out like that for a good, happy while before Boone broke our connection and ordered, “Panties off, Ryn.”
Okay.
Yeah.
Every inch of skin covered by my panties, specifically the internal parts, quivered.
Looking into his eyes, I shoved down my panties and wheeled them off so they were hanging on the top of my foot.
I kicked them to the floor.
The second they were gone, Boone moved.
He also moved me.
And he did it in a way that I was panting when he was done.
This being, he grasped my hips and adjusted me so I was righted in the bed, head to the pillows.
“Raise your arms, press your palms to the headboard and open your legs,” he commanded.
Oh God.
“Boone,” I whispered.
“Palms to the headboard and open your legs, Kathryn.”
Oh God.
I did as told, but I’d only hesitated because of the surge of sensation I knew it would cause, obeying his command, and I didn’t want to come too soon, doing it simply obeying the first command he gave me.
But as I moved, I felt my body start humming, my already wet sex drenching, my eyelids drifting closed, and I bit my lip hard so the feelings wouldn’t overwhelm me.
“Fuck, baby,” Boone growled, and I knew he didn’t miss a lick of that.
He then glided a single finger between my legs, he did it slow, insanely slow, and God, that felt great.
I trembled before him.
“Knees up, baby, spread wide for me, and don’t move your hands,” Boone ordered.
I complied.
Boone shifted.
Then he went in, going down on me.
Ohmigod.
Oh my GodGodGod.
He ate pussy like he was born to do it.
A master.
My Master, staking claim with his mouth.
Fucking beautiful.
But doing it, he drove me so high so fast, I was squirming under him, struggling to hold back my orgasm, and whimpering, “Boone.”
He disconnected his mouth from my clit and demanded, “Stay still.”
I looked down my body and saw him in position, head back, eyes locked on me, and the visual was so good, I had to clench my sex hard in order not to come.
“Honey,” I breathed, still squirming.
He drove two fingers inside me and repeated, “Stay still.”
I tensed every inch of my body, but I’ll admit, it wasn’t because he told me to. It was because I wanted to focus on his fingers deep inside.
I got to do that since he then started finger fucking me and eating me at the same time.
Okay.
God.
Okay.
God.
When I could take no more, I begged, “Boone, baby.”
He lifted up, slid his fingers out, put his hands through my legs to the outsides of my hips, and he glided my nightie that was bunched at my waist up over my tits.
Then he sat back on his knees and his eyes roamed over me.
This was something I liked, being exposed like this to a partner.
This was something I now loved, Boone exposing me to him, the hunger flashing in his green eyes, making them spark like emeralds catching light. The greedy look on his gorgeous face.
God, I needed him to fuck me.
I knew better than to ask, because if I did, depending on the Dom he was, getting it might be prolonged or completely withdrawn.
I found that I made the right choice.
He shoved his shorts under his dick and balls, and I now had visible proof he was not only significantly endowed, his cock was a thing of beauty.
Oh yeah.
He caught it in his hand and that was an even bigger thing of beauty.
Then he moved forward, found me with the tip, put his hands behind my raised-high knees, spread them even wider, exposing me further to him, opening me to him, taking command
of my body…
And he drove into me.
My back arched to the ceiling; my head dug into the pillows.
“Watch me fuck you, Kathryn,” he rumbled, fucking me.
Oh yes.
Fucking me hard.
I tipped my head to watch and it was too much. All of him, that beautiful body, the muscles bunched and flexing in his strapping arms, hands holding my legs wide, the definition of his abs rippling as he thrust his cock into me, the veins popping out from his groin up his stomach.
He was so damned beautiful it was impossible to watch him take me, at the same time taking him, and not lose control over my climax.
“Don’t come,” he commanded.
“Baby,” I pleaded.
He pounded in, ground in, and kept his hands behind my knees even as he leaned his upper body closer to me.
“Do not fuckin’ come, Kathryn.”
Okay, why was it so goddamned hot that he only called me by my full name when he was domming me?
“I’ll try,” I panted.
He went back to fucking me, watching me take him, my body jolting with each pound, my palms pushing hard against the headboard so he didn’t drive me into it.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful when you get fucked,” he grunted.
“You’re beautiful when you’re fucking,” I whispered.
His expression grew greedier, dark…hot, and he fucked me harder.
He watched my tits bounce, and I held on, he watched his cock plunge between my legs, and by some miracle, I held on.
Then his eyes came to mine.
“Come, baby,” he said gently.
I came instantly, pressing back on my hands, driving into his thrusts, crying out softly, an explosion of pure, blissful goodness I let loose, hiding nothing, giving it all to my lover, because it was his due.
And he’d definitely earned it.
Even with how huge that was, I had to keep my arms tensed to hold me steady so he didn’t bang me into the headboard when my orgasm took its time drifting from me.
When I focused on his face, he was super focused on mine, it was super-hot how focused he was on me, and he whispered, “My sweet little fuck.”
Oh hell to the yeah.
He was a dirty-talking Dom.
Suddenly, he swung my legs around his ass, lowered his still thrusting body to mine, put one hand in the bed, the other he drove up under the hair at the back of my head. He gripped it, put his opened mouth to mine, and pounded his orgasm into me as he groaned down my throat.
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