Chapter Eighteen
6:49 p.m.…
There was no mistaking the note of melancholy in Olivia’s voice when she spoke of family. And it punched Leo in the gut like a heavyweight fighter, forcing all the air from his lungs. He knew she was an orphan. She’d said something to that effect once. And even though he’d wanted to question her then, one look at her narrowed, guarded eyes had told him the topic was off-limits. Like way the hell off-limits. The Siberia of subjects. But now…
Had she opened the door to him? Just a crack? He stood in front of her, searching her face, looking for permission to step through, wanting permission to step through because…he loved her. And he longed to know everything about her. All her fears and hopes and dreams. Her past and her present, because maybe that would give him the key to her future.
He tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear and chose his words carefully. “I am lucky, even if they’re a pain in my ass most days.”
She smiled, and it looked almost…wistful. He nearly moaned at the sight. Managed to hold it back at the last minute. “I’m told most families are a pain in the ass. That’s what makes them great.”
He couldn’t stand it a second longer. He barreled through the door she’d cracked open. “What happened to your parents?” he whispered. This was a test of sorts. If she had enough faith in him to share her story, then maybe, just maybe she thought there was a chance for them.
Her face blanked, her eyes taking on that glassy, near-doll-like sheen that said all her inner walls had sprung up. His stomach somersaulted over his disappointment and self-reproach. He’d gone too far. Pushed too fast. She didn’t trust him enough to—
“I…uh…” Her gaze slid from his face to his throat, where his pulse was pounding. “I never knew who my father was.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sticking. He was afraid to move, afraid to breathe lest he scare her away.
“I don’t think my mother knew who my father was.” She made a face, her eyes taking on a faraway look, as if she were thumbing through the Rolodex of old memories in her mind. “I can remember a lot of men going in and out of our house…um…trailer. We lived in a broken-down trailer park on the outskirts of Cincinnati. And I remember her telling me when I asked where my father was that it didn’t matter because she loved me enough for a mommy and a daddy.”
He began to form a picture in his mind of Olivia as a child. Wild black hair and blue eyes that took up her whole face. She had probably been a serious kid, too serious. “And your mother? What happened to her?”
Even though she was still staring at the hollow of his throat, he could see her eyes cloud over. The pain flashing in them was as bright as lightning bolts. “Drug overdose when I was five.” His lungs became lead ballast stones in his chest, his heart an anchor. He wanted to travel back in time and tell her everything would be okay. That she’d grow up to be this strong, brave, amazing woman.
“She usually met the school bus at the end of the road to the trailer park. But that day after kindergarten she didn’t. I walked home by myself and found her lying at the end of the drive. I thought she was sleeping. She slept a lot because of her medicine—that’s what she called it. But when I couldn’t wake her up, I started screaming. The neighbors heard me and called the police. I was placed with social services that night and stuck in an orphanage by the end of the week.”
“No grandparents? No aunts and uncles?”
She managed to meet his eyes. “My mother was an only child. And her parents died in a flash flood when she was seventeen. Weird, I know. To die in a flash flood. But it’s true. She dropped out of high school, got a job as a gas station attendant, and had me a couple of years later.”
And then died soon after, leaving a five-year-old girl all alone in the world, adrift, parentless, friendless, and afraid. He tried to imagine it and couldn’t. When he was five, he was chasing fireflies, playing in the sandbox at the park, and pretty much getting into everything his dad told him not to. “And foster parents?”
She shrugged, her expression droll. “The first couple who took me in wanted to keep me, I think. But I was too young to understand death. I thought my old mommy would come back for me if I acted like I didn’t want my new mommy. I was a royal terror, wetting the bed, drawing on the walls with permanent markers, throwing tantrums one minute and withdrawing into sullen silences the next. They were a young couple. They didn’t know how to cope. I was back at the orphanage after six months. And then my second foster family only took me in as a placeholder. They really wanted an infant, and the minute their adoption petition for a baby was approved, they sent me back.”
Sent back. Like a pair of pants that didn’t quite fit. It took every ounce of self-discipline he had not to wrap his arms around her, bury his nose in her damp hair, and tell her over and over again how sorry he was she’d had to go through that. But she wouldn’t welcome his pity. She was a proud woman…as well she should be. Just look how high she’s risen from such meager beginnings. “And that was it?”
“No.” She shook her head. The overhead light glinted against the auburn highlights in her hair. “There were other foster families in between stints in the orphanage. But by that point, I’d been in the system a while, had been passed over for kids who were younger than me, cuter than me, more outgoing than me. So when I was placed with a new foster family, I was so afraid they’d reject me in the end that I always rejected them from the beginning. Isolating myself, never showing any affection. Never accepting any affection. You know, basically being a stupid, insufferable little shit.”
Some of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, because she wrinkled her nose and attempted a smile. “I know, right? I’m a modern-day Oliver Twist. Just without the pickpocketing and the all-around misadventures.”
“Olivia…” Her name was four hoarse syllables on his tongue.
She held up a hand, the look on her face going steely. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Leo. It could’ve been worse. I was never abused. Which, from what I hear, is a miracle for a kid in my position. I got my GED when I was seventeen, went to community college, then university, then filled out an application for the CIA. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“You’re amazin’,” he breathed.
“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not. Not at all. I just happened to survive a rough start. A lot of kids do that.” He opened his mouth to say many survived it only to turn down a dark path of drug abuse, crime, and overall self-destruction. But she continued before he could utter a single word. “In fact, didn’t you lose your mother when you were young?”
And once again he clocked her change in subject—the dear woman wasn’t very subtle about such things—and decided to let it slide. She’d told him what he wanted to know. And while the story broke his fucking heart, her faith in him, in letting him hear the awful truth of where she came from and what she’d endured, gathered up the sharp pieces and made it gloriously whole again.
“I was three when she died of ovarian cancer. The only memories I have of her are from the stories my father told me.”
“And your father died a couple of years ago, right?”
“Four months before our stint in Syria.” Looking back on it, that had been one hell of a year. He’d lost his father and one of his best friends, but he’d met the woman of his dreams.
“So now we’re both orphans.”
He sucked in a startled breath when the truth of it sank in. He’d never thought of himself as an orphan before. He always associated that word with a child. But, in the strictest definition, he was an orphan, parentless—but, unlike Olivia, far from alone in the world. And, oh, how he wanted to tell her what was in his heart. Pledge himself to her. Promise to be her family, to help her make a family if that’s what she wanted. But he held it all in and stuck with the plan…
* * *
6:57 p.m.…
“What are you…” she squeaked—damnit!—when Leo scooted her c
loser to the edge of the counter, stepped between her legs, and proceeded to kiss her cross-eyed. He came up for air—Two minutes later? Ten?—and her entire body was soft as butter, hot as Hades, and trembling like a leaf in the wind. Apparently, her brain was mush too, because talk about Simile City…
“You really know how to change the subject,” she purred, running her hands over the smooth skin of his shoulders where a soft sheen of sweat, caused by the steamy bathroom and their even steamier kiss, made his skin glisten.
Not that she was complaining about the right turn in topics. She was glad of it. He already had her heart and her body. Now he had her story too. Which felt intimate on a whole different level. And that sense of belonging she’d experienced earlier? It had grown to the relative size of the sun. Was just as warm and welcome. Which meant the cold she’d feel in an hour or so when they waved their farewells would sting all the more.
Keep it casual. Keep it fun.
Sh’yeaaah. I think we blew past that a long time ago.
“We can keep talkin’ if you want,” he murmured against her throat, licking his way beneath her jaw.
“Nope.” She palmed the back of his head, threading her fingers through his damp, shaggy hair. “I’m all talked out.”
“So what do you reckon we should do instead?” And just in case she thought to answer with How about a nice game of Parcheesi? he scooted her forward another couple of inches until his manhood pressed against her belly. He was hard as stone, hot enough to singe her flesh, and throbbing so insistently that an answering pulse of pleasure resonated through her. She was instantly achy. Instantly wet. She would say she was instantly wanton, but that was pretty much a foregone conclusion when Leo was in the same room with her.
“I’m open to suggestions,” she murmured when he nipped the edge of her jaw and lifted a big, warm hand to plump her breast. And even though a tiny part of her still thought it best to hold back—to keep from, in the middle-school vernacular, going all the way—the rest of her figured, What the hell? She was already sunk, lost, completely deep-sixed where he was concerned. So why shouldn’t she take everything he had to give, experience everything he wanted to share with her? Didn’t someone once say you regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do?
Or maybe I’m just rationalizing. Again. But holy shit! It was so hard to think when Leo was plucking at her breast, making her womb twang as if her nipple and her womanhood were somehow connected.
“I want to make love to you, Olivia,” he said, searching her eyes. Make love. Not fuck or screw. Because even if all he was after was a quick lay so they could finally, finally bank the fire that burned between them, he respected her enough, liked her enough, to make it sound as though it was special.
Oh, this man… This wonderful, sexy, sweet man…
“I want that too,” she whispered and saw triumph blaze in his eyes the second before he reclaimed her lips. And then it was nothing but teeth and tongues, hungry lips and ragged breaths. They made love with their mouths. Their hands followed suit. He lovingly attended to her nipples, plucking and rubbing until she was mewling and achy. She ran her fingertips over his chest and belly, lower, so she could wrap her hand around him and pump.
“Olivia,” he gasped, ripping his lips away. “I need to—”
“Yes.” She nodded, her skin on fire, her blood running hot. Her center was a pulsing emptiness. She wanted him inside her, filling her up, stretching her to the limit. “Yes, Leo.” She angled him toward her entrance, watched as his swollen head parted her folds. He was so red he was nearly purple, his veins throbbing angrily. She was pink and swollen and so, so wet.
They both held their breath when he pushed inside her, just the tiniest bit, just so the flaring ring around his head remained visible. His shaft looked huge between her legs, and she was as hesitant to accommodate him as she was eager to feel him pushing inside her. She bit her lip, prepared herself for his first thrust. It never came.
Looking up, she discovered his eyes on her face. “What?”
“Condom,” he rasped, then wrenched open the drawer beside her, pulling out a box of Trojans.
“How did you—” she began, but he cut her off.
“I was lookin’ for bar soap. That frou-frou shower gel was slimy and smelled like”—he ripped a packet of foil open with his teeth, his cock still kissing her entrance—“black licorice. I hate black licorice.”
They both moaned when he stepped back, breaking their delicate connection. Then he placed the ring of rubber over his head, handling his dick unabashedly.
“Will that thing fit?” she asked, her delicate folds missing the branding heat of his flesh, pulsing, grasping as if to draw him back to her.
He grinned, rolling on the condom and hissing like his skin was super sensitive. She suspected it was. He was so swollen he was tight and shiny. “No need to stroke my ego, darlin’. I’m all set in that department.”
“I wasn’t—”
But that’s as far as she got because he stepped back to her, using his thumb to angle his shaft toward her entrance and push the tip of his head back inside her. Only, instead of stroking, he placed his thumb over her clit, rubbing, caressing, making the bundle of nerves thrum. Making her groan.
“Leo,” she breathed, wriggling. Her womanhood sucked at him with greedy pulls, trying to drag him inside. But he remained frustratingly still.
“I want to make sure you’re ready,” he said, licking the fingers of the hand not busy between her legs. He rubbed them over her right nipple. The aching tip furled into a bud so tight she thought she might die from the exquisite torture.
“I’m ready,” she assured him, hooking her heels behind his knees, grabbing his ass in both hands and forcing his hips forward. “Ohhhhhhhh!” she groaned at the same time he sucked in a startled breath.
“Slow, Olivia,” he instructed, and she knew not to disobey him. He was a big man. She was not a big woman.
She bit her lip, watching his shaft part her, stretch her, fill her inch by slow, delicious inch. Her rapacious nerve endings sizzled to life under the friction, her hungry walls slipping over his iron hardness. It was pleasure unlike anything she’d ever experienced, because it was tinged by the slightest bit of pain. She was at capacity. She couldn’t take any more. Luckily, she didn’t have to. His tip bumped into the entrance to her womb at the same time his testicles pressed against the lower curves of her ass.
They were joined, utterly, completely. Her trimmed patch of inky-black pubic hair in sharp contrast to the golden brown of his. He claimed her lips then. His kiss hot and eager, his tongue stroking into her mouth over and over again. But his cock…his cock remained completely still, buried inside her, throbbing so forcefully she felt each pulse stretch her further, but he didn’t move.
“Leo,” she husked against his lips, squirming. “Please, Leo. I need you. I want— Yessssss.” Her head fell back on her shoulders as he pulled out of her, just a bit, just an inch or two, before pressing home where he remained still. Again. She growled her impatience.
“I want t-to…” he stuttered, kissing the side of her mouth, her neck, “make it last.”
She grabbed his ears, stared him straight in the eye, and let him know exactly what she wanted. “I want you to move that fine ass. Now.”
* * *
7:01 p.m.…
Never one to ignore a direct order from a lady, Leo stroked into Olivia’s heat, gritting his teeth against the mind-numbing pleasure. He wanted to make it last, but she was so tight. So wet. And every withdrawal was friction-filled heaven. Every stroke forward a wonder of gripping, pulsing sensation. It was too good. Too much.
And then there was Olivia. Her head thrown back. Her gorgeous breasts pointing upward, her legs wrapped tight around his hips as if she never wanted to let him go. And by God, if he had his way, she never would.
Bending to suck one tightly furled nipple into his mouth, he pistoned into her. Over and over again. Slowly. Then
more quickly. Joining their bodies in that age-old dance of love, of devotion and passion and communion.
His entire world became the two of them. Moving together. His hands on her hips as he rocked against her, listening to every indrawn breath, cataloging every subtle shift that made her moan and tighten around him. Her fingers in his hair as she held him tight, as she met him thrust for thrust, as she pushed him higher, faster, harder. Seconds became little eternities of divine pleasure. Minutes turned into centuries of bliss.
Then his name rose from the back of her throat, and she exploded around him. Her fingers digging into his scalp. Her silken walls clamping down, squeezing and pulsing, milking and sucking. He clenched his jaw, screwing his eyes shut, wanting to hold on, to continue making love to her forever, until she came down from this high and he pushed her up toward the pinnacle again. And again.
But he couldn’t.
He’d waited too long for this. For her. And her violent climax triggered his own. His balls pulled up tight, tingling, buzzing, and then he was coming. In her. With her. The ecstasy shooting along his shaft and rippling out into his limbs, until every inch of him was alive with throbbing, incandescent pleasure. With happiness. With love. It was better than anything he’d ever known. Sweeter than anything he’d ever dreamed.
And then, sated, languid, they collapsed against each other, his head on her shoulder, her ankles crossed above his ass. Their chests rose and fell with shared breaths, and he didn’t know why it happened, but a deep chuckle sounded low in his throat.
“What’s so funny?” she panted, kissing his ear. A delicate caress. A little love peck that he felt all the way down to his thundering, happy heart.
“Just that I reckon that’s what Rusty was talkin’ about when he said we needed to start really livin’. What we just did, you and me, darlin’, that’s what it’s all about.”
She stilled for just a second, and he wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut about Rusty. But then she hummed her agreement, nibbling on his earlobe, and he relaxed, smiling. He was softening inside her now. He needed to pull out. Because he wanted her returning to him for this, because this connection they shared wasn’t something to ignore, to toss aside, not because the condom leaked and they had to make a decision about an accidental pregnancy.
Hell or High Water Page 27