Waiting for Forever (Hope Valley Book 8)

by Jessica Prince

  But that wasn’t an option. Hardin was hurting, which, in turn, made Leo hurt, and it was my job to be there for them. “I’m sorry, honey,” I said gently. “What can I do? What do you need from me?”

  He bent forward, tearing his boxer briefs down his legs and started for the bed. “Take off your panties,” he answered, the words slithering between his clenched teeth. The anger was radiating off of him as he stopped at the edge of the bed and waited for me to comply. Under different circumstances, I might have been frightened, but I knew Leo. I knew in my heart that he’d never hurt me. What he needed in that moment was an escape, and I wanted to give that to him.

  Rising to my knees, I reached beneath the shirt I’d confiscated from his drawer to sleep in and slipped my panties down my legs. As soon as I had them discarded, his big body hit mine, taking me to my back in the bed.

  My startled gasp quickly turned into a moan when one of his hands slipped between my legs.

  “Christ,” he grunted, sliding one finger inside me. “This all for me?”

  My back arched off the bed, my lips parted, and the word, “Yes,” came out with an exhale.

  “I’ve been touchin’ you for all of two seconds and you’re already soaked for me.”

  A needy whimper was pulled from my chest as he added a second finger, pushing them in deep and curling them to rub against my G-spot.

  My hand flew up into his hair, fisting the silky stands as my walls began to ripple around his fingers.

  “You’re already close, aren’t you, baby?”

  “Yeah, honey.” My groan immediately morphed into a cry of protest when he pulled his fingers out, but before I could say a word, he was flipping our position so I was straddling him. Grabbing the hem of my shirt, he whipped it up and over my head, tossing it aside before sliding farther up the bed and laying his head on the pillows.

  His fingers dug into my hips as he pulled me up, and his words were a rough command as he said, “Sit on my face, sweetness. I need to taste that sweet pussy.”

  Without giving me a chance to act, he pulled me down, spearing his tongue inside my opening.

  I let out a sharp cry, my hands flying up to the headboard to hold myself steady as he ate me voraciously. He nipped and sucked and licked, moaning against my sensitive fold as my fingers curled around the slats in the headboard and my hips began to rock.

  “That’s it, baby,” he said, his words muffled as his hands slipped around, his fingertips digging into the flesh of my ass. “Ride my face, Danika.”

  I lost control then, unable to do anything but that. He switched from fucking me with his tongue to swirling it around my swollen clit. My nipples tightened and my breathing became labored as I circled my hips, desperate for more.

  “God, yes, honey,” I moaned, rocking against his face.

  He pulled me down harder, burying his face between my thighs. The scruff on his jaw and cheeks abraded my skin, creating a slight sting that only catapulted the pleasure into another stratosphere.

  I felt one of his hands move away, and when I looked back over my shoulder, I saw he’d wrapped it around his heavy cock and was jacking himself hard and fast. That was all it took for me to explode, with that image in my head and his tongue inside me, I went off, biting into my bottom lip to keep from yelling out as I came long and hard.

  I hadn’t had a chance to come all the way down when he moved again, sliding from between my legs and coming up on his knees behind me. I had just enough time to pull in a much-needed breath when he wrapped my hair in one fist and used the other to guide himself to my entrance. Then, with one hard snap of his hips, he buried himself deep at the same time he gave my hair a gentle yank.

  I cried out at the sensation of him stretching me full. Nothing had ever, ever felt as good as having him inside me.

  “Danika,” he groaned, his lips brushing against my ear. “Bear with me. I need it rough tonight. I need to feel you beneath my skin. Need to feel you everywhere,” he ended on a growl.

  I turned my head so my lips could brush against his. “Take what you need, honey.”

  With my permission granted, he pulled out nearly all the way and powered back in. Over and over. His grunts mingled with my whimpers and the heady smell of sex in the air.

  This was the first time we’d had sex since getting back together. However in that blissful month we’d had before, he’d given me hard and rough, soft and sweet, and everything between, but it had never been like this. It was as if he was trying to make me a part of him, like he needed me more than air.

  Releasing my hair, he wrapped his arm around me, bringing my back flush with his chest. His fingers found my nipple and began pinching and pulling as he fucked me, his hips slapping against my ass over and over.

  I’d just come, it hadn’t been small by any stretch, and already, I felt another one building, one so big I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.

  “Leo,” I whimpered as my whole body began to tremble.

  “That’s it, sweetness. I can feel it. Give me another.”

  My hips began to move of their own accord, slamming back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. “Oh God,” I panted. “I’m about to—” My words died off, my eyes slammed closed and my head fell back against his shoulder as every nerve ending in my body combusted all at the same time.

  I was still coming, my walls clamped tight around him when he shoved his face into the crook of my neck and grunted out his own release, driving his cock hard and deep until he had nothing left.

  We were both sweaty and panting like we’d just run a marathon. Releasing my breast and hip, he reached for my hands and gently pried my fingers from the headboard. I would have collapsed onto the mattress in a sated heap had it not been for him holding on to me and guiding me down slowly.

  Once there, he turned me to my back and hovered over me, his fingers coming up to brush the damp hair from my forehead.

  “You okay, sweetheart?”

  I gazed up at him, sure my grin was totally goofy as I replied, “So okay.”

  The harshness that had been carved into his expression when he first entered the room was now completely gone, in its place was a look so tender and so warm it made my heart expand.

  “Thank you for that,” he said quietly, leaning in to run the tip of his nose along mine.

  “Pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you. After all, you did most of the heavy lifting.”

  He chuckled for a second before his expression grew serious. “I mean it, Danika. I needed that. I needed you. That’s the brand of sweet only you’re capable of giving me because it’s just how you are.”

  It had to be said that I really liked hearing that in a seriously big way. I was just about to tell him as much, but before I could get the words out I felt something warm and slick between my thighs.

  My eyes went big at the realization, and I croaked, “Oh, God. Leo, we forgot a condom.”

  I expected him to freak. I expected him to jump out of the bed and begin pacing. What I didn’t expect was for him to lean down and brush a feather-light kiss against my lips while whispering, “So?”

  “Honey, I’m not on the pill. I have an appointment with my doctor next week to see to that but tonight—”

  “You want kids, Danika?”

  “I—what?”

  “Kids. You want them? I realize we should’ve had this talk sooner, but it is what it is, so we’re havin’ it now.”

  Wait . . . we were? “Leo, don’t you think it’s a little premature to have this discussion this soon in our relationship?”

  He braced one arm on the bed so he could look at me as he slowly dragged his hand up the outside of my thigh, moving past my hip to brush his fingertips against my ribs. “Well, considering you have my cum inside you at this very moment, I’d say no. But even if that wasn’t the case, it’d still be a no.”

  “I—what?” I repeated, only this time louder and a bit hysterical.

  He went on to explain, ca
lm and collected as ever, and what he had to say would have brought me to my knees had I not already been lying with some of his weight on top of me. “See, I realized something the other night when I was talkin’ to Hardin. It’s something I’ve been feelin’ for a long time now, and, I know it’s cliché to say I’ve been waiting for the right time, however it’s also the truth. But after what went down today, whether it’s the right time or not, you need to know.”

  “Know what?” I whispered past the lump suddenly forming in my throat.

  His hazel eyes had grown darker as he stared down at me, but now they were alight as he studied my face, flitting over every inch like he was trying to memorize every single detail. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?”

  God, every time he asked me that, I felt those butterflies come back. “Yeah, Leo.”

  “How much?”

  My head jerked back into the pillow it was resting on. “How much what?”

  “You say you know how much you mean to me, so tell me. How much, sweetness?”

  “Um . . . well, I know you enjoy spending time with me,” I started carefully.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up in a smirk. “Yeah, I do. And?”

  “And, uh, I’m pretty sure . . . well, you’ve said I make you happy.”

  “Hmm. I see.”

  I waited for him to give me more. “See what?” I finally asked when he said nothing else after that ominous statement.

  “I see that you think you know how much you mean to me, but you don’t actually get the whole picture, so I’ll lay it out for you. You do make me happy, Danika, and for a guy like me, a guy who hasn’t had a lot of that from the women in his life, it means fuckin’ everything that you do.”

  Oh God. “Leo—”

  “I had a mom who took off when I was just a kid. After that, I hooked up with a few girls, but none of them really meant all that much until I tied myself to Whitney. I thought I loved her, at least at the beginnin’, but it didn’t take me long to realize it was more hormones than anything else, anything important.

  “I didn’t stay with her because she made me happy, I stayed ’cause she was familiar. By the time I realized I’d made a mistake and tried to get myself out of a bad situation, it was too late.”

  My heart was beating frantically against my ribs as I asked, “H-how was it too late?”

  “She was already pregnant with Hardin. Now, I don’t have actual proof, but I’m not an idiot. I wore a condom with her, always. I took every precaution to make sure that wasn’t somethin’ that would ever happen with us. She felt me pullin’ away. Saw I wanted out, and then she turned up pregnant.”

  I sucked in an audible gasp. “No.”

  “She knew I’d never abandon my kid the way my mom had abandoned me. For me, there was no other choice, so I married her. That marriage was misery from day one, and it stayed bad. A few years later, I started thinkin’ of getting out, and she turned up pregnant again.”

  Holy shit! What kind of woman would do something like that?

  “Only happiness I had in the shitstorm that was my life were my babies. They were my whole world. Just lookin’ at them made all the bad go away. While I was with her, and even after I finally got out, I thought nothin’ would change that. I’d fucked up. I’d picked the wrong woman, so my kids would be the only happiness I’d ever have.

  “Then I met you. You lit up my world. You made me happy, baby. I fucked up, and I almost lost that. When I got you back, I swore to myself I’d never do a thing to mess up what we have, because it was better than anything I’ve ever experienced aside from the love I got from my kids.”

  “Honey—” I tried, but he wasn’t finished.

  “I knew for a long time, long before I ever divorced her that I didn’t love Whitney. But even if I hadn’t realized it then, it would’ve become crystal clear when I met you, because what I feel for you is so much more than I’ve ever felt for another woman.”

  I reached up and dragged my fingers across his stubble as I battled back the tears that wanted to fall.

  “I love you, Danika. You’re it for me. And I mean that in a way that I know, to my very bones, is forever. Whitney never had that from me. None of the girls that came before her did, and certainly none of the women that came after. You’re the only one who’ll ever get that from me. So, that said, I need you to tell me whether or not you want kids.”

  My mouth opened and closed several times, struggling to find my words as my thoughts tumbled around inside my head. “I—yes. One day.”

  “One day,” he repeated. “Meanin’ not now or in the very near future?”

  “Well, um . . . I feel the need to point out that, until just a few minutes ago, I hadn’t really been in a position to give it much thought. I’m not really prepared to answer that question at the moment.”

  “All right, honey. I can see that. But just so you know where I am while your takin’ the time you need to think it over, I already have two kids. That doesn’t mean I’m not done with that journey if it’s the path you feel like takin’. I’ve always wanted kids. Wanted a whole hell of a lot of them. Only got two because I’d be damned if I gave Whitney more. That said, with the right woman—that bein’ you—I’d like to keep going. If that time’s now because of what just happened, then so be it. If not, then I’m good to wait as long as you need.”

  He was good to wait as long as I needed.

  Because he loved me.

  Because I was it for him.

  And he wanted to have kids with me.

  I was still speechless when Leo alighted from the bed and moved into the bathroom, I remained that way when he came back and as he spread my legs, using a damp washcloth to clean the remnants of himself from my skin.

  He tossed the rag toward the hamper, grabbed my—his—tee off the floor and handed it to me. “Love the feel of your skin pressed against mine, sweetness, but with Hardin in the house . . .”

  He didn’t need to finish. “Of course.” I quickly donned the shirt and bent to snatch up my panties, pulling them back on as he killed the lights. I watched him move through the shadows and climbed back into the bed, then I lost sight of him when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled, gathering me to him as he yanked the covers up and over us.

  It was minutes later when, staring off into the darkness, feeling his strong body pressed against my back and all around me, that I finally found my words. “Leo?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Just so you know, I love you. You’re it for me too, honey.”

  His arms clenched, squeezing me tighter. “Already knew that, baby. But thanks for sayin’ it anyway.”

  I tried to shift around to face him, but he held me firm. “What do you mean you already knew?”

  His chest shook with a soft chuckle. “You’ve loved me since you were seven years old,” he said, repeating those words I’d said to him all those weeks ago. He’d remembered.

  “But just to say, doesn’t mean I don’t love hearin’ them come directly from your mouth.”

  Well. Okay then.

  “Get some sleep.”

  “All right, Leo,” I whispered. “See you in the morning.”

  “That you will, sweetness.”

  And just because I couldn’t help myself, I added a soft, “Love you.”

  That earned me another squeeze, and a mumbled, “Love you too.”

  Then I fell asleep, and I did it with a smile on my face.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Danika

  The month that followed Hardin’s birthday party had been rough on Leo. While he loved having his son with him full-time, Macie hadn’t understood why her brother wasn’t leaving with her when it was time to go back to her mom’s.

  She missed him something fierce during the weeks they were apart, and each time she came back to Leo’s, it was obvious something was off. She was quiet and withdrawn. Leo had tried talking to her about it, but she remained tight-lipped. She wasn’t her normal,
lively self during our baking lessons. She still wanted to do it, but something in her had changed, and the more time that passed, the more I began to worry.

  The only thing Leo could do was try his best to pull her out of it when he had her, and I did what I could to help with that.

  With Hardin now at his dad’s full-time, Leo wasn’t able to stay the night at my place, so more often than not, Roscoe and I were at his place. I had a ton of clothes at his house and had doubled up on all my toiletries to keep his bathroom stocked. I didn’t mind this one bit since his house was a million times better than mine, and I loved spending time with him and his kids, not to mention, going to sleep beside Leo each night was quickly becoming one of my favorite things.

  On top of all of that, the Darrin Callo case was weighing heavily on him. He couldn’t tell me about it, but I had a feeling he and Micah were hitting one road block after another. His hours had become somewhat erratic, and it wasn’t unusual that he wouldn’t get in until well after the sun went down, so I’d started making dinner every night so he’d be able to eat, relax, and hang with his kids in the evenings before having to go to sleep, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day.

  The one thing that hadn’t changed was how Leo acted with me. No matter how stressed or worried he got, he didn’t snap. He never lost his temper, and even if he’d had a bad day, as soon as he walked through the door, he sought me out for a kiss, wanting to connect with me in some way no matter what.

  He didn’t hide his affection from his kids, in fact, it was such a common occurrence that they’d started teasing us about how gross it was. But there had been a few times after a kiss or embrace that I’d caught Hardin watching us with this expression on his face that I could only describe as relief. His dad was happy and that was enough to make him happy.

  But it wasn’t just affection I was getting on a regular basis from Leo. Every night, no matter how exhausted he was, as soon as he climbed into bed, he’d reach for me. Some nights he needed it hard and fast, other nights he made love to me slowly, but it never failed that I’d have at least two orgasms before my head hit the pillow. I’d gotten my period the week after Hardin’s birthday, but I’d gotten on the pill shortly thereafter, so now condoms were a thing of the past, and I had to say, I didn’t miss them one damn bit.