by A. L. Woods
My right hand slid between us, settling against the strain of his bulging erection that felt engorged against the wet denim. He bit back a curse when I cupped him, his hips chasing my palm out of instinct, my thumb caressing the swathed tip.
“I’m trying to do right by you, Hemingway.” He reached for my exploratory hand, his grasp stiff on my own. “Let me, just once.”
“Please stop turning me down.” My breath shook as I drew in an air. “There won’t be much left of my confidence at this rate if you do.” He pressed a reverent kiss to my cheek, a tight breath expelling from him.
I was grateful the sounds of water hitting the porcelain of the tub filled the void of silence that threatened to consume us. He didn’t want to speak, and neither did I.
When I tried to step out of his hold, he held me tighter, his forehead still resting against the crook of my neck and shoulder, his warm breath mingling with the mounting steam of the shower. “Either fuck me or let me get out of here, Sean.”
He lifted his head, something unbending sparking in his eyes as he peered down at me. “Always eager to get away from me when your feelings get to be too much, huh?”
“What?”
“You run when we talk about feelings, or you try to distract me with sex,” he replied unequivocally.
I grew crestfallen, the tears running fiery streaks across my cheeks.
Sean settled the hand that had clutched him moments earlier against the sonorous beat of his heart. My fingers pressed into the hard stretch of skin. “That’s what you do to me.” His throat worked, his thoughts making it hard to breathe. “I told you that you haven’t been living, and truthfully, neither have I.”
The admission sucked all the air out of my lungs.
“You’ve given me a reason to want to live fully, with no regrets. That’s why it’s hard for me to not tell you that…” The words died on his tongue, like his fear came and dislodged them from his thoughts with a quick strike to the back of the head.
“Tell me what?” I asked in a whisper.
His lids dropped, his mouth setting into a hard line. His palm slid to the fleshy part of my hip, his fingertips biting into me like he was trying to ensure I would not take off on him as soon as he said his next words. “That thinking that I was going to lose you reinforced how much I want to keep you around…that I want to marry you someday.” At my sharp gasp, his lashes fluttered, eyes opening. “I want to make that lifelong commitment to you. Your dreams, your ambitions, your life, I want to be part of all of it. It’s not always going to be easy; I know it’s not, but I’ve never wanted easy with you.”
I couldn’t keep the dazed look from my expression. “I asked you once if it would really be the worst thing being married to me.” He worried his lip with his teeth, expectancy pervading his angular face. “So, would it?”
Dropping my eyes to the water circling the drain, I let myself fully consider it for the first time. I didn’t think about the stuffy dress, the ring, the over-the-top wedding venue.
I thought about the life we would have together. The laughter. The fights. The make-ups. The moments like these, where we were both down and out and struggling, but still fighting to find each other in the noise. I felt every single faraway feeling as though they were already memories forged in my mind, like we had already lived them.
I shook my head. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“Can you picture a future with me?”
My next breath rattled my lungs. “I want to.” I wanted nothing more than to give myself over to the visceral ideas in my mind that were as real as he was.
His Adam’s apple weaved. “But?”
“I’m scared.”
He dropped the hand that he perched against the wall, pulling me flush against him, as if he could somehow smother my worry. My arms twined around his upper back. Even chest to chest, he still didn’t feel close enough…I wondered if he could ever be close enough. He was a tattoo on my mind, a branded mark on my heart. “What if I let you in and you change your mind? What if you find someone better? What if I’m not enough?”
“I’ve waited my entire life for you, Hemingway.” He slackened his hold on me, reaching for my chin to tilt my head back. “You’re it for me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you can feel it, too.”
My lips parted, air lodging in my chest. “The thing we tried to deny exists between us. The energy that sucks all the air out of the room and makes time feel like it’s stopped. The current of electricity. You can’t deny that. That’s kismet.”
Destiny. Fate. Decided for us long before either of us were aware of the other’s existence. He was mine, and I was his. Nothing, or no one, could break this transcended connection. Not Cash, not my mother, not even me. There was no fighting that, no denying it.
Nothing could change kismet.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Those three significant words seemed to hang in the air above us as soon as they left me. His eyes were illegible, nostrils wide, his jaw twitching. The longer the silence stretched between us, the worse the admission felt. I no longer felt secure in my decision to tell him. I wanted nothing more than to pluck the words from the air and swallow them whole. Why had I said them? Why didn’t I just leave it alone? I felt stiff in his hold, but he didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t speak.
“Now would be a good time to say something. I’m freaking the fuck out.”
“Say it again,” he growled.
“I’m freaking the fuck out.”
“Not that, Raquel.”
Right. Not that. Heat burned my face, leaving licks of flames up the length of my spine. I bent my head, letting my eyes drift shut. “I love you.”
I waited with bated breath for him to say something, anything. Sean cocked his head to the right, his eyes running over me. The protracted silence was a pulse in my hands, my insides wrenching the longer he remained elusive. He would not say it back. After everything, it prepared me for this. Hadn’t I done that to him, too? I’d lost my mettle. I’d done this. Another thing I’d broken, another thing I couldn’t take back.
Sliding from out of his grasp, I moved toward the sliver of a gap between the shower curtain. He pulled me back where I was before I could even gather my thoughts, a gasp cutting through the silence.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He hovered over me, trapping my hands at my sides.
“I’m done.” There was nothing left for me to say. He said he wanted to marry me someday, I told him I loved him…and he said nothing in response.
“Yeah? Well, I wasn’t.”
My throat weaved. “You weren’t saying anything, I thought—”
“That I changed my mind just because you finally said what I’ve been dying to hear for so long?”
My bottom lip quivered.
The reaction didn’t escape his notice. He freed one of my trapped hands, placing it atop of his heart again. “I want you to really feel it,” he demanded. His heartbeat was unyielding and fast, melding with the pulse under my palm. “Understand something, Raquel. You gave it a reason to beat because I love you.”
I shook his grasp on my other hand free, a cry breaking through from the back of my throat. Hooking my fingers on his neck, I drew him closer. He followed my lead, finding my mouth. This time, he didn’t fight me when I worked his belt, undid his pants and jerked them down his muscular thighs, even though a curse escaped him between our open mouths.
He kissed me with the force of a man who had lost his will to fight me and succumbed to temptation. “Spread your legs, Hemingway.”
My legs obliged him before I had time to form an understanding of the command, all cognizant thought leaving me. He leaned forward, pressing his hard erection against my belly, his hand snaking between my legs.
His mouth found the shell of my ear, the bass of his growl setting off a flurry of goosebumps across my skin. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life worshipping you, do you unders
tand that?”
His thumb brushed my clit, setting off an immediate tremor in my thighs. He kept me upright with his caged hips. “I want you to be mine. Every night, every day, forever.”
My head pressed against the tile. “That sounds a lot like a proposal.”
“Maybe it is.” He stroked my earlobe with his tongue at the same time his index finger breached my entrance, my body accepting him with a moan that filled the room. “Maybe it’s not. Whatever the future holds, I want it with you. The good and the bad. The calm and chaos. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be.”
I let my head lull, losing myself to the pumping of his finger. After a beat of a minute, my palm curled around his shaft. Sean’s breath was hot against the side of my face, the sound he made in my ear rich and masculine.
“Promise me you’ll never do that to me.” I rocked my hips in time with the pumping of his fingers. I knew he wasn’t Cash, but the irrational fear loomed.
His nostrils flared, understanding flanking him. “Never.”
“Please don’t hurt me, Sean. I won’t survive it. I can’t go through this again.”
His fingers from his free hand entrenched themselves into my hair, bringing my mouth to his. The kiss was soft, setting off a warmth through me. “Never. You can trust me.” His fingers slid from my core. He found the bend between my knee and thigh, draping it over the crook of his elbow. “I won’t hurt you, I promise you.” He released the back of my head, his hand guiding his tip to my throbbing pussy. He worked himself back and forth across my core, bathing himself in my arousal. His first entry inside me was tentative, his thighs quivering against my stationary leg. Our respective torsos shook, our bodies registering the tight fit.
He moved inside of me slowly, each motion punitive and determined to ground every doubt and worry that pervaded my mind with each push and pull of his cock.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” I flicked my gaze to his, my next breath catching in my chest. He looked down at me through the thickness of his lashes, over the slope of his arrow-straight nose. His fingers sank deeper into my perched thigh, his next thrust harder. My body absorbed the languid and slow burn he set off with each choreographed shift.
My clenching walls urged him on; I wanted more. But Sean wasn’t trying to fuck me, he wasn’t even trying to have sex with me. He was trying to show me how much he loved me in the only way my body seemed to understand. When I was stripped down, with nothing to shield myself with. When I was vulnerable to him.
He was making love to me, and I wanted it. I needed it like my next pull of air. I shifted up on the leg that grounded to the porcelain. Reading my mind, he gave me his mouth. He tasted like an intoxicating combination of mint from his toothpaste and coffee, the notes spicy and heady, leaving my mind spinning.
I broke our kiss to look at him. His lashes practically kissed his cheekbones, his mouth pulling in concentration as he continued his slow and loving torture on my body with each indolent pump of his hips.
“I love you,” I whispered shakily. His eyes popped open, and with a single stare, he quelled the anxiety that threatened to mainline itself in my mind and foster doubts.
“You’re mine, Hemingway. Now and always. Nothing’s going to change that. Not what happened to you, or where you come from. Nothing. You’re it.” The words spurred him on, his pace quickening, his hips biting into me. “Do you understand that?”
I nodded, tracking his tapered eyes, something unearthly igniting there that burned me from the inside out. His thrusts slowed, his grip on my perched leg slackening. Before the numbness had time to register, Sean flipped me around, bracing both my splayed palms against the wall, his hands dragging up the length of my arms, smoothing down my sides. He nudged my thighs apart, sliding a hand between us.
His chest flanked my back, his mouth working against my jawline. “Do you trust me?”
My core clenched at the heated question, my stomach somersaulting. I nodded, feeling breathless, even though I hadn’t spoken.
“Say it. Yes or no?”
I sucked back a breath, my forehead pressing against the tiles, my chest heaving. “Yes.”
His open palm dragged across the curve of my ass. I felt the sweep of his fingers coating themselves in my arousal and making their ascent backward. Anticipation kicked off in my chest, my fingers curling across the tiled walls.
His thumb brushed across my pucker, and my breath trapped itself in my lungs. “Relax, Raquel.”
“I’m trying.”
His other hand slid forward, fingers dipping inside my pussy. His chest melded across my back, his mouth finding the shell of my ear.
“If you don’t relax, it’ll hurt. I need you to trust me.”
“I do trust you.” My body shook. The butterflies danced on my insides, making me feel limbless. “I trust you implicitly.”
Sean hesitated only for a moment before he peeled himself away from my wet body. The pad of his finger massaged the forbidden spot, every breath catching in my chest with a shudder. When his thumb teased the area once more with the slightest pressure, my body stilled with anticipation. I couldn’t reconcile the battle that warred in my mind over whether I found this degrading or hot, but I didn’t want it to stop. My spine curled, and with it, I pressed my ass into his finger that tested the breach of skin.
The deep rumble of his approval hit my ears, but before I could respond to it with another dip, he retracted his hand, immediately blanketing me in the loss of his presence. His palm ran along the length of my spine, coaxing me into submission once more.
“Easy, baby. Don’t rush it.” He bent me a little at the waist, his palm smoothing over my sides, setting off a trail of unbridled emotion that threatened to split my insides. The scruff of his beard tickled against my shoulders, his mouth leaving a trail of ardent kisses up the length of my shoulder to the column of my throat, where he grazed me with his teeth. My neck all but cranked to create more space for him in my desperation for more.
Sean guided the head of his cock back to my entrance, working himself back and forth between my folds. The friction had my legs buckling, the pressure against my clit leaving my self-control teetering dangerously off the precipice. I released a mewl, my head falling back against his chest. He gripped my chin, slanting his mouth over mine, his hips slapping against my backside. My next inhale stopped short when he pushed himself into me, my body folding deeper at the waist.
“Fuck.” His fingers sank into my waistline like he was trying to fortify himself. “You feel so good.” He didn’t pump into me for a moment. We just stood there, fused together, breaths coming hard and fast, our pants absorbed by the heavy rush of water that ran from the shower. I shifted slowly, encouraging his movement. He was slow at first, the first pump of his hips shaky as he collected his bearings. My palms slid lower against the tile, my body bending further, ass proffered toward him.
I heard his tight inhale, the gesture of my movement not lost to him. I was spurring him on. I wanted him to try it again. He slid himself out of me, his hand dipping between my legs, languorously dragging more of my arousal backward, coating the pucker of my ass. My lids dropped shut, my concentration focused on remaining relaxed. I heard him push spit through his teeth, felt the warmth of it against my back entrance as he massaged it there like lube.
With his other hand, he guided his cock back to my entrance, pushing himself inside my pussy once more. My body barely had time to concentrate on the familiar invasion when I felt another of a different kind. He took his time about it, edging his thick thumb inside of me, my muscles all but enveloping him. His chest flanked my back, his mouth finding my ear.
He could hardly contain the grit from his voice as he asked, “Is this okay?”
My nod was weak, my body too absorbed in the stilled thumb breaching that forbidden spot and his cock in my pussy, the desperate throb there almost entirely robbing me of all cognizant thought. My fingernails scratched at the tiles I spread them on.
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br /> “Raquel.” His voice came out of his mouth on a shiver. “I need you to tell me, or I’ll stop.” When I didn’t speak, he withdrew both his finger and his cock, but my ass chased after him, a slight smarting of pain running through me at the callousness of my actions.
He grunted, but it was hard to know if it was from assent or surprise. I thought I heard him swallow. His voice was thin when he spoke, “Don’t do that again. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Fuck me, then,” I commanded, grinding myself against him, eliciting a sound from myself I didn’t recognize.
Sean’s chuckle was low, something dark, almost sinister lacing it. He shoved his cock forward until he was balls deep, his thumb unmoving in my ass as he fucked me from behind, allowing my body to acclimate to the sensation. His other hand slid over my hip, sinking lower and lower until he planted his middle finger firm against my clit, working me in the circular motions he knew I loved.
Our mutual moans of approval enveloped us over the rush of water. I loved the multiple sensations…the thrust of his hips, the thumb that teased me reverently, the pad of his finger circling my clit. It was too much. I didn’t know where to concentrate. His hard cock inside of me, the long middle finger that swirled my clit, or the delicious burn his thumb set off in my ass. I was panting, my body embracing it all, and still my greed demanded more. I backed into him, goading him on with each shift of my ass, my pelvis grinding backward. I let go of my scruples and lost myself in his thrusts. When he thrust forward, I jerked back, feeling his thumb sinking deeper and deeper until he was knuckle deep. The penetrative sensation scrambled my thoughts like an out-of-body experience, caught up in the pleasure from the front and the vulnerability in the back that had my nipples puckering and skin pebbling. I liked it more than I ever thought I would, so I let go.
The climax swept over me like a deluge of water. I gasped just as the orgasm slammed into me, a strangled cry leaving the back of my throat. He released his grip on my hip, his fingers coming around my throat, pulling me forward to meld my back against his chest. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he barked against my ear, his pumps becoming furious and urgent until I felt the warmth of his seed spilling into me, his body stilling against my own, his ragged breaths filling my ears and fanning one side of my face.