I circled my hips, faster, rougher, taking every single thing he had to give me, over and over again until I came, squeezing down around him on a cry that even I could barely hear.
And when he sucked in a breath and with his hands and body tight on mine, Rip shoved me down all the way on him a moment later, stuffing me so deep my muscles fluttered over him, his grunts were hoarse in my ears and on my mouth as he came inside me. That massive body shuddered, his dick pulsing slowly and steadily. I took it all. Every single little bit of it.
I draped myself over him afterward, my arms over his neck, our sweaty chests pressed against each other as we both struggled for breath. Those huge arms wrapping around me, holding me close, was the greatest and most welcome surprise of my life. There was nowhere else I wanted to be other than right freaking there. Nowhere. Not for a million dollars.
I pressed my nose against his throat, taking in that sweet scent of his: clean, fresh deodorant and warm skin.
His palms moved over my back, on either side of my spine. Sweeping me up and down and up and down. “You good?”
I smiled. How could I not smile? “I don’t think I’ve ever been better, Rip.”
His chuckle was soft against my ear. “Can’t say I don’t feel the same.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, soaking up the heat of him. The love of him. The feel of him.
“Yeah,” was his reply as his hands did that trek over my spine again, almost like he loved the feel of me too.
I hoped he did.
We sat there for a while, him in me, softening, but his arms as solid as ever. And I loved it. I loved it so much I had no words for how much.
“I’m sorry, baby. Sorry I haven’t been there for you lately, sorry I was such a fucking ass there for a while, but you gotta know I won’t do that again,” Rip told me, sounding so grave. “I couldn’t even if I tried, you know that?”
I didn’t let myself tense up, and even though I didn’t really want to ask, didn’t want to be the kind of person who needed reassurances… I was that person. I might always be that person, but I hoped I wouldn’t. But I still asked, “Why?”
And handsome, amazing Rip didn’t hesitate for a single second as he said, “’Cause I love you, Luna. Because I love the shit out of you, girl, and those two weeks when you were acting like you were done with me were some of the worst days of my life.”
That had me sitting up so I could look at him. Look at him I did. At that serious face. At those intense eyes. At the earnestness coming straight out of him like a beam. I could be honest, I could admit I whispered, “You love me?”
Not yeah. Not uh-huh. Nothing watered down or broken up. He gave me the four greatest words I would ever hear. “I love you, girl.” A confirmation. A promise. A Band-Aid that shouldn’t have been a Band-Aid but was.
Because I knew Rip wouldn’t say those words if he didn’t mean them. Maybe he’d said some things weeks ago he hadn’t meant, but I understood why they had come out the way they had. I definitely knew he wouldn’t take them back for no reason.
In that moment, I knew he meant those three words from the bottom of that rough, complicated heart.
“I love you too,” I told him, freaking going for it because why not? People smarter than me would say that the world wasn’t for chickenshits, and I didn’t want to be a chickenshit.
The corners of that mouth tipped up and his smile was gentle but bright and sweet. “I know you do, baby.” One of those hands went up my spine again as he leaned forward a little, not breaking eye contact for even a second. “I know you do. And I know you’ve had a lot of people not do right by you, and I know things with your sister aren’t that great—”
“She sent me a letter,” I cut him off. “I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he wanted me to tell him the rest by the way his eyebrows went flat.
“She said that she was sorry. That she didn’t know how to tell me about talking to my dad—”
His snort wasn’t even close to being a surprise. I couldn’t say I blamed him.
“Supposedly an ex-boyfriend was the one who broke into her apartment, and she’s been acting weird because she didn’t want to tell me she was a stripper. That’s how she’s been paying for her apartment,” I finished with a blink. “I think I was worried there for a moment she was selling drugs, so…”
Rip’s face was carefully blank as he asked, “How you feeling about it?”
I leaned forward and kissed his cheek, earning an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a smirk that went straight into my soul. Was this how easy it was going to be? Was that how it was supposed to be? Rip just letting me kiss him whenever I wanted? I was all for it. I really was. “It makes me sad she didn’t feel like she could tell me. I’m not going to lie. It hurts me a lot that she’s talking to my dad of all people and has been for years. I don’t get it, Rip, you know? I mean, I guess I kind of do but not really at the same time. He wasn’t anywhere near as mean to them, just to me, but even then, I don’t get how she could even bother wanting to try. Her and Kyra. He was horrible. He didn’t give a single crap about her or any of them when they lived with him, and I’m not exaggerating that. If it was her he’d been mean to, I would never be able to forgive him. Not ever.”
That big, warm hand went to my throat. “You don’t get it because you’re not them.” His thumb swept over my cheek. “I’m talking about your sisters. You wouldn’t do that, Luna. I don’t get why they would either.”
“She also said my dad didn’t send my cousin over to the house, that he did it on his own,” I told him. “I haven’t tried calling her again since then. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I love her, but I’m mad.”
“You’ll do the right thing.”
“I hope so.”
His smile was soft. “You will, baby. You always do. I don’t know anybody with a heart half as good as yours.”
“Aww, there’s plenty of people—“
“No, there’s not.” Rip kissed the side of my mouth, then the opposite side, the short bristles on his cheeks kissing mine. “There really isn’t. You got that little fox on you, but you’re a wolf, baby. A fucking miracle. I don’t know how you came out the way you did, but you teach me something about forgiveness and love every single day. And here I thought for most of my life, until I met you, that I stopped learning things a long time ago.”
Me?
That laugh was soft. “Yeah, you. Only you.”
I swallowed, I gulped, and I raised my eyebrows at him because I didn’t know what to say. Had no idea what to think. He must have known that because he kept on going.
“I don’t know what the fuck to tell you to do about your sisters, but I know you’ll figure it out. I sure as hell don’t know what to tell you about your dad, but if you wanna know what I think, I say let’s go burn down that house you lived in with him. If you just wanna move on with your life though, I’d get behind that.
“What I know is that I’ll tell you right now I’ll never let anybody treat you like fucking shit or make you feel like they don’t want you around. Not me, not even your family. I wasn’t fucking around when I said I love you, and I know there’s a lot of shit I need to tell you, but we’ll figure it out.” His thumb rubbed over my cheek again, and those blue-green eyes that sucked me up and wouldn’t spit me back out were locked on my face as he said, “If you want.”
If I wanted.
Oh, man.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “And if I don’t?” I asked him even though we both knew that wasn’t going to be the case.
“Then I got more work to do to talk you into it,” he replied softly.