And when he lifted and she reached down to rub her clit, it rocked him.
“Yeah. Make yourself come. Let me see it.”
He leaned back, pulled his cock partway out, and eased in slowly, letting her set the pace.
“You tell me what you want, how you want me to do this. And I’ll make it good for you. Because I’m ready to come in you when you’re ready.”
She held on to his wrist with one hand, lifted her butt, and strummed her clit faster. Her golden hair spilled over the sheets, her body naked and open to him as he pressed in and out of her while she took herself to the edge with her fingers, naked desire tightening her features.
“Come on,” he said, shoving his cock deep inside her. “Come on, honey.”
“I’m close, Mick. Oh, God, I’m coming right now.”
He felt it as she said it, felt her * constrict around his dick. He shoved inside her and took her mouth and tongue in a long, searing kiss as he emptied inside her, wishing he could shout, because it was so goddamn good he felt the orgasm shoot through him until his knees went weak.
When she stopped shaking, he rolled them over on their sides and pulled Tara against him, kissing her and stroking her body.
He waited, figuring she’d fall asleep, but she rolled over to look at him, the moonlight bathing her face. She looked worried about something, had tugged her bottom lip with her teeth.
He smoothed her hair back. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to tell you who I am, where I came from.”
He shoved to a sitting position and took her with him, pushing the pillow up so they were comfortable. “Okay. Want me to turn the light on?”
“No, this is fine. Probably easier for me this way.”
He could still see her, but if this was how she wanted it, he’d give her anything she needed. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“As you’ve probably figured out, I don’t have brothers or sisters. I was an only child and my parents both worked, so I had a lot of alone time as a kid. I walked to and from school, let myself in the house, and it was my responsibility to make sure I ate something. My mom was a waitress, and she often worked at night. My dad worked construction so I tried to make sure to fix something for him to eat, otherwise he wouldn’t eat anything.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight or nine, I think. I don’t really remember all that well.”
Jesus. She was a kid. They were supposed to be taking care of her, not the other way around.
“Anyway, I would do my homework, and the dinner dishes, and go to my room. Dad would sit in the living room and watch TV. The thing is, Mick—he drank. And when my mom got off work, she’d join him. And late at night, things between them would get loud. They’d argue a lot when they were drunk.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. A rock plummeted into his stomach and sat there.
Her fingers were twisted so tightly together her knuckles were turning white. He slipped his hand in between and took her hand in his. “You don’t have to talk about this. I can tell it hurts you.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “No, it’s okay. I want to. It’s important to me that you know this.”
“Okay.” He laid her hand in the palm of his, then rubbed his thumb over the top of hers, trying to calm her as she talked. She was trembling now, and he hated that bringing all this back freaked her out so badly. He wanted to take the hurt away, to make it never have happened, but it was part of her, had made her who she was today, and she was right—he needed to hear it.
“The fights between them escalated over the years, as their drinking escalated. It got to the point where I just didn’t want to be around it.”
“Did they hurt you?”
She shrugged. “They’d yell at me about stupid stuff, but mostly they just got ticked at each other. I learned to stay out of the way, holed up in my room listening to music. The louder the music and the TV, the less of them I had to hear. When I got old enough, I’d go out with my friends at night just so I wouldn’t have to be around them.”
He nodded. There was nothing worse than being around a surly drunk. He understood that better than anyone.
“When I was fourteen and started high school, I met some new friends. Not great friends, either. A pretty rough crowd. Big drinkers, drug users, and partiers, but they stayed out late, and anything that kept me away from drunk central was okay by me. They let me crash at their place as much as I wanted, and that suited me. All my old friends drifted by the wayside because they were the good kids, the kids that did their homework and went to bed early. But I couldn’t stay at their house, couldn’t face them knowing how fucked up my home life had become. The other kids—my new friends—they understood and didn’t judge me.