“As you wish.” Her t-shirt had risen to reveal her lace panties. My mouth salivated when I lowered my face and kissed her through the material. Her breath caught and back bowed as I kissed her again, using my lips and tongue to coax her arousal to a fever pitch.
“Mercy, please! Mercy!” she begged but then lifted her hips for more. I used my teeth to nudge aside her panties and flicked her hot pussy with my tongue.
Fuck yeah.
I stood to push my boxer shorts down, slid her own panties down her amazingly long legs, and climbed on top of her. Her legs spread to accommodate me as I settled between them.
“You want relief, baby?” I pushed inside her before she could answer, but it didn’t matter because she gripped me tight and pleaded with her gaze for me to fuck her.
For too long, I’ve waited to get close to her like this. The initial withdrawal drove me crazy, and lonely, cold nights I spent with my dick in my hand pissed me off.
When I thrust deeper at the reminder, her hands flew above her head to grip the sheets. My attention fixated on her hard nipples poking through her t-shirt. With a groan, I tore her shirt from her body, leaned down to suck her right nipple in my mouth, and slammed inside her. Her body slid up the bed from the force, and I followed, pounding out my past frustration on her body.
She came shortly after. The aftershock of her orgasm caused her pussy to spasm around me. I didn’t want to come yet. I wanted this to last. Her top half rose from the bed so she could dig her nails into my throat and kiss my lips softly. I groaned in response.
So. Fucking. Good.
It was the last cognizant thought I had before I forced myself from her hot pussy and came on her belly. She stared up at me with confusion marring her beautiful face.
“Mine.” It was all the answer I had given before I rubbed my come into her skin, marking her.
“So barbaric,” she mumbled. I dropped beside her, already feeling sleep trying to overcome me when I noticed my belt lying on the bed. I leaned away to remove it but then hesitated.
“Why are you still holding your belt?” she asked curiously.
“I was going to tie your hands together so you couldn’t leave in the middle of the night again.” She shifted, ready to run, but I caught her hand and threaded my fingers through hers and pulled her close. Her entire body was tense, and I couldn’t stand the thought of my touch being the cause. “But I have a better idea.” She turned her head enough to look me in the eye.
“What?”
“If you can stay the night without running, then I’ll know I can trust you and vice versa.” I gave in to my body’s demand for sleep. My last conscious thought was that I hoped she wouldn’t run.
Chapter TwentySeven
LAKE
I was the first to wake up the next morning and used the few moments alone to watch Keiran sleep. I’d become accustomed to stealing moments like this, and it started with the first night in our apartment together. He had a nightmare that night and almost every night since. Over time, the nightmares decreased until he no longer had them. I still liked to watch him sleep—to see his guard down and peace replace his demons.
Maybe they were gone.
Or maybe there was one left that wasn’t rightfully his…
“You didn’t run.” His deep voice rumbled above me. I shook my head because emotions stronger than me clogged my throat. He seemed to sense it and pulled me closer for comfort, and it worked but not how he meant it to. The white sheets were around our waist, exposing his naked chest and my breast. The feel of our naked skin together was beginning to redirect my thoughts. He kissed me deeply until I writhed against him.
He abruptly pulled away with a groan and grabbed his phone from his jeans. “We should get going. Di’s already gone back to her apartment.” We had a five-hour drive back to Stanford.
“Before we go back and try to make sense of our lives again, I think there’s something you should know.”
“What is that?”
I figured out a long time ago there was no right time or way to tell him what I learned the day Mitch died, so I decided to just say it.
“You didn’t kill your mother.”
He stared at me, unmoving, and then his expression turned savage as he ripped away from me and left the bed, leaving me feeling cold.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your father—he told me how your mother really died.”
“Well then, he lied, Lake. I had the gun. I pointed it at her. I killed her!” His roar shook my core, and I instinctually wanted to huddle into a ball and make myself as small as possible.
But I couldn’t do that.
He was falling apart right before my eyes, and it was up to me to keep him together and see the truth.
“Baby, listen to me.” I got up and chanced walking closer. I felt as if I were sticking my head in a lion’s mouth and hoping he didn’t bite it off. “Listen to yourself—you had the gun, you pointed it at her, and then she was dead, but did you pull the trigger?”