To anyone else, he might not be making sense, but River’s head bobbed, hand tightening in his grip. “I’m…just a little harder. Harder.”
Vaughn could feel the mask of pure agony take over his face, as he obliged his woman’s needs—needs he would have walked over a barren desert full of live mines to fulfill. The stiff couch arm kept River from budging—not even a centimeter—as he quickened his pace, grunts punctuating the air now. Sweat rolling down the sides of his face. The furniture scuffed on the floor, lifting up and banging back down against the carpeted floor with coarse thuds. “How close, how close, how close,” he chanted, his teeth skimming up and down her neck, over her damp shoulders. Both hands slipped beneath her body, palming her tits and tweaking the stiff nipples, showing them no mercy. “It’s going to sting when you clean yourself in the shower tomorrow morning. Every fucking morning from now on. And I want you to tell me all about it. Get mad at me, get turned on. Just tell me how your * feels the morning after I fuck it. That’s my privilege, you hear me?”
“Yes,” River gasped. “Close, I’m really close.”
Vaughn dropped his hand from River’s tits before delivering a sharp spank to both nipples, the smooth undersides of her bouncing orbs. Then harder, with more force, as his dick pinned her with brutal thrusts to the elevated couch arm. “Watch me over that shoulder. Show me how you look at your man.”
He could tell it was an effort for River to focus on him, but that line of invisible wire between them was a requirement. It heated and glowed as his hips reached their peak speed, leaving and filling so fast, the sound of smacking blurred together in a continuous, filthy noise. Smacksmacksmacksmack.
And the climax hurtling toward him brought uncontrolled speech to his lips, aggression to his hands and pummeling body. “You never stopped being mine. I need you…mine. River. It hurts and it feels so fucking good.” He twisted his fingers in her hair and pulled. “Keep your goddamn thighs open.”
The moment her * seized around him, Vaughn’s muscle control vanished, leaving his upper half draped over River as his hips gave their final, uneven drives, pleasure flooding out and shaking him to the core of his being, finally leaving him replete. At some point, his arms had banded beneath River, holding her steady as their heartbeats eventually slowed.
“I know we can’t sleep in the same bed yet,” he said against her shoulder. “But…just let me hold you here a while, huh?”
When she nodded, he blew out the breath he’d been holding and laid them down on the couch, turning River so she could tuck her head beneath his chin, feet between his calves. The smoothness of her palms traced up and down through his chest hair, and God, the world finally made sense again in that moment. “Thank you for coming with me. Seeing you and Marcy in the crowd…”
After a beat, River spoke into the hanging silence. “That man you were on the stage today…that hero. That’s how I always saw you.” She laid a kiss in the center of his chest. “I just hope you see yourself that way now.”
Vaughn hooked the arm River was using as a headrest and crooked the elbow behind her neck, crushing her close, lips lingering on her forehead. Speaking was too difficult, so he used his breath, his mouth in her hair to show her what he couldn’t say out loud, hoping all the while that her faith, teamed with his unshakable love, would be enough to keep them from breaking apart again. Because not everyone saw him as the man who’d been honored that night. Some people—namely River’s father—would only ever see him as gutter trash that had no place beside River. There was a test coming, Vaughn could feel it. He just hoped his burgeoning self-worth—still tenuous at best—would be enough to withstand whatever came their way. It had to be. Because if he lost River twice, he might as well have died back on the battlefield.
“Vaughn?” River’s breath drifted over his throat. “You’ve gone all tense on me.”
He forced his muscles to relax. “I’m just thinking about how much I hate sleeping without you.”
She nuzzled her face beneath his chin. “Soon.”
Please God. Let that be the case.
Chapter Eighteen