“You’re inviting me into my own house?”
“I’m inviting you into the house you abandoned. To have hate sex with the girl you abandoned.”
It wasn’t sarcastic. It was simply a statement of fact, issued while she nibbled on his earlobe.
“I don’t know, Chloe.” He opened the truck door, and she winced at the bright dome light. “I’m not really feeling that tonight.”
“You don’t wanna have another round of hate sex?” But before he had a chance to respond, she made a rapid concession. “Okay, you can keep your eyes closed this time. You don’t have to look at me at all.”
She meant the comment to be funny, but he wasn’t laughing. “Never settle for sex that isn’t exactly what you want.” And deserve.
That earned him a frown, then a shrug. “Never mind on that offer. I’ll look elsewhere for hate sex tonight. Or maybe I’ll soak in a tubful of purple penises. Get my hate sex on all by myself.”
He stopped her when she had her hand on the passenger side door. “Tell me what that would entail. You by yourself. And be specific.”
She barked out a laugh. “Nope. You either participate in hate sex, or you get no sex at all.”
“That’s the problem. It’s the hate part of hate sex that I’m not feeling tonight.”
It took a few beats of heavy silence for that to sink in. And she perked right up.
“Then let’s think of another type of sex to have.” Her eyes danced as she contemplated the possibilities.
“Don’t bother. You can’t even imagine all the ways I want to fuck you. Those ways are vast, and, in some states, illegal.”
And right at the top? Love sex.
Because if he had to name it, that was the emotion he was feeling. Love. Hate was a memory. It vanished Friday night when she sat on that porch swing, her angry tears believable for some reason, and apologized for her actions ten years ago.
One action, in particular.
“Quickie sex?” she offered.
“I prefer to take my time.”
“Hmm,” she said, back to the drawing board. “Make-up sex? No, we probably covered that with the hate sex. Morning sex?”
“Pencil that in when it’s morning.”
She grinned but continued plotting, tapping her lips with a finger. “Public sex? Hotel sex? Drunk sex?”
Laughing, he hopped out of the truck and rounded the hood, opening the passenger door for her. “If you’ve had all those kinds of sex, I don’t wanna know it.”
Her hand in his, she swung their arms as they walked inside the carriage house.
“I know! Shower sex,” she offered as if the idea was brilliant. Then she made a face, adding, “No, that won’t work. The shower in here is too small to fit us. Plus, I’m usually wet enough as it is with you.”
Good information for the ego.
“How about regular sex?” he suggested, closing the door behind them, shutting out the real world.
Only the candlestick lamp on the dresser lit the room, the shadows dancing off her smiling face. A smile he put there.
It melted his hardened heart.
“Nope. No such thing as regular sex with you,” she declared, walking toward him. Aligning her curvy body up against his. “It’s always extra, extra extraordinary.”
Sliding her fingers under the hem of his T-shirt, she pushed it up, dragging a palm along the hot skin of his abdomen. Dipping those fingers into the front of his jeans.
Yeah, go there.
Lower.
Her touch electrified him, burning him in a way that only Chloe was capable of, making his eyes nearly roll back in his head. And that was before she went for the button on his jeans.
Once she opened them, her hand grazing his erection as she lowered the zipper and released him, it banished his ability to think.
“Drop ’em, sailor.” And then she stepped back, undoing her dress and letting it pool on the floor around her, her elegant lace bra and teeny tiny matching panties joining it.
Naked, with her perfect porcelain skin glowing in the low light, she offered her body to him. In any way he chose to take it.
The honor stole his breath.
He stood stock-still, staring at all that beauty. The spell she cast over him at the ripe old age of eighteen remained, sure and strong. A trap he’d spent the last decade trying to escape.
And he could have—if he really wanted to.
“You don’t follow instructions very well. Guess I’ll have to undress you myself,” she said, and with impatient hands, forcefully helped him remove his clothes.
Looked him over once he was stripped down, her hands roaming across his body, pale pink nails grazing his skin and leaving sparks in her path.
He groaned, allowing her the touch. Knowing he wouldn’t last long.
She was that powerful.
“So far, regular sex is as good as hate sex.” Her words warmed his throat just before she licked him, her tongue lashing across his neck.
A swipe he felt in his balls.
Clutching fistfuls of her long hair, he fought for patience as she trailed tiny, biting kisses across his collar bone, then down to his flat nipples. Then down again.
So far down, she dropped to her knees.
Her touch was eager but agonizingly slow as she cupped him, nuzzling him with her nose, stroking him with the exact pressure and pace he loved. Guaranteed to make him explode.
She was the only woman in existence who could satisfy him. Wholly.
Completely.
And when she whispered, “I love you,” and took him inside her mouth, he swore he was hallucinating.
The pleasure was too intense to be real. The vow too precious to believe.
And then, when she licked, and sucked, and hummed like she enjoyed this as much as he did, he stopped thinking at all.
“Chloe,” he warned, coherent enough to tell her he was dangerously close. So close, if she didn’t let up right now, she was getting a mouthful. “Stop, cupcake.”
He tugged her hair as gently as he could—which was still too rough—but it got his point across. “I don’t wanna come yet.”
She whimpered in protest when he stepped back, disengaging from her mouth, then squealed in delight when he tossed her onto the bed, coming down over-top of her.
Caging her in. “I wanna come inside you.”
“Please do.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were swollen, and he nearly said it, too.
I love you.
Because he did. He never stopped.
“Sorry about the lumpy mattress,” she said, hooking her legs around his hips and shifting around a blown spring. “Should we flip a coin to see who has to sleep in the cavernous dip? Because I’ll take it over the wet spot any day.”
Jameson laughed.
Even with a throbbing cock demanding entrance, and a long-broken heart wondering what the fuck he was doing back in bed with the breaker, he laughed.
Happy, for the first time in ten years.
“We’re buying a new mattress tomorrow, okay? This one is older than I am.”
“Never,” she murmured, looking up at him with sudden emotion. Tracing his brow with her thumb as if to comfort, her smile sweet. “I’m not replacing this mattress. Good things were made on this mattress. Love was made on this mattress.”
Smoothing back wayward strands of silky blonde hair, he lost himself in her beautiful blue eyes. Stared at the face he once vowed to cherish forever. The face that showed him what his future looked like. What his children would look like.