My hand lifted and I wrapped my fingers around his taut flesh. When I tightened my hold his jaw tensed and he inhaled through his nose. I looked up, holding his gaze as I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his mushroom tip. Our eyes stayed locked together as I parted my lips and pulled him into my mouth.
“Fuck,” he groaned as he gripped the back of my neck.
I expected him to guide my head, but instead he just rubbed the base of my neck with his fingertips. The sensation of his calloused touch grazing my skin travelled down to my core and exploded in tingles. I gripped him tighter as my tongue swirled around his head before I flattened it and moved my lips farther down his shaft. He was too large for me to take in all the way to the base, so I used my hand to move in tandem with my mouth.
After several pumps he tugged my hair pulling my head back and then my body, causing me to lie down as he crawled over me. It happened so fast that one second he was in my mouth and the next he was above of me.
“That felt good. Too good,” he explained as he kissed my neck and down over my breasts.
He was either so smooth or I was so distracted by how good his mouth on me felt that I almost missed him reaching into his nightstand, grabbing a condom, and slipping it on. It made me wonder how many times he’d done the same move. But that thought was fleeting and gone when I felt the pressure of his engorged head at my opening.
His forehead rested against mine. “If this hurts or is uncomfortable, just tell me and I’ll stop.”
I nodded, eager to feel him inside of me. My hands clung to his shoulders and as he began to drive slowly into me my nails dug into his skin. He stretched me out to the point that it stung, and I inhaled a shaky breath, but I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted all of him.
“Are you okay?” his deep voice vibrated through me.
“Yes,” I breathed.
He pushed a little bit farther and stilled. “Fuck, you’re tight.”
I could feel beads of sweat on his back and I loved that it was my body that was causing the physiological reaction in him.
“More.” I tilted my hips up, urging him to keep going.
His breaths were ragged as he took his time, pressing inside of me inch by inch. When he finally thrust so that he filled me completely, I felt his thighs tense against mine and I moved my hands down to his lower back, pushing him in even farther.
My legs spread as far as they could to accommodate his wide frame as he began to move his hips. As he pulled out and then pressed in again, my body began to quiver and shake as pressure swirled in my core. I’d never come from penetration. I hadn’t even thought my body was capable of doing that.
But apparently, Hank was magic because the tell-tale signs of release were building low in my belly.
“You feel so fucking good,” he rasped as his hand ran down my side and he slid his hand beneath me. His fingers splayed out on my butt cheek and he flexed them causing my hips to tilt up. The angle allowed him to drive even deeper into me and that was all it took to take me up and over. White hot flashes of pleasure exploded through my body. Ecstasy flowed through my veins as I rode out my climax and held on to him as he pumped two more times and then grunted with his own release.
When he collapsed on top of me I exhaled, and he shifted so that he was on his back and I was on top of him.
“Sorry,” he apologized as he ran his hand down my back. “I didn’t mean to crush you.”
“You didn’t,” I managed to get out between labored pants.
I was exhausted in the best way and I totally surrendered to the relaxation of being in in his arms, draped over his body. As I laid on his chest, I could feel his heart beating beneath my cheek. I loved the feeling of it. I loved how connected I felt to him. I’d never felt closer to another person. I felt like I had access to the deepest part of him, and he had the same access to me. Which gave me the confidence to lift my head.
“Can I ask you something?”
He brushed the hair that had fallen in my face off of my forehead. “Anything.”
“Were you watching Love Island when I came in?”
His hand stopped moving on my back and his face blanked.
My eyes widened. “You were.”
Billy had told me that he watched it, but I hadn’t believed him.
He lifted his arm and slung it over his face.
“Nope.” I laughed and lifted his arm up and kissed him. “If I’m not going to be embarrassed about my stretch marks then you can’t be embarrassed about your television habits. Deal?”
He grinned. “Deal.”
And he sealed that deal with a kiss, flipping me over on my back, and reminding me exactly why I could keep my end of the bargain. The last thing I’d ever feel when I was with Hank was embarrassed, he made me feel like I was the sexiest, most sensual being on the entire planet. And with him, maybe I was.
CHAPTER 32
Hank
The sun was rising as I turned onto Crescent View Lane where Firefly Island Cemetery was located, and my mom was laid to rest.
I visited every week. Sometimes I told her about things going on with my brothers.
Sometimes I told her about the town gossip. She’d always loved sitting in Mrs. Shaw’s chair in Pretty in Peach and listening to the women talk. She liked to say that living on Firefly Island was like living in a real-life soap opera. She passed before reality shows were popular, but I knew if she’d been around for them, she would’ve been glued to the television. Her favorite would probably have been Desperate Housewives.
Sometimes I didn’t talk at all.
This morning I had a lot of news to fill her in on. I was in love. There was no denying it. I’d been pretty sure of my feelings for Skylar before she’d shown up on my doorstep last night and I’d carried her into my bed. But now, now, there was no question of what I felt for her.
I loved her. Totally and completely.
Skylar left in the early hours of the morning to go grab a few hours of sleep before Luna woke up. I’d almost told her how I felt after I kissed her goodbye on the back porch, but something stopped me. I’d watched her make her way across the field and said those three words out loud for the first time, but she was too far away to hear me.
The words were still on the tip of my tongue as I parked and got out of my truck and walked across the cemetery. I passed by my uncles’ graves but stopped in front of the headstone of the man that started the curse, my grandfather Phillip Bruce Comfort. He lived for another five years with my grandmother before dying of smallpox. In those days one out of ten people died from the disease, which was one of the reasons I didn’t put any stock in the curse.
“What do you think about this curse?” I asked the source for the first time.
Before today, I’d never stopped to wonder what my grandfather had thought after hearing that the woman he’d left at the altar had taken her own life and then put a hex on him and his bloodline.
“You probably thought she was crazy and you dodged a bullet.” Or at least, that’s what I would’ve thought.
I smiled as I continued on to where my mom was buried.
My dad had bought a special plot for the two of them beneath a large oak tree because she loved the shade and the spot overlooked the ocean. It was the only thing he’d managed after we lost her.