“I wouldn’t have gone.” Her hold tightened on his hand. “It was only a meaningless crush, but even that . . . even that went away. And I just hung on to the idea of it, so I wouldn’t have to admit that I knew. I knew exactly why you left that album for me.”
His body almost buckled under the relief, but he clung to his caution. “And what it meant scared you. It should. I should scare you, Hannah. I don’t know how to do this.” He dug through the cobwebs in his chest to find the truth for her. “I’ve gotten used to the way everyone thinks of me as this . . . this fucking reprobate. Someone who lives to get their rocks off. A good time and nothing more. But if . . . Hannah, I swear to God, I can’t handle them doubting my character when it comes to you. It would break me. Do you understand? To have people waiting and wondering when I’m going to screw it all up. That I couldn’t handle. To have your name spoken with sympathy because you’re with me. I can already hear them. She’s out of her mind. He’ll never settle down. He’s not a one-woman man. I’ll want to die hearing them say that shit. It’s the one form of ridicule I can’t take. When it’s attached to you.”
Her chest rose and fell like she’d just swum eight miles. “Fox, if we were together, my trust would be the only trust that matters. And you would have it. I know who you are. If other people haven’t looked closely enough, that’s their flaw. Their dilemma. Not ours.”
He swallowed a fist-sized obstruction. “You’d trust me?”
“Yes.”
The fact that she looked pissed at him for even asking made his throat close up, flooded him with so much adoration, he almost choked on it. “I don’t know what trying looks like for us. I just know that I want to.”
“Oh, Fox,” she whispered, bringing them chest to chest and pressing close, laying a cool palm against his cheek. “We’ve been trying this whole time.”
There was no way to keep himself from kissing her after that.
With his heart rupturing and repairing on repeat in his rib cage, Fox dropped his mouth down on top of hers and begged her with his tongue and lips to save him from the middle of the ocean where he’d been existing without her for so long.
* * *
Fox came on like a storm.
Hannah still hadn’t quite managed to catch her breath after all that was said, and she definitely wasn’t going to get the chance now. His lid was off, there was nothing left between them, and, God, she was so glad she’d forced herself to wait until the right time to let the dam break.
Their kiss was honest and raw and unquenchable, as real as the rain starting to fall around them, soaking into the earth, wind howling through the garden structures, trapping them in the center of a force field.
Fox’s hands were in her hair, tunneling through, as if desperate to touch every single strand while his mouth quite simply fucked hers. He’d been holding himself at bay or maybe presenting his playboy facade to seem unaffected. But that was gone now, dropped like a veil, and his hunger was brutally naked. And she matched him, clinging to his dampening, sinewy shoulders, plying herself on strokes of his tongue. His hands raked down her spine, where they gathered the hem of her dress, exposing her in degrees.
The kiss slowed momentarily, his eyes communicating the question.
Can I?
Hannah was already nodding, skin enflamed, positive if he didn’t touch her, all of her, that very second, she was going to melt into the ground along with the rain. But Fox didn’t give that a chance to happen, his big, capable hands plunging down the rear of her panties, taking hold of her bottom, claiming ownership with a rough squeeze. “Been dying to do this for months,” he ground out against her lips, molding her buns in his hands. “Been wanting it in my hands, bent over in my lap . . .”
“Now seems like the ideal time,” she gasped.
“Nah . . .” He proceeded to walk her backward, toward the car, his voice seductive, hypnotic. “Want to look at your beautiful face the first time I take you.” He caught her mouth in a hard, wet kiss. “Am I going to take you now, Hannah?” Her back met the side of the car, and she moaned at the rough press of his muscular body, the drag of his hand around the curve of her hip where it wedged between their bodies, his fingertips on the verge of sinking down the front of her underwear now. “Are you going to let me touch it this time or tell me no again?” Those fingers pressed down on the swell of her mons. “If you want to say no, we’ll stop. I’ve gotten pretty fucking good at waiting for you.” His open mouth dipped to her throat, exhaling heat into the hollow. “Waiting for you is the best I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t want to wait. N-no. No waiting.”
He chuckled, licked a path up to her ear, and bit down, almost buckling her knees. Were those her teeth chattering? She didn’t have the chance to find out or be embarrassed, because Fox’s mouth trapped her once again in a cyclone of sensation, those long, knowing fingers slowly, slowly traveling downward on her sex. Stopping right when they reached the good part and teasing with light side-to-side brushes that sent heat flaring down to her toes. When she was right on the verge of begging him to touch lower, Fox eased back from the kiss to watch her face, his middle finger parting her flesh, gently petting her clitoris. “Ah, babe.” He dragged his bottom lip through his teeth. “This sweet little thing wet for me?”
“Yes,” she managed, mentally coining a new phrase.
Death by Fox.
Hannah would never define him by his innate sexuality, but pretending he wasn’t insanely skilled would be futile. Because God almighty. He wielded his abilities like a sword. He knew where to touch her, how to speak, understood the virtues of pacing, and her body appreciated that like nobody’s business. Her intimate flesh grew damp so rapidly, she was actually shaking between Fox and the car. And he knew it. The knowledge was there in the total and utter confidence of the finger rubbing her clit, a second one joining it and pressing just that much harder, causing her head to fall back, a whimper racking her entire frame. “Oh . . . my God,” she hiccupped.
He looked her square in the eye and ripped off her panties in one twist. “Haven’t even started, Hannah.” His knees landed on the soft earth in front of her, rain dripping off the ends of his dark-blond hair, moisture trickling down his cheeks. And he seemed to sense that she was about to float away on a cloud of never-before-encountered lust, because he barred his forearm across her hips, pinning her roughly to the car, and buried his mouth between her thighs, sinking, pushing, pulling his tongue through the split of her femininity.
Watching her the whole time. Observing her reaction to that first perfect, deliberate drag of friction. Fox groaned, his pupils dilating, forearm flexing against her belly.
That absolute, unabashed carnality gave her permission to palm her breasts through the bodice of the dress, chafing the heels of her hands over stiff nipples, enjoying the way he watched her through darkening eyes. She arched her back, allowing him to settle the instep of her foot on his shoulder and go deeper with every stroke of his eager tongue, his lips closing around her sensitive bud, sucking lightly, rhythmically until her muscles began to quicken, pulsing, her vision turning hazy, her head thrashing side to side on the car. “Oh my God. I’m already . . .” She panted, the sound ending on a moan, her fingers twisting in his wet hair. “It’s already . . . I’m going to. It’s coming. I’m coming.”