I swear I hear more, hear things with my heart that her lips aren’t saying because I feel them too. We might both be hesitant to speak the words out loud, but today has changed everything.
Something breaks inside me, something I didn’t even know existed. Or maybe it’s not breaking—it’s healing? Scabbing and scarring over, stronger and better than before. I rise up, throwing her on the bed. “I need you.”
It’s not so much that I need to fuck her but that I need to be inside her the way she’s inside me. She’s in my skin, in my blood, in my . . . heart. And I don’t know what to do with that other than fuck my way into hers too and hope she understands me.
She’s already scrambling, pulling her shirt over her head as I undo her shorts and pull them down her legs. Her hands yank at my shirt, and I duck out of it, then both of us are shoving my jeans down. I reach for the book, grabbing the condom out of its pages, not caring at all that I lost my place because I’ve found one . . . with Erica.
Sheathed, I lean over her, one hand on either side of her head, and slam into her. She instantly spasms below me. “Too much?” I growl, praying she says no.
Her short nails claw at my arms. “More. More. Fuck.” Her eyes pop open, and I can see the pleasure there, the hungry need, and also the absolute pure connection we’ve forged, no matter how hard both of us were fighting it.
It’s there. It’s deep, wide, and powerful. It’s everything I never knew existed. Other people aren’t crazy for feeling like this. I’m just a dumbass who thought they were exaggerating. Now I know they weren’t.
Whatever rollercoaster this woman has me on has already taken me to the highest highs and the lowest lows, but right here, this moment feels like pulling into the safety of home.
Her calves lock around my hips, and she pulls my chest to hers. I don’t want to suffocate her and hold some of my weight back, but she twines in and over me like a vine, taking it all. Her hands lock onto my back, and I freeze to make sure she’s okay. But she’s got other plans.
She uses the bounce of the bed to fuck me from below with shallow thrusts, keeping me inside her slick cunt as she works me. “Fuck, Erica. Keep doing that. You’re gonna make me come. That what you want?”
My face is buried in her hair, surrounded by the scent of her, a combination of oil, hand cleaner, and her shampoo. I rumble words of encouragement in her ear. “You are amazing . . . feels so good . . .” I don’t even know what I say after that because I’m one big ball of sensation and pleasure and my brain can’t form words, only grunting sounds.
I hover right on the edge as long as I can, and then when I can’t take it anymore, I jerk back from her. She cries out at the loss of my cock, but I grab her legs and fold her in half, putting her pretty pussy on display for me. I turn slightly so that I can support her legs with one hand and use the other to finger fuck her. At the same time, I tease her clit with my tongue, and she thrashes, both trying to get more and trying to get away from the onslaught.
“Oh, my God, yes,” she hisses. She flies apart beneath me. I feel her pussy start to clamp down as she gushes for me, and I rise up, quickly thrusting back inside her with her calves resting on my shoulders.
I find a punishing rhythm, fast and hard, giving zero fucks to the racket we’re making with the headboard banging against the wall and both of us damn near grunting like animals. Through it all, we never lose eye contact.
We’re fucking, make no mistake that this is a rough, aggressive, nearly violent taking of each other’s body, but there’s more beneath the surface of the pleasure. Her eyes are deep and full of a future I let myself dream of, and I tell her with my own that I accept her, just as she is.
We find our climax together, her second pulling mine from my body as my spine jolts, my balls tense up, and my cock swells. The condom is between us physically, but there’s nothing between us emotionally as I hold her tight, coming down from the haze with panting breaths.
I lower her legs, turning us slightly so that my weight is on the bed, but stay inside her a little longer. Pushing her hair back from her face, I trace over the freckles on her cheek with a fingertip. “You are so fucking gorgeous, Erica. Outside” —I sweep the swoop of her nose— “and inside.” I press my lips to hers, willing her to taste the depth of what I’m feeling but unable to say it.
Her mouth opens to speak back, but a door closing downstairs makes both of us freeze in place.
“Who was that?” she whispers.
I look at her, telling her silently that’s a dumbass question because how would I know? I’ve been in here with her.
A moment later, my phone buzzes in my pants on the floor. I hate to do it, but I pull out of Erica, tossing the condom in the trash. I dig my phone out and see that I’ve got a text.
Mark: Sorry. Mama says she’ll set Erica a place for dinner.
My eyebrows must rise or I must grit my teeth. Something must give me away because Erica asks, “What’s it say? What’s wrong?”
I scratch at my lip, downplaying the awkwardness. “No big deal. Mama Louise says you’re expected at dinner.”
Erica blinks once, twice, three times before she sits bolt upright. “Are you serious? Mama Louise heard us fucking like rabbits and is all ‘golly gee, perhaps they’d like some dinner’?” She falls back to the bed, arms spread wide like an angel with a halo of messy, dark hair splayed out beneath her.
“Not exactly. The text is from Mark, so it seems like it was both of them.”
Her hands go over her face, but I hear the mumbled reply. “Of course it was.” A slow beat later, she clarifies, “Only the two of them?”
I shrug even though she’s not looking at me. When she peeks one eye open, I smirk. “Silver lining? Mark knows I’m not working today. This morning, because I was hungover. Now, because you’re here.”
I approach the bed with every filthy idea I’ve ever had about having a woman in my bed written all over my face. Erica’s embarrassment morphs before my very eyes, her blush turning into a flush and her hands falling to the bed as her legs writhe. “Well, if they already know, guess there’s no harm in hiding out a little longer.”
“Woman after my own heart.” I quote the expression without thinking, but the truth of it is, she’s already got it.
She stalls my prowling with a single finger held up. “Go lock the damn door or I’ll be nervous the whole time.”
I huff like I’m annoyed by her request, but it’s a good idea. None of us are in the habit of having guests over so there’s no real family protocol for that. Not that I want to think about it, but I wonder how in the hell I’ve never noticed Brutal and Allyson fucking. They live in this house with me, Bobby, and Cooper, yet I’ve never heard a peep. I should probably pick his brain for some tricks on Mission: Impossible, Quiet Sex Edition.
“Fine. You stay there, though. Hand, hand, foot, foot.” I point at each corner of my bed, knowing she can’t reach the bed edges, teasing her to spread eagle while I’m gone.
Naked as the day I was born, I make a run for the front door and then the back door, locking them both. Hustling back up the stairs, I take them two at a time, honestly curious whether Erica will be laid out the way I said to. Hell, knowing her, she’ll be sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed just to be ornery and noncompliant and keep me guessing.