More.
Definitely more. More Lila. More kisses. More touching. More rocking my cock against her hot center.
More sucking on these sweet nipples.
More making her moan.
More slipping my hand under the waistband of those damn jeans to find her slick folds and her hidden, swollen clit.
“Tripp,” she gasps.
I slip one finger inside her, still suckling on her breast, and her walls clench and spasm around me, hard and fast, like maybe I’m not the only one with a hair-trigger here.
She strains into her climax, riding my hand and holding my head to her breast while she moans out a long, slow release.
And I bask in every minute of knowing that she wants me as badly as I want her.
“Tripp,” she whispers as her body melts against me, the last spasms fading.
“You’re fucking gorgeous.” I’m hoarse. My cock is throbbing like she didn’t coax an orgasm out of me herself barely an hour ago.
And I want to stay here, in this bed, with her, all night long.
All week long.
All damn month long.
Her mouth finds mine, and she kisses me hard and deep, our tongues gliding together, our arms tangling around each other. She scrapes her nails down my back. I push her pants lower and dig my fingers into her curvy ass.
She thrusts her center against my cock.
And all I can see is getting her completely naked.
Stripped bare.
Driving into her hot, wet pussy, and drowning in her.
I’m clumsy and sloppy and uncoordinated as I yank at her jeans. She reaches between us and pulls my cock out of my sweatpants, stroking me once, twice, until I have to stop her. “Want inside you,” I grunt.
“Yes.” She kicks her pants off. Her eyes are wide and dark. Her cheeks are flushed. Her breasts are lifting quickly as her breath comes in fast bursts.
I get one sneak peek at that sweet pussy, and then she’s pulling me on top of her, and I’m sliding inside her, and fuck, I’m home.
I moan.
She moans.
We both stop, for just a moment, while I adjust to being gripped by her body, and—
“Condom,” I gasp.
Jesus.
Jessie was pregnant, then uninterested, then sick, and—I didn’t—it’s been—I haven’t needed—
“I’m on birth control,” Lila whispers while she rocks against me, taking me deeper inside her, making my world flash in Technicolor. “I’m clean.”
“You’re sure this is okay?” The words are rough, because I’m suddenly not sure of anything except for how badly I want to thrust into Lila until I can’t think, can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t exist without carrying a part of her with me.
“Make love to me, Tripp.”
Yep.
I’m gone.
I drive deep, pull back, and drive in again, letting her pussy stroke me and squeeze me and her gasps and yeses and mores urge me on while she holds my gaze, those bright green eyes asking for pleasure, for acceptance, for forgiveness, for love.
Who does she have to love?
Her hair is tangled all over the pillow. Her lips parted, her eyelids drifting lower.
It’s the vision I’ve jacked off to in the shower more than once, but better.
Because she’s here.
Meeting me stroke for stroke.
Caressing my face. Holding me captive.
“God, yes, Tripp, there.”
I thrust once, twice more, and she’s suddenly gripping my cock so tight my eyes cross and my own release spills out of me. I grind into her hard, holding myself steady while everything inside me erupts and her pussy spasms and clenches and her legs go straight in the air while she moans out that wheezy release that makes me want to get hard all over again before I’m even done coming.
Too soon, I’m collapsing on top of her, burying my face in her neck.
We’re both panting.
Her legs curl around me again, holding me inside her while her arms snake around my ribs. Moisture touches my ear as she inhales a shaky breath.
I lift my head.
Her eyes are clenched shut tight. So’s her mouth. Her nostrils are quivering, and a single trail of tears leaks out of the corner of her eye.
“Lila?”
“I’m going to deserve you, Tripp Wilson. Just wait.”
“I’m no saint, sweetheart. You don’t have to do much.”
She shakes her head, then opens her eyes and meets my gaze head on.
“I’m going to deserve you,” she repeats.
“Can we do this again in the meantime?”
I get a reluctant laugh and a smile. But what I’m really looking for is the nod that eventually comes.
“Good. Because I don’t think I can ever get enough of you,” I murmur.
“You know you’ll be saying different as soon as you get back to the office.”
“Yep.”
She laughs again, and I drop a kiss to her forehead. “You’re not alone, Lila. I’ve got you.”
23
Lila
I wake up disoriented in a brightly-lit bedroom with a homemade quilt on the bed and family pictures smiling down at me from the opposite wall.
But they’re not my family.
They’re Tripp’s family.
Last night comes rushing back, and I simultaneously want to sink back into the bed and bask in the happiness of being here, in this bed, where Tripp made love to me, and also throw up.
I lunge for my phone.
And, naturally, there’s a message that totally kills my buzz.
I don’t like the Wilson kid. Say the word, and I’ll get him fired.
I text him back a single picture, one that I have to dig deep into my phone’s archives to find, one of the very, very few that I have, with one simple message.
She would be so ashamed of you.
It’s a dirty trick, but it’s the only thing Uncle Guido will understand.
I don’t think he knows that I know just how much he loved my mom. But all you have to do is listen to him talk about her, and you can hear it.
If there’s another person left in this world who loved her, I don’t know who it is. For that alone, I can’t cut him out. Because no one who loved my mom could be totally bad.
She wasn’t perfect.
But we loved her anyway.
And isn’t that what most people want?
It’s basically the same thing Tripp himself said to me last night. I know you’re not perfect, but you don’t have to be for me.
I pull myself out of bed, make the most of finger-combing my curls and tying them up in a sloppy bun, rush through a shower, brush my teeth with the spare toothbrush I find in the guest bathroom, and make my way through the house, following the music.
I know the song. It’s an old Bro Code song that I’ve heard Parker and her band perform. I don’t know what it’s called—“Party on the Avenue” or something like that—but I know it’s happy and upbeat and reassuring.
Songs like that aren’t regret songs.
I step through the butler’s pantry between the dining room and the living room, and I draw up short at the sight before me.
Tripp’s standing at one counter in the massive kitchen, making waffles and shaking his ass in gray sweatpants, crooning along to the music while his kids have a dance party.