I see the reluctance in her eyes. Finally, she peels herself away from the string of lights long enough to grab my hand.
I have her. I have her and I won’t let go. I pull her toward me and she stumbles, launching into my arms. She’s cold and shaking but safe, and that’s all that matters.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I snap. Adrenaline is still rushing through my veins, white-hot, and I can’t turn it off.
She looks like she might cry. “I wanted to do something nice… I thought if Cora and Ray saw it, maybe they’d get excited about the wedding again…”
“Fuck the wedding.” I move my hands to her shoulders. I need her to hear him. Those green eyes go wide and meet mine. “Nothing is more important than your safety. Nothing. You…” My voice cracks. Something has broken inside my chest, and I can’t stop the words from pouring out. “You’re important to me. You scared the hell out of me.”
Those eyes don’t leave mine. She reaches out and her fingertips touch my lips curiously and then follow my jaw. “You’re important to me too,” she says. Her voice is soft, a whisper.
I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to stop. I take her in my arms.
I hold her face—safe.
I feel her breath patter rapidly against my cheek—alive.
I claim her lips with mine—precious.
Savor this woman, Braxton. Don’t lose her.
I kiss her with a softness I didn’t know I was capable of. Gently, slowly, I taste her tongue with mine, and I feel her moan vibrate through my entire being.
She’s small against my body, and her fingers clench at my shirt.
There is too much between us. Far too much. But I won’t push her. This isn’t one of my conquests. This is entirely different. So new, in fact, it feels like my first time. My heart is jackhammering in my chest when I touch her blouse and unsheathe the top button.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
Her hand slips up the side of my neck and clutches the back of my head, drawing me closer. “Yes,” she says in a breath.
Our mouths connect again, and this time it feels like years before we pull away. When we do, we’re breathless, and my body is on fire.
I break and shrug my jacket off my shoulders. I kneel to spread it out on the ground, on top of the hay littering the floor. Before I can lay Susie down, however, she surprises me by climbing into my lap. I sit on my own jacket, Susie in my lap, and I’m not used to losing control like this, but it’s hard to argue when the petals of her lips break against my mouth once again.
We’re illuminated by nothing but moonlight and those damned lights she nearly killed herself over, spooled out around the around. They glitter like fireflies around us as we sink into each other.
22
Susie
You know what? Screw Prince Charming.
I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of wanting. I’m tired of being the girl who glues everyone else together while my life falls into shambles.
Braxton makes me greedy, and for the first time in ever, I want to be selfish.
I straddle his lap and pin feverish kisses to his lips. His short hair slips through my fingers, but there’s just enough to grip, and when I do it draws a satisfying moan from him. I’m burning up—a relentless heat that trickles down my middle and pools between my thighs. Braxton’s cool hands send a shiver through me when they slip underneath my blouse, up my sides, and to my breasts. My sensitive nipples immediately harden to his palm, and each brush of his thumbs sends shock waves of pleasure through me.
I melt into his touch; I’m shameless, and it’s freeing. A whine leaves my lips, and I find myself grinding, tiny, needy thrusts, in the lap of this granite man. He’s hard all over—the tenseness in his jaw, the strength of his chest, and that organ between his legs, pressed tantalizingly close to where I want him most.
“Wait—hold on.” He stops suddenly and holds my hips, steadying me. “What are we doing?”
“I’m taking a page out of your book. I’m taking what I want.” I nibble his lip. “Don’t worry—I’ll be gentle.”
He laughs. But there’s an edge to the sound.
Is my Casanova…nervous?
My hands cup his face, fingers curled at the short scruffy nape of his neck. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
His dark eyes sweep over my face and then lock on my own. There’s an intensity in them that makes my heartbeat irregular. “More than anything,” he says, his voice a deep, warm whisper.
When I kiss him this time, it’s slower, more deliberate. His lips are soft, and our tongues tangle.
He pushes my skirt up my hips, and then I feel his fingers deftly working the clasp in the back. We break apart so he can tug the blouse over my head, and the cool air kisses my bare skin. I wiggle out of my bra, and his eyes take in the sight of me, adoringly.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me.
“Less talk,” I murmur against his lips as I unpin the buttons on his shirt, “more undressing.”
I open up his shirt, and my lips connect with the warm chest underneath. He’s all soft skin, hard muscle, and I can’t get enough of him. Obscenely, I run my tongue over his clavicle as I reach down and tug at his pants, loosening his belt, unzipping him.
I push my hand underneath his waistband, sliding down his hard pelvis, and he sighs in my ear when I grasp his stiff length. He’s wonderfully hard, and thick, and this is all for me. I wrap my fingers around him and map him out—I want to intimately know every inch of him. I want to find those sensitive spots that make this man of steely control unravel.
There will be time to explore. Later. Right now I need him inside of me—I need it so bad it makes my throat tight and the back of my eyes sting. “I want you,” I murmur as his lips meet my throat and his teeth dig in, just a little, a predatory love-bite.
He pulls my panties off and then undresses himself, and when we’re both naked, bare skin on skin, finally, he guides my hips over his.
I reach down and position him to my sex. He’s big—so big—and I slide the head of him between my nether lips, getting used to the size of him, the feel of him. But I can only tease myself for so long before I press him inside of me and settle down, lowering my hips, taking him deeper. We moan in the same breath, forehead to forehead, lips grazing, as I slide down him until I’ve taken him, fully, to the hilt.
“Oh God,” I whisper, “you feel so good.”
I’m not normally this forward. Normally, I’m the receptive partner. The passive partner. The go-with-the-flow partner. It feels good, for once, be with someone who lets me take the lead. I start to gyrate my hips, moving slowly, in a way that feels good for me. He’s so strong, so powerful under me, inside of me, and I feel the length of him hit that special place inside of me. I bite my lip, but I can’t help the moan that leaves me, pleasure exploding through me every time he rubs me right there.
“That’s good,” he murmurs in my ear. “Just like that.” His arm encircles me, holding me tightly against him, and then his other hand reaches up and touches my lips. I let them part, and I take them in my mouth, nipping the tips of his fingers. He curls them against the flat of my tongue, getting them wet, and then removes them, sliding them down my body, over the thatch of curly hair at my pelvis, and lower. I feel him then; his fingers maneuver my sex until he finds it, that sweet, hard little nub, swollen with pleasure. His slick fingers rub against it softly, coaxing me closer to the edge of release. I grip him—my fingers tight in his hair, on his shoulders—and I can’t help but whimper now, loudly, as my thighs shake and my hips undulate in time with the drum of his fingers.