“Oh. I’m good. More than good.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“But I ran out of filthy words,” she admits. “You feel . . . nice. Better than I imagined.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m ready for more, okay? So . . . just . . . do it. Take me.”
I pause, then slam home. All the way inside her until my balls slap against her ass. “Fuck!” I shout. Nothing compares to how my girl feels around me. Her warm channel squeezing me so tightly stars dance before my eyes.
“Again. Do it again.”
I withdraw and this time I slowly slide into her. Slow. Fast. It doesn’t matter. Because I swear to God, I’m about to come like some randy kid getting laid for the first time.
“You’re so big.”
I ease myself out, then thrust.
“So fucking big,” my girl says.
I grin like a fool. “That’s right. You like it?”
“Yes.”
I feel a sense of misplaced pride swell up inside me. Yeah, despite this screwed-up situation, I want it to be good for her. “Good. Now let’s make you love it.”
Withdrawing, I swirl the tip of my cock over her nub. Wetting her with our juices before I push my thumb up against her, raise my hips, then drive back home.
“Declan,” she cries out, digging her nails into my back. “Oh, oh.”
I grunt, and find my rhythm, withdrawing and thrusting, pressing her little button as I drive into her.
Madelyn writhes and moans. Her body warms beneath me. Her chest all the way to her neck flushes a pretty pink color. Her orgasm thundering up inside her. “That’s it. Come for me.”
My own climax is building so damn fast, my legs shake.
One pump. Two. And neither of us hit three, as I jerk, then stiffen and release my load with a growl.
Madelyn goes wild beneath me. Arching up, grabbing my ass to pull me down, scratching the shit out of my back.
Everything goes black. Like I passed out or got lost in the beginnings of a hailstorm. I can’t move. I don’t want to move. What I want is to stay here like this, with her pinned beneath me, and me buried inside of her sweetness.
Several seconds pass before I hear her sigh.
I roll off of her and onto my back, needing to break contact.
Staring up at the ceiling, I study the chipped white paint, how it’s grayed with age. There’s a water mark directly overhead, from a broken, leaky faucet? It has to be caused by something. Something broken now hanging over me.
Madelyn shifts and rolls to her side. I can feel her eyes on me.
“She’s most vulnerable after sex. Take her in your arms.” I hear the psychologist’s training in my head. “Pretend she means something to you. Become someone who means something to her.”
Fuck that psychologist. Distance yourself. That’s more your speed.
“Is it always like that?” she whispers, traces of desire laced within her tone. Vulnerable, oh so vulnerable.
Fuck.
“Yes,” I ground out my lie. Ignoring everything I should be saying to make my task easier. A job. You’ve got a job to do.
I hear her sharp intake of breath.
Now there’s one more broken thing occupying the room.
19
Madelyn
I press my forehead against the passenger-side window, basking in the glow of sunbeams reflecting off flat fields of wheat, spreading a warm, cozy golden hue across the early morning landscape. Times like this remind me how beautiful, how serene Oklahoma can be.
Declan rests a palm on my thigh. He placed it there less than a half hour into our trip. For someone who keeps his emotions close to his chest, he’s pretty generous with his hands.
I’m that irresistible.
I give myself a mental eye roll, then grin, thinking how that’s something Luciana would say.
Declan likes sex, that’s all. He’s probably thinking about taking me in the back of his pickup right now.
I glance at him from beneath my eyelashes. Yep, no bold, come-hither stares from me. Despite the bravado sounding off in my head, the truth is I’m feeling shy about the whole thing.
Him moving inside me. Me arching my hips, deepening our connection. Us climaxing in unison, his groan vibrating like a drawn-out piano chord against the sensitive part of my neck.
A flush warms my skin.
I wave my hand in front of my face. Hot memory, hot rise in body temperature. Sweet Mary, the man runs his thumb across the leather steering wheel and I’m aroused.
Although I’m wearing a short floral skirt that flutters when I move, matched with a sleeveless top that hugs all the right curves, the scant, light clothing provides no relief. I swear, I’m on charbroil. And the skin beneath his palm will be the first part of me to combust.
And Declan?
I turn to him once more, wondering what he’s thinking and subtly watching him from beneath my eyelashes as he glides his thumb back and forth across the steering wheel.
Lord have mercy. Is this the unachievable afterglow Luciana seems to always be chasing yet never quite reaches?
Does Declan feel it too?
“Want the window down?” he asks.
“Okay,” I squeak.
He hits the button on his door and my window lowers. I turn my face into the breeze made by his pickup thundering down the barren roadway.
It doesn’t help.
He runs a thumb lightly across my skin along the line of the hem of my skirt.
“Still warm,” he murmurs.
Uh, on fire. “Oklahoma summers. You know.”
To my disappointment, he removes his hand entirely. “Yeah, too goddamn well.”
“Are you hot?”
He doesn’t respond but instead shoots me a long, undecipherable look.
We fall silent, until he turns off the road leading into Dayton. “We’re making a pit stop first,” he says, before I can ask him about the change in plans.
“Hungry after all that . . . ?” Sex. I blush as my mind goes there, and it deepens when I realize that if his intentions leaned toward food, Dayton would be the best—and only—place to grab a meal.
His lips twitch. “You could say that.”
We stare at each other. Seconds pass, until his lips draw tight.
“Madelyn, don’t expect . . .”
I stiffen, and wait for him to continue.
Silence follows. He has nothing more to say, it seems. No confirmations. No denials. No reassurances about anything, including us.
I resort to staring out the window, my eyebrows lifting as I catch sight of the sign twisted and facing the wrong way. It’s bullet-riddled and hanging on a post by a thread: shelby, 5 miles.
Declan sees it—hell, there’s no missing it.
But instead of heading straight, he turns the pickup onto an unpaved side road, sending us both bouncing in our seats as the truck kicks up gravel.
I feel a prickle of anxiety roll up my spine. As far as I know, there’s no back road leading into Shelby. People take the interstate to and fro, to get in fast and leave even faster. Who can blame them?
Biting my lip, I resist asking him why he’s turned off the highway. Still slightly peeved about his subtly implying my sister might not care about me as much as I think she does. If he really knew Kylie, he wouldn’t be so bleeding wrong about her.