My hands on his nape brought his head down to mine and I kissed him for all the days I hadn’t been kissing him. It was a desperate, s.e.xual tangle of tongues and hot breath, my s.e.x pulsing readily just from the wet hardness of that one kiss.
So into it, I barely felt Braden haul me none-too-gently against a wall, his mouth breaking from mine as he trailed kisses down my neck, his strong arms hooking under my thighs to wrap my legs around his waist. My body slid up the wall, his hard c*ck nudging against my crotch, jeans to jeans.
“f.u.c.k,” Braden murmured hotly, his mouth dipping to the rise of my breast. He held me up with one hand on my backside, the other peeling my bra down, letting the cool air whisper across my nipple. It puckered up for Braden’s kiss and I gasped at the bolt of pleasure that shot between my legs as he sucked it into his mouth. I jerked my hips, rubbing against Braden’s erection.
“I can’t wait,” I breathed, gripping at his shoulders.
As if to test that, Braden unb.u.t.toned my jeans and slid his hand inside my panties. I whimpered, pressing up against his fingers as they dipped inside of me.
“Christ.” His head fell against my chest as he slid them in and out. “So wet and tight, babe. Always.”
“Now,” I growled, my nails digging into his skin. “Braden.”
And then we were moving, me holding onto him as he turned us and brought us down onto the couch, his hands fast as he pulled back and tugged my jeans down my legs. I unhooked my bra as he returned for my panties, my foot giving a little flick to get them off of me. Panting with antic.i.p.ation, my skin on fire, I fell onto my back, my legs parting for him. “Braden, now.”
He had stopped, frozen, as he looked down at me lying na**d beneath him, my chest rising and falling with short, excited breaths, my hair spread out all around me. I watched his expression change, no less turned on, but softer somehow. He pressed a hand to my quivering belly, and he coast it gently up my stomach, between my br**sts, to my jaw and he moved over me, his jeans abrading my bare legs. “Ask for it,” he whispered gruffly against my lips.
I glided my hand down between us, pulling down the zipper on his jeans. My fingers slid under his boxer briefs, curling around his d.i.c.k. I tugged it out of his jeans and watched his eyes close, his breath stutter. “I want you to f**k me,” I gave a little lick at his lips that shot his eyes back open, blazing down at me. “Please.”
With the growl I had missed, Braden shucked his jeans down a little, and then wrapped his hand around mine so we both guided him between my legs. At the slightest brush of him against me I grew even wetter. I let go, my hands moving around to grasp his a.s.s as he slid slowly into me. I squeezed his backside, urging him to go faster.
Which he did with pleasure.
“Harder,” I moaned. “Harder, Braden. Harder.”
Asking for it hard never failed to spur Braden on. He kissed me and then slammed home. Pleasure coiled tight in me his c*ck kissed me so deep, I threw my head back to cry out, my cries getting louder as he pounded delicious strokes into me. What he was doing to my insides, the sight of him straining above me, the sounds of our excited pants and groans and the wet, primal noise of s.e.x, all of it surged me towards satisfaction and fast. I blew apart, screaming his name as I came. I came so hard, my s.e.x pulsing around Braden, that I milked him into his own o.r.g.a.s.m, his body tensing as it shot through him, his h*ps continuing to jerk him in and out, prolonging both our releases.
Best. s.e.x. Ever.
Braden groaned and collapsed against me. I stroked my hands against his a.s.s soothingly before gliding them up his back to hold him close.
He turned his head against my neck and pressed a familiar kiss there.
“You still mad at me?” he murmured.
I sighed. “I was going home to do what I should have done eight years ago. I was going home to say goodbye to my family.”
Braden grew still and then he pulled back to gaze down into my face, his eyes full of remorse. “G.o.d, I’m so sorry, babe. About the ticket.”
I bit my lip. “I can reprint it. And… I was thinking about staying in Virginia permanently after Ellie is back on her feet.”
The remorse fled quickly. “Over my dead body.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
He frowned. “I’m still inside you.”
“I can feel that.” I smiled, bemused.
“Well at least let me get out of you before you tell me you’re attempting to leave me.”
I leaned up and kissed his lips. “I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing yet.”
Used to everything not being straightforward with me, Braden exhaled slowly and withdrew from me. He tucked himself back into his jeans and he sat up, holding out his hand. Deciding to trust him, I let him pull me up to my feet, and followed him up the stairs to his room. He nodded at the bed. “Get in.”
Since I was na**d and sated and really in no mood to argue, I scrambled across his bed to my side of it and got in. I watched with pleasure as Braden stripped down to nothing and got in beside me. I was immediately settled into his side, my head on his warm chest. “So what are you doing?”
That was some question. And where to begin?
“I had a really good family, Braden,” I told him softly, pain I’d been hiding for too long threaded in every word. Braden heard it and his hold on me tightened. “My mom was an orphan. She grew up in foster care here, and then moved to the States on a work visa. She was working at the college campus library when she met my dad. They fell in love, they got married, and for a while they lived happily ever after. My parents weren’t like my friends’ parents. I was fourteen and they were still sneaking around, making out when they didn’t think I could see them. They were crazy about each other.” I felt my throat close up but tried to hold it together. “They were crazy about me and Beth. My mom was overprotective and a little overbearing because she didn’t want us to ever feel as alone as she had felt growing up.” I smiled. “I thought she was cooler than all the other moms because, well, she had a cool accent, and she was kind of blunt, but in a really funny way that shocked some of the preppy housewives that lived in our town.”
“Sounds like someone I know,” Braden murmured, amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.
I grinned at the thought that I might be a little like my mom. “Yeah? Well, she was awesome. And my dad was just as great. He was the dad who checked in with you every day to see what was up. Even as I got older and became this entirely new creature called a teenage girl, he was still always there.” I felt a tear fall now. “We were happy,” I whispered, just managing to get the words out.
I felt Braden kiss my hair, his grip on my arm so tight it almost hurt. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”
“s.h.i.t happens right?” I swiped quickly at the tears. “One day I was sitting in cla.s.s and the police came to tell me that my dad had swerved into a truck to avoid a motorcyclist who’d come off his bike. Gone. Mom. Dad. Beth. I lost my parents and I lost a little girl I hadn’t really had a chance to get to know. Though I knew enough to know that I adored her. I knew she would cry if she couldn’t see her favorite teddy bear—this ratty old brown bear with a blue ribbon around his neck that used to mine and still smelled like me. His name was Ted. Original, I know. I knew that she had a sophisticated taste in music because all you had to do to stop her from crying was play Mmmbop by Hanson.” I laughed sadly at the memory. “I knew that when I was having a bad day, all I had to do was pick her up, hold her close, smell her skin, feeling her tiny warmth against me and know that everything was okay…
I went off the rails when I lost them. My first foster home was full of other kids, so my foster parents barely even noticed I was alive, which was fine by me since it meant I could do whatever I wanted. The only thing that numbed everything was doing stupid s.h.i.t that made me feel like c.r.a.p about myself. Lost my virginity too young, drank way too much. Then after Dru died, I just stopped. I was moved to another foster home on the other side of town. They didn’t have much, but there was less kids there and one kid in particular who was pretty cool. She wanted a big sister though…” I sucked in breath, feeling the guilt wash over me all over again. “I didn’t want to be anything to anybody. She needed someone, and I didn’t give it to her. I don’t even know what happened to her after I left.” I shook my head regretfully and sighed. “When I was there, I went to a couple of parties over the years, not a lot. Always ended up with some guy I didn’t know or care to know.” I heaved a sick sigh. “Truth is, I went out on the same night every year. To a party, to a bar. It didn’t matter as long as it helped me forget. I’ve spent eight years burying my family, pretending they never existed, because yeah – like you said – it was easier to pretend I’d never had them, than to deal with how much it hurt to lose them. I realize now how unfair that was to them. To the memory of them.” I clenched my jaw to stem the tears, but they spilled over anyway, dripping onto Braden’s chest. “The one night I went out was the anniversary of their death. But I stopped doing that when I was eighteen. I went out that night and I went to a party and I can’t remember anything that happened after I arrived. I woke up the next day and I was na**d in bed with two guys I didn’t know.”
Braden cursed low under his breath. “Jocelyn.”
He was belatedly angry I know. “Believe me, I’ve been there. I was furious at myself, violated, scared. Anything could have happened to me. And s.e.xually…”
“Don’t.”
I stopped at his scary tone. “I got checked out and those guys hadn’t given me anything, thank G.o.d. But I never slept with anyone again. Until you.”
Another tight squeeze for that one.
“I might never stop fearing tomorrow, Braden,” I admitted calmly. “The future and what it can take from me, scares me. And sometimes I freak out, and sometimes my freak-outs hurt the people closest to me.”