I wonder which one I’d see if I were in his shoes. Because neither one is attractive or admirable.

He leans forward and rests his forehead on mine, my eyes drifting closed with our lips barely touching. “I’m not going to make you talk. I could never force you to when whatever it is that puts the look in your eyes you have right now breaks my heart.” He pauses for a beat, and I’m not sure if he does so for him or for me, but I appreciate it. It gives me time to try to clear the look from my eyes and inflate my lungs since he just robbed them of all air. “Give us today. Forget whatever it is that’s making you push me away over and over again, and give us a chance. We’re good together…. Can’t you see that? Push whatever it is aside, and if after today you still want to fight against this connection we have, then I say go ahead. Walk away without your goddamn strings tied tight because I know you won’t.”

I don’t even realize that I’m holding my breath again or that my body has gone completely lax from his words. My mind skips and homes in on the key words he’s speaking, unable to fully process the generosity behind them because all I can focus on is my own desperation, which they evoke. I want this. I want a chance not to think and feel and fear, and yet I know the chance to do that will only lead to the ties I fear are already there. The ones he’s already tying into double knots so I can’t walk away.

I want the ability to feel, to think, to hope without the fear tingeing the edges. Even if for a day. I want to give myself this one thing, give us this even though I know how selfish it is.

He mistakes my silence for discord and continues. “Whatever this is between us is worth a shot, Haddie. You’re worth it. I just want you to give me the chance to prove I’m not going to hurt you. I just wish you’d let me in to show you that I mean it.”



Chapter 21

The emotion I feel is so strong that I don’t think I can speak, so I try to show him. I press my lips to his as my hands roam down the strong lines of his back. I’m desperate as hell to take and sate and feel, but at the same time I want to linger and memorize every sound and taste and sensation.

“Haddie.” He murmurs my name, an oath and a curse at the same time, and I steal anything else he planned on saying by slipping my tongue between his lips and taking everything I need to keep the seams holding myself together from unraveling.

“Make me feel, Becks.” And this time when I ask, when I whisper it against his lips, it’s not to make me forget the grief of Lexi’s death but rather to own the emotions I now feel for him. The ones I can’t deny anymore.

Together we begin the slow dance of undressing, removing his shorts, lifting up my skirt, and pulling down my panties because right now we both need this connection between us more than anything. I sit up and push him back, my hands on his shoulders, my lips on his. I move my hands ever so slowly so that my fingernails scrape down the firm lines of his chest until I hold his cock in my hand. And the feeling, the notion that I can make him so hard, so fast, is a powerfully intoxicating one.

He groans out as I encircle him and stroke my hand up and back over his steeled length. I drag my mouth from his, my lips tasting the salt on his skin, my nose breathing in his scent, my hands feeling him pulse and ask for more without words. I lick and nip at the flat disks of his nipples, earning me a hiss of breath and a hand fisted in my hair in response. His hand urges me farther down his body with a hurried desire while I prefer to take my time. To lick, and kiss, and tempt him with my mouth. To kill him with the slow descent so that by the time I reach the crest of his dick, the anticipation is so intense, he’ll lose that stoic restraint and cry out my name like he owns it.

I slide my mouth over his infinity zone, and when my nipples scrape through the fabric of my bra over the top of his thighs, I moan at the eroticism that just heightens every single incredible sensation. I finally reach his cock and pump it once in my hand while I close the wet heat of my mouth around the crest. Becks’s hips jerk in reaction and “Fuck, Had,” falls from his mouth, and his hand fists even tighter in my hair.

I position my body so that I’m sitting astride one of his thighs, my own sex grinding against his leg with each draw up and down of my mouth on his dick. I lick my tongue along the underside of his shaft, adding pressure there before sliding back up and circling the crest. I tease him like this a bit more, only allowing my lips to close over his head and denying the rest of his length the suction of my mouth while my own body trembles from the sensations I’m creating for myself.

His fist in my hair urges me to slide him all the way in my mouth while his other softly caresses my cheek and underside of my chin in an oddly intimate way for this carnal action. I take my time with licks, my fingers teasing his balls with scrapes of fingernails and then a gentle pulling motion down and away when they tighten up.

“Goddamn it, Had. Suck me.” His voice breaks, and his hips urge up in a plea as I moan, my clit getting the perfect friction with his movement. “Fuck me with your mouth.”

And his words urge me on to give him what he wants. To bring him the pleasure he deserves for always being such a generous lover with me. I place my head over him and slide him all the way into my mouth until I can feel him hit the back of my throat. And when I do, I remain still for a moment until I can’t take it anymore before I slide it slowly back out, hollowing my cheeks and adding suction with the withdrawal.

I love the strangled groan my action causes and the thrill that shoots through my body at being able to give this to him, do this to him. I continue my movements, varying the pressure of my tongue, the degree of suction until his hand is urging me to go faster and faster. I give in to his demands and start working him with both my hand and my mouth, my own ache intensifying as he gets harder and larger from the increased flow of blood.

And I think he’s just on the verge of coming—I’m so wrapped up in bringing him to the cusp that I don’t realize he’s sat up some—when he grabs at my shoulders and yanks my body up so that his lips can meet mine. The man kisses me with complete abandon and total ownership. He stakes a claim that I’ve already handed him, but it doesn’t stop him. His tongue continues to brand me, lips bruising and hands urging my hips up and over his all the while.

One hand holds my face still so that I’m a willing victim to his barrage of mouth intercourse while his other hand lines his cock up at my wet and willing entrance. I can feel the width of his head there, ready to divide and conquer yet claim my heightened emotions with physicality as he deepens our kiss, pouring everything and then some into it. This feeling is twenty times more overwhelming than any sex I’ve ever had.

Letting a man claim me with his cock is one thing, but letting Becks kiss me senseless and own my response is more moving, more intimate than anything I’ve ever given any man before.

He’s opened me up, made me vulnerable, made me his.

He leans back and stares at me, our breaths mingling just as our hearts are. “Can you feel that, Haddie? I know you can, know there’s not a chance in hell you can deny what’s between us anymore. Feel this, feel me…. Want this, want me.” Our eyes hold, and then he leans in and brushes his lips to mine in a soft and tender assault to my senses once again.

And then the moment his hands urge my hips down and he pushes his pelvis up—the moment we join our bodies—I can feel my heart tumble endlessly out of control to that deep, dark corner I can’t reach, even if I stretch my muscles and fingertips as far as I can to try to grab it back. But I can’t. Don’t know if I could reach it if I’d want to reclaim it.

Because I’ve just fallen in love with Beckett Daniels.

The idea hits me as his cock bottoms out in my clenching sex, and my head falls back as I gasp.

Becks’s mouth descends to my exposed neck as we both move in unison to give our bodies what we need to climb that peak that’s just within reach. My teeth find my bottom lip as I lose myself in the moment, accept the feelings and sensations, and drown in the chance he wants us to take.

I moan with the movements, both the feelings they create and the touch of his hands urging me on. His mouth leaves my neck, and I find myself looking into his eyes as one of his hands moves from the side of my neck to my right breast, his thumb pulling the fabric down and grazing over my taut nipple to send shock waves through my body at the mind-numbing sensation. I cry out, urge him to continue, our eyes locked on each other’s so that we can see the pupils darken and widen as we chase our pleasure.

And when it hits, when the desire skyrockets into an explosion of heat and sensation that pulls me under its addictive haze, I can’t focus on anything else but letting it take me for its incredible, serendipitous ride. My body trembles, and my walls pulse around Becks as he tries to still himself so that I can feel the full impact of my climax.

“Haddie …” My name is a guttural groan on his lips as his hands dig tightly into my bare flesh and his hips rock into mine, emptying himself into me. His mouth finds my shoulder, his teeth pressing there as he comes, the slightly painful sensation causing my own muscles to tighten around him in an unexpected arousing response.

We sit there for a few moments, our hands lazily stroking up and down each other’s backs as the sweat that mists our skin dissipates with the cool afternoon breeze sliding over us like a blanket in this outdoor haven.