“You were too young and I was too focused on escaping.” She gasped out a high-pitched squeak when I tweaked one nipple just a little harder than the other. I bent down and soothed the puckered tip with my tongue.
“I wouldn’t have known what to do with you back then. Hell, I barely know what to do with you now.” I got one hand under the hem of her skirt and started to push it up and out of my way. Tonight she was actually wearing something underneath. Lace panties were separating me from the damp arousal I could feel pressing into my middle. That was enough to have my cock twitching in renewed interest.
She groaned as I moved the fabric out of my way and used my thumb to trace her slick folds. Everything about Salem was nuclear hot. I just wanted to jump into the fire and melt into her.
“Oh, I think you know exactly what you’re doing.” Her head lolled from side to side and I pressed inside of her heat and zeroed in on that place that had her eyes drifting closed and her teeth sinking hard into her lip.
I used my thumb on her clit, pressed hard, and stroked it up and down. I added a couple more digits and scissored them inside of her until she was squirming hard between me and the solid surface I had her trapped against.
“Watching you leave with that deadbeat killed me, Salem.” She somehow always had me wanting to pour honesty and the raw emotion that it churned up out at her feet. It was like lancing old wounds so they could finally heal.
She sighed just a little and ran the backs of her fingers across my cheek. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you like that.” Even though I could see she meant it, I don’t think she knew how deep that hurt had run or how long it had stuck with me.
I felt my brow furrow. “No one that loves me ever does.” I needed to change the subject before all that sensual arousal faded out of her eyes and was replaced with doubt and regret.
Her naked chest was rising rapidly and every time her pointed nipples brushed against my own bare chest my dick twitched a little more. She was close, I could feel her body tightening, feel the flood of desire and release coating my fingers. I put a hand under her bottom and hefted her up so that she could wrap her legs around my waist. I was so tempted to just slide inside her welcoming body, but that was a dangerous thought considering neither one of us had had the protection talk. I stumbled over to the massive bed in the center of the room and worked on getting the rest of her clothes off and out of the way.
When she was naked and laid out before me like some kind of offering to the gods, I reached into the drawer of the nightstand and dug out a condom. After getting everything situated, I wasted no time in sliding into her. I loved the way her body gripped me, held on to me like it never wanted to let me go. It had only been a few days since I had been inside of her, but it felt like forever. I got lost in the infinite darkness of her eyes as we both started to move.
We just fit. For every thrust, every tilt of the hips, every touch of a mouth on a needy body part, the other had the perfect response. She moved with me, held on to me, and used her body to make it more than sex. I felt her inside of me somewhere making a place for herself. I kissed her and licked at the jewel over her lip. She pulled on my hair and dug her heels into my ass. I bit her just a little bit on her neck and she left fingernail impressions all across the breadth of my shoulders. When she came she said my name like a prayer. When I came I said her name like a curse. I didn’t know what we were going to do with each other in the long run, but I did know that no one had ever looked so at home in bed or under me ever before and that was a first that might just matter more than a first love ever could.
CHAPTER 10
Salem
I GROWLED AT MY PHONE in frustration at threw it on the coffee table, where my feet were propped up. Rowdy looked at me out of the corner of his eye and reached out to mute the loud action movie he was watching.
It had been three weeks since our date at the park. Three weeks in which I no longer went to bed alone or had to chase him or run away from him. After the night at his apartment we just sort of fell into a place where we decided without words being spoken that we would rather hang out together, spend time with one another than be alone. We alternated apartments on a pretty regular basis, which meant Jimbo had two sets of stuff and my fridge now looked like a college frat boy had stocked it.
“What’s wrong?” He titled his head at me when I sighed and puffed out a breath to send some of the dark hair that had fallen into my face out of my eyes.
As close as we had gotten and as at ease as he seemed around me now, there was one thing that still set him off and still made me get buried under doubt and hesitation—Poppy. We both pretended to ignore the fact that she was still there, a specter hovering in the middle of this thing we were building around us, but I was in over my head now and I couldn’t keep tiptoeing around her or the past she shared with either of us.