Chapter 15
Eve
We sat at the island in his kitchen, the soothing tones of Jack Johnson drifting through the space around us. I broke off another slice of garlic bread and dipped it into the creamy pepper sauce we’d made to go on top of our steaks. We’d made. Together.
Joshua had placed his arms around me and we’d cooked in tandem, like some weird four-armed creature. I’d loved every second of it, which made me feel that much worse.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of Faith, it was that I’d delved too deep, too quickly, and now I’d pay the price. I’d fallen for this man.
“This is amazing,” Joshua said, cutting another piece of meat. “I swear, I could cut this steak with a butter knife.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me. It’s the quality of the beef.”
“Don’t be so modest. You’re a prof,” he replied. “You’ve got to teach me everything you know, so I can replicate this for my mom and dad when I visit them next week.”
“Yeah, I can teach you everything in a week.” I laughed and took a bite of the garlic bread. “Easy.”
“Maybe not everything,” he replied. “Man, it’s good to see you smile.”
I chewed and the flavors, sharp contrasting with creamy, suffused my mouth. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not about me.”
But it was about him. All of this was about him. If I’d figured out a way to deal with my feelings, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. Life was so much easier when it was me on the road, listening to Beyoncé’s greatest hits.
I cut a slice of steak and dipped it in the sauce, then ate it. It was damn good, almost good enough to chase away the repetitive doubts I had over being here. I shouldn’t have come, but I couldn’t stay away.
“You look beautiful today,” he said.
“I’m wearing PJs,” I replied, and nodded to my shirt. “I don’t think that’s classed as fancy dress.”
“Since when does fancy dress equate to beautiful? You’re beautiful because of who you are, Eve.”
I blushed and focused on my Greek salad instead. I hadn’t been complimented this much since… well, never. Bryan hadn’t been big on compliments. He’d been great at insults, however. Those had come out much later on in the relationship, and they’d started subtle and broken me down until there’d been nothing left. The shreds of my self-esteem had been tattered.
It didn’t matter how strong or tough I acted now. I had to work to build up that confidence again.
I cast around for a topic of conversation. “Your parents? You visit them frequently?”
Joshua pulled a face. “Yeah.”
“What? What was that?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. Just a source of pressure, I guess. My dad and I don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, because he didn’t want me to come back here. He didn’t want me to run a farm.” Joshua pushed his plate away and took a swig of his beer instead. “He wanted me to be a lawyer. He settled down when I became a businessman. And the billionaire thing, that helped, too, but I’m still a source of disappointment for him.”
“How is that possible?”
“He worked hard for me to go to college,” Joshua replied, then shrugged. “Guess that’s why.”
I couldn’t really grasp difficulties with a father figure, since I hadn’t had one. “I’m sorry,” I said and pushed my plate to one side, as well. I drank a sip of wine. “My mother was my hero, loving and proud. I guess I can’t really relate.”
“Was,” he said, softly.
“Yeah, she died a few years ago. Cancer,” I replied. “It wasn’t a long battle, thankfully. I mean, she suffered but it could’ve been much worse. I think about her every day, and what she’d want me to do. She hated Bryan. I should’ve known then I’d made the wrong decision.” Thinking about her brought a sharp pain in my chest, but it was instantly replaced by a sense of warmth. She’d always be in my heart. Her memory gave me strength.
“I wonder if she would’ve like me,” Joshua said.
I put down my wine glass with a clink. “I –” I swallowed. I didn’t have words. Would she have liked him? Joshua was respectful and sweet. Yeah, she would have liked him.
“Eve?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, pushing back his chair. He walked around to my side of the kitchen and stood behind me. “Being here with you is all that matters.” He ran his hands down my arms and traced the veins on the backs of my hands.
I sucked in a breath, heat collecting in my core, right away. He was calloused, as if he spent time working the fields. A man like him, who could do anything he wanted, was here, out on a farm. With me.
“Joshua,” I said.
He brushed my hair back from my neck and planted a kiss there. “Yes?” he whispered.
“You’re making me crazy.” And not sexually. He had me twisted. My mind swirling. I wanted him so much I struggled to breathe.
“Good,” he said, and kissed me again, warm, open-mouthed. He trailed them down my neck and to the hem of my collar. He drew that back and tasted my shoulder next. “So good.”
I gripped the island and squeezed my eyes shut. Resisting him was impossible. The feelings grew each time we did this and that was what scared me. How much deeper could this go?
Joshua came back up to my ear and sucked on my lobe, breathing into my ear.
My eyelids fluttered, and I let out a tiny moan.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me off the chair, placed my bare feet on the tiles floor. “Come with me,” he whispered, and walked me through the kitchen, out into the entrance hall, past the paintings, up the stairs and onto the landing.
His erection pressed against my ass and the small of my back. He stroked my neck and kissed it once, then directed us toward a door at the far end of the hall. We entered together and faced his bed – a king-sized outfitted in plain white sheets, with puffy pillows as accents.
“You’re special,” he said, with another kiss. “Everything I’ve dreamed of. Fantasized about. And you’re mine.”
“Wh-what?”
“Mine,” he said. “Say it. Say you’re mine, Eve.”
I fumbled for mental purchase. His? I wasn’t even my own, yet. “Joshua,” I breathed, and spun around to face him.
His crystal blue gaze pinned me to the spot. The line of his jaw, coated in stubble, the strength inherent in his face. I was overwhelmed by him. He was so real, so present, so fucking there. Right there! This man who scoured away doubts and fears. He made me want to love him.
Joshua was a man who deserved love.
I wasn’t sure I did.
“Say you’re mine,” he repeated, and tightened his grip on me – not uncomfortably. It was possessive, a show of desire. He was hard, pressed into me, and wanting that answer.
“I’m yours,” I said, and I meant it.
“Again.” That came as a growl, low in his throat.
“Yours. I’m yours.”
He tore my shirt over my head, and tossed it aside, then ripped down my shorts. “No underwear,” he said, another growl.
I hadn’t expected company this evening, so I hadn’t bothered to put any on. “Uh-huh.” I was naked in front of him.
“Mine,” he grunted again, and dug his fingers into my hips, squeezed the flesh. “God, you’re so fucking perfect.”
I worked on the buttons of his shirt and avoided the compliment. Inch by torturous inch, I exposed the hard planes of muscle, tanned and flawless. I pulled the shirt over his shoulders and admired him, taking in the sight of his body – a work of art.
My hands strayed to his belt buckle next. I undid it, stripped it off, and dropped it on the floor.
Joshua watched me, watched my reactions to him, desire permeating the moment. “Perfect,” he said, and lifted a finger. He traced the line of my jaw, down to my chin.
This was slower than we’d gone before, and I was determined to enjoy every minute of this with him. Especially if it meant I’d have to leave Hope Creek behind, and him with it.
Don’t think about that, now. It doesn’t have to happen. You could stay here with him. Except I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. I’d never impose myself upon him or use him like that. And I wasn’t ready to love him, yet, though I already did.
I undid the top button of his jeans, then unzipped them. I snuck my hand inside, fabric brushing against it, and took hold of his dick.
He squeezed his eyes shut and swayed.
The tip was already coated in pre-cum. I wet myself on it, then smoothed it over his shaft down to the base and back up over his head again.
He jerked this time. “Fuck,” he said.
I let go of him, then worked his jeans down his hips, over his muscular thighs. They fell to the floor.
We were naked in front of each other. The fact hit home hard. Naked. Bare. In more way than one.
Joshua pulled me to him, and kissed my collar bone, ran another line of moistness down to my nipple. He drew it between his lips and nibbled, then sucked. He tucked his hands under my ass cheeks and lifted me, effortlessly.
I slung my arms around his neck and held on, my wetness pressed against his abs, even as his licked, kissed, suckled on my breasts.
Joshua tipped me onto the bed, then moved down my body, kissing my stomach, sucking on my skin again and again. Shivers spread up and down my spine, goosebumps rose and my nipples puckered.
“Oh, god,” I whispered. I writhed and he pinned my hips to the bed.
“Hold still.” He parted my legs, then blew a gentle line of air between my legs, directly onto my clitoris.
My eyes rolled back in my head, and my hips strained upward.
He forced them back onto the bed. “I said hold still.” He parted my pussy lips, then leaned in and sucked on that sensitive spot.
My breath hitched in my chest, and I slammed my head back into those soft pillows. I grabbed handfuls of the sheets on either side of me. “Joshua,” I said.
He slurped and moaned down there, circling my clit slowly, then switching that out for a few open-mouthed kisses and sucks. “Yeah.”
“Joshua, it’s too good.” I couldn’t buck my hips with his arm across my pelvis. I couldn’t escape the pleasure. “Too good.”
“I want you to come for me,” he said.
I groaned and grabbed a handful of his hair, forced his lips onto my pussy.
Joshua sucked harder, flicked his tongue back and forth, then pulled away. “I want you to come for me, and when you do, I want you to know that you’re mine. You’re mine.” He returned to it, licking and working my wetness, collecting my juices and using them to drive me closer and closer to my brink.
The breaking point. His. I was his. I was Joshua’s.
I shuddered with the beginnings of my orgasm.
He inserted two fingers into my pussy and worked them back and forth, tickling my g-spot.
I tightened around them and rocked through the waves of my orgasm, my fingers twisting his hair, and my other hand on my breast. “Oh, god,” I said, and convulsed. “Joshua, oh, my god.”
“Mine,” he said, once I’d finished, and gave me a kiss on the top of my shaven mound. “And I’ll prove it to you.” He crawled over my body, then lay down on top of me, lifting himself so that he wouldn’t crush me under his weight.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he reached between us, angled his dick toward my insanely wet entrance. He slipped upward, over my clit, and I sucked in a breath.
Joshua grinned and kissed the tip of my nose. “Mine.” He entered me in one swift thrust.
I gasped and clung to him, eyes wide. God, it hadn’t been that long since we’d last made love, but his dick was almost too big. It shocked me, the sensation of fullness. It provided the perfect parallel to how he made me feel, emotionally.
He kissed my forehead, my nose again, then my lips, then worked his shaft inside me, pressure building between us, breaths catching in our throats. Low moans, and eyes shut, then open again.
We kissed and I took hold of his face. I couldn’t let go, now. I didn’t want to let go.
Joshua brought both of us to the brink again, and we drove through our orgasms together, this time, him pulsing inside me, filling me with everything he had.
Afterward, he rolled to the side, dragged me onto his chest and didn’t let me go, not even when he’d fallen asleep. I lay awake, staring into the darkness, praying that I’d figure out some way to either get over this feeling, or to embrace it.
I’d never been this scared.