Chapter 26

Ellie

Axel’s jacket fell to the welcome mat below our feet, the zippers jingling lightly as he kicked it out of the way. I set to work at pulling his shirt over his head and tossed it aside to join his discarded jacket.

I ran my hands all over him, tracing the ridges and grooves of his stomach, his chest, his shoulders, and arms. All the while, he was walking me backward, lips pressing sweet kisses to my lips and neck, as he worked to untie the drawstring of my sweatpants.

I giggled as we both nearly toppled backward. He caught me in his strong arms and balanced us out and then pulled me back up to him like we had just ended some sort of magnificent dance. I blew my hair out of my face and covered my mouth with one vertical finger.

“Shh,” I whispered. Hanna had been in bed for almost an hour now, and I didn’t want to wake her. All she had talked about all night was Axel coming home. She needed a good night of rest, and then in the morning, she would be ready to join me and her daddy.

Axel and I hurried by her bedroom door on the balls of our feet so as not to make any noise. When we slipped into his bedroom, I pushed the door slowly closed behind me, and it softly clicked when it closed. Then, I turned to face him.

As always, the sight of him stole my breath from my lungs.

His muscles shifted under his skin as he came back to me. I stayed where I was pressed up against the door until he was so close, I could feel the heat radiating from him. My tongue darted out between my lips, tasting the remnants of my cherry Chapstick as Axel reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. From there, his hand traced the line of my neck down to my collarbone. His touch lingered there, the rough skin of his palm tickling my skin and giving me goosebumps. I sensed that perhaps there was something he wanted to say. Maybe he wanted to tell me how his talk with Watson had gone.

I waited, giving him an open moment to speak, but he never seized it. Instead, he found the tie of my pants again, pulled the bow apart, and pushed the waistband over my hips. The pants were too big for me, and they slid to the ground. I stepped out of them.

Then, Axel pulled my shirt over my head. I was wearing a matching sport set, a gray bra with a white band and matching panties. Axel made a sound in the back of his throat to express his pleasure at the sight of my nearly naked body before leaning in to kiss my neck and bare shoulders.

I held him to me as he did, and I wanted to keep him there forever. I wanted to keep him with me where he would be safe and far away from the powerful men who might want to hurt him. I wanted him to stay where he was loved.

I drew his face back up to mine and kissed him deeply. I urged him away from the stress of the day and the burden on his shoulders with my tongue. I suckled his bottom lip and explored his mouth with a sort of desperation that frightened me a little bit.

He returned my kiss with wandering hands. He found the clip of my bra in the middle of my back and snapped it open effortlessly. It loosened around my shoulders, and Axel slipped it off my arms.

In nothing but my panties, I began walking him backward to the bed.

I pushed him down roughly with my hands in the middle of his chest. He fell heavily onto the bed and propped himself up on his elbows to watch me as I spun away from him and hooked my fingers in the waistband of my panties at my hips. Slowly, I began working them down, wiggling my hips back and forth as I did so, giving him a show he deserved.

When the underwear was around my thighs, Axel smacked my ass. I resisted the urge to cry out, knowing we needed to be quieter than usual, and backed up into him. He surprised me by slipping a finger in my pussy.

I moaned softly and arched my back for him. His free hand grabbed and squeezed my ass as he fucked me with his finger. Soon he was stretching me with two fingers, and I gave in to the pleasure that was swelling inside me and looked up at the ceiling as I came.

Axel turned me around and pulled my hips down, guiding me to my knees on the floor in front of him. He was still in his jeans, but I hurried to undo his fly and pull him free. He was hard and ready, and I wasted little time taking him into my mouth and tasting his salty sweetness. I used my tongue to follow the vein along his shaft and then suckled his balls. He rewarded me with a breathless groan as he gathered my hair out of my face and held it in one hand.

My lips formed a seal around him, and I bobbed up and down, my mouth growing slippery by the second. Axel’s fist tightened in my hair, and he tensed beneath me. I ran my hands up his thighs, the denim soft and worn under my palms, and cupped his balls to roll them gently in my fingers.

He bucked and spasmed in my mouth, and I held all of him as he shot his load into my throat. His breath was ragged and sharp as I sucked him clean, and I leaned back on my heels to wipe my lower lip with one finger. Then I sucked it clean, too, and gave him a smile.

Axel stood and pulled me up with him by my wrists. His grip was firm but not too tight as he put my back to the bed and pushed me down this time. I giggled as I fell. Axel shimmied out of his jeans and kept his eyes on me the whole while. I arched my back and lifted my arms above my head, giving him a show of my body as I slowly wriggled atop the sheets while I waited for him.

Then, when I was good and ready, I spread my legs for him and rested my heels on the edge of the mattress. Axel’s gaze darkened with heat, and he went to his knees at the edge of the bed.

The swirling tension below my belly tightened even more as I anticipated his first lick. My pussy was swollen, pulsing, and begging for attention as Axel ran his fingers up and down the insides of my thighs. He teased me, his touch grazing the lips of my pussy and then darting away up and over my hips, only to return once more to barely graze my clit.

I moaned his name in hopes it would be enough encouragement for him to finally unravel me. His head dropped between my legs, and I froze, my breath clenched in my lungs as I waited for the divine sensation of his mouth pressed up against me.

He started slowly, his tongue darting out to touch my clit and then lazily tracing over it in a slow circle until the breath I held shuddered out of me. All my muscles tightened, and I clutched at the sheets as Axel’s tongue dipped into me. He pulled slowly from me, gliding up and down my opening until my climax rolled over me like an insatiable beast.

Axel leaned over and grabbed a condom from his nightstand. He came back between my legs and tore open the wrapper. He rolled it on in seconds, just as my body was recovering.

I was a quivering mess, and all I wanted was his body moving against mine. I tried to tell him that, but his lips sucked on my clit as his fingers pressed into me. My voice was lost to another thigh-shaking orgasm.

Axel’s lips shifted to my thighs, and then he started working his way up the length of my body. My belly and ribs were incredibly sensitive, and every kiss and nibble seemed to set my skin ablaze. I shifted beneath him eagerly. I lifted my hips from the bed as he positioned himself above me so I could feel the tip of him rest against my pelvis.

I smiled up at him, and he stared steadily down at me as he dropped his hips to mine to rest the tip of his cock against my opening. Before we joined, he lowered his face to mine, and his tongue slipped between my lips. His cock did the same between my legs, demanding all of me right then and there.

My legs fell open wider as his hips pressed down on me so he could bury himself to the hilt. I gasped at the pressure and gripped his shoulders, pressing the tips of my fingers into his firm muscle. He held himself deep inside me until I relaxed, and then, he began a slow and steady rhythm of thrusting.

As he moved in me, I strained upward to kiss his throat and chest. I kissed his tattoo and his scars and traced them with my fingertips like I could imprint the sensation of them on my own skin. I wanted to feel like this for eternity.

Our foreheads were together now. His name came out between my lips again as I wrapped my legs around his hips in a desperate attempt to somehow be able to hold on to more of him.

He granted me one last moan before crushing his lips to mine. His hips bucked against mine, and I sighed into his mouth as I drew closer and closer to finishing. He groaned into our kiss, and together, we finally gave control over to our bodies and gave in to our orgasms.

Axel kissed me playfully as he held himself above me. Then he kissed the tip of my nose a couple times before stopping to just stare down at me. There was a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

I poked him in the chest. “What?” It was impossible not to smile up at him the way he was looking at me.

He ran his fingers through my hair and watched my blond curls fall back to the mattress after leaving his fingertips. “I just need you to know something.”

I studied him. “What is it?”

His eyes finally met mine. He was still a little breathless from our lovemaking, but he looked calm too. Relaxed, even. Then he smiled. It was unlike all the other smiles I had seen before on his lips. This one showed true joy.

“I’m in love with you, Ellie. I have been for a long time.”

My soul sang, and I became acutely aware of each individual heartbeat. “I love you too.”

We stared at each other a moment longer before erupting into giddy laughter. He fell to his side beside me on the mattress, and I rolled over to face him, cupping my hands under my cheek. He put a hand on my hip, and I watched as suddenly, the happiness in his smile ebbed away and was replaced with his usual broody expression.

“If something happens to me, I needed you to know how I felt.”

I tried to ignore the fear the rose up in me at those words. “If something happens?”

Axel nodded and looked at his hand on my hip. “Watson and I have made an arrangement. If I do a job with him, he’ll leave me and the MC alone for good. Please, don’t ask me to tell you what it is. I can’t tell you. It’s better this way, for everyone. You trust me, don’t you?”

I searched his face and wished he would look at me. Of course, I trusted him. I trusted him more than I trusted myself.

I placed a finger under his chin and forced him to look up at me. “I trust you. I know you’ll do what you know is right. But I can’t help but be scared. For the first time in a long time, I have something I really, really don’t want to lose. Two things all of a sudden.”

Axel laughed, but it was a short-lived expression of emotion. “I’ll take care of myself. I want to get back to the two of you. But no matter what, just know how much you mean to me. You’re everything, Ellie. Absolutely everything.”

He was speaking the words I had been aching to hear for years, but they didn’t give me the rush of joy I always imagined they would.

Instead, they left me cold with fear. Now that I had him, I was terrified a psychopath from Axel’s past was going to swoop in and destroy everything and leave me to pick up the pieces of the life I should have had.