Seven months ago
Lightning streaked across the sky, and thunder had us both jumping and laughing in the seats of Miles’s truck as we shoved the last of our cheeseburgers into our mouths.
We’d made a habit of frequenting McDonalds for most of our dates, even if that meant sitting beneath a storm dark sky as rain pelted the truck roof and cascaded down the windshield in tiny rushing rivers.
If someone had told me that I, some small-town girl with medium sized dreams, would be sitting in a strange guy’s truck three times a week, a guy who was at least ten years my senior, I would have laughed and said I knew better than that.
But he wasn’t a stranger or just some guy. Talking to Miles, even just sitting with Miles, was like being with a friend you’d known all your life but had been separated from for years. And now, we were simply catching up.
“First time was outside on a park bench.”
“Too impatient to find a bed?” I prodded.
His top lip tilted, and I wanted to bite it. “More like there were no better places. I was sixteen, and so was she.” He paused, his gaze moving outside the truck window for a beat. “We couldn’t exactly do it under our parents’ noses. They weren’t the type to let us get away with that. So, park bench it was.”
I laughed, shaking my head.
“What?” he asked, reaching over to poke my cheek. “Never been that adventurous?”
I took a sip of soda, then stuck the cup back into the cup holder. “Nope, beds only.”
Miles was quiet as his eyes dragged over my face. “How many times?”
Shocked by his bluntness, I laughed again. “Well, lots. Mainly with my high school boyfriend.”
His brows furrowed. “You still talk to him? What happened?”
“He went to college out of state, and we eventually broke up when we realized it wasn’t going to work out.”
Miles forced a pout, and I reached over to slap his upper arm but only hurt myself. “Ouch.” I rubbed my fingers, and he took them and kissed them. “Are you eating cement for breakfast?”
His laughter sprang sharp and sudden, filling the truck with its rough, loud volume. He had a nice laugh; the kind that said he did it often and unrestrained.
Taking my fingers back, I finished answering his question, “We don’t talk anymore. I had another boyfriend in college, but it only lasted a few months. That’s it.”
Miles nodded. “So you’ve always wanted to teach?”
“That or own my own bookstore.”
His lips quirked, his finger rubbing his brow. “I could see that.”
“One day, maybe. What about you? Did you always want to mow people’s lawns?” I waggled my brows.
He chuckled. “That’s not all I do, you know.” At my shrug, he continued, “Actually … when I was a kid, I wanted to be a cop.”
“Yeah?” I said, unable to see that with the easygoing, tatted up giant sitting next to me. “What stopped you?”
His phone rang, and he fished it out of the center console to inspect the screen, then shut it off.
“You can take it.” I gestured to the phone he’d tucked into the driver’s side door.
“It can wait. Work.” He turned fully to face me. “Where were we?”
“Cop?” I asked.
His mouth twisted, then he pulled me over to sit astride him, and held my face. “I was too much trouble to head down that road.”
“I don’t know if I believe you,” I breathed.
“Believe it, baby,” he whispered, lips meeting mine.
Six months ago
“You liked the Care Bears?” Miles snorted, placing Funshine Bear back on his home atop my dresser. “Why am I not surprised and kind of turned on?”
“Because you’re a freak,” I said, laughing and refusing to feel embarrassed about my inability to let go of some of my childhood.
He pouted playfully, going through more of my belongings on the dresser.
“Kidding. And give me a break. Other than college, this is my first time living away from home.”
“Didn’t you attend college in Riverstone?”
I tried to remember when I’d told him that, assuming it was probably during one of our many takeout dates or over the phone. We were still in that sickly stage of talking most nights until we were ready to pass out. “I did, yes.” My book shut with a thwack, and I placed it on my nightstand. “But still, I stayed in the dorms for a bit.”
“A bit?” he questioned.
“Okay.” I flopped back onto my bed, smiling up at the white ceiling. “I lasted a semester.”
Miles’s laughter bounced off the walls of my bedroom and could probably be heard from the street.
His red Henley covered his inked arms, the muscles on his back flexing as he reached up high to a bookshelf and plucked one down. “Little Red Riding Hood,” he read aloud.
“A favorite.”
He scrunched his nose at it, then carefully pushed it back in its place. “Not worried about being a little old for fairy tales?” He paused, taking in the Care Bear and then the old ragdolls I had sitting in an armchair by the window. “And toys?”
A sting jolted my heart, but I masked it with a smile. “Not worried at all.”
Returning my gaze to the ceiling, I heard something softly hit the floor, and then he was crawling over me. Shirtless. “I’m a dick,” he said, arms flexing as he rested his forearms next to my head.
I gave him my eyes and nodded. “A little, but I’ve heard it before from my sister.”
“That’s different.” His head lowered, lips whispering over my cheek. “You shouldn’t have to hear it from me, someone who loves you in a much different way than your family.”
My breath froze in my throat, my lungs and eyes swelling. “So you love me, do you?” I tried to say it mockingly as if it didn’t mean anything.
It meant everything.
“I tried to stop it,” he said, his forehead coming to rest on mine, the scent of cherry gum caressing my lips from his breath. “But it happened anyway.”
We’d been dating a couple of months. And even though it seemed like a relatively short time, especially when it came to dropping the L word, it didn’t feel rushed. It felt like a natural progression. I’d come to expect Miles in my life the way one expects the sun to rise. Every day.
“Why would you try to stop it?” I asked, unsure why. Maybe I was stalling. Maybe I was just too damn curious.
A puff of warm air hit my neck as he lowered his head, using his nose to nudge my chin up and allow him better access to the column of my throat.
I moaned, my thighs clenching, when he said, “Because you’re too good for some bastard like me. But I want you in every fucking way I can have you, and I’m no good at staying away from what I want. What I need.”
My legs lifted, toes pushing at his jeans. Soon, our clothes were in a pile on the floor, and he was dragging his lips over my tight nipples, his large palms swallowing my breasts.
When he reached the apex of my thighs, his mouth and nose were on me, inhaling deeply. The rush of his exhale set my thighs quivering and opening farther as he began a brutal assault with his tongue. I was instantly climbing high, my hands fisting the brown strands of his hair as his tongue dug at my opening.
“Miles,” I panted.
He sat up and leaned over the bed, snagging his jeans and then unwrapping a condom.
Apricot light was fading fast outside my bedroom window, casting his tanned and inked skin in half shadow. He looked like bad news, and when my eyes reached his swollen cock, he looked like he’d split me in two.
Yet I greedily wrapped my legs around his waist, impatient to impale myself on him anyway.
“Fuck,” he spewed as the head breached my opening, and my hips rolled, desperate to pull him closer, to connect, to fill myself.
“Please,” I said, my voice unrecognizable. I was already out of breath. I liked sex, sure, but I’d never felt this burning lust to have it. This feeling consumed me every time we’d gotten close, and now that we were finally doing it, it was dizzying how badly I needed to combust.
His nostrils flared as he steadied his weight over me with one arm while the other grabbed the side of my face. My lips caught his as soon as his head descended, and then he pushed forward, swallowing my garbled cry into his mouth with a groan.
He fucked me slow, his hips rocking as though he could do this for days, but I soon learned his control only extended so far. Within minutes, the sound of our skin meeting echoed through the room, accompanied by the sound of my panting and his cussing.
His nose came to rest on mine, his eyes squeezing shut as he whispered, “Come. Holy shit, please come.”
It took a minute of my hips meeting his to search for that perfect friction. I only needed a little, and then my head fell back. My thighs became a vise that made it harder for him to maintain the pace he seemed frantic to keep.
A strangled curse filtered into my hazy brain, and then my thighs were wrenched open. Miles rose onto his haunches, using my body to milk himself with a bruising grip on my hips.
I watched in rapt fascination as he came, his head angled toward the ceiling, eyes half open, and every muscle seizing. His corded throat bobbed as he swallowed, and slowly, he relinquished the harsh grip on my hips.
With my thighs resting over his and my ass half on his knees, I listened to his heavy breathing as my own heart rate slowed.
His eyes hit mine what felt like a full minute later, and I smiled, wondering what thoughts were swirling in those brown depths. “You’re quite a sight.”
He laughed, lowering me to the bed and moving to sit on the side of it, his fingers running through the messy strands of his hair. “I could most fucking definitely say the same thing about you.” His voice was strained as though he’d exerted a lot of energy just minutes ago. I grabbed the blanket from the end of my bed and pulled it over my rapidly cooling body as he disposed of the condom in my bathroom.
Miles returned wearing his briefs and bent over to grab his jeans. “Did I hurt you?”
I hummed. “Nope.”
He inspected his phone, frowning as he looked at the window for a minute, then pocketed it after stepping into his jeans.
“You’re going?” I sat up, the blanket falling around my stomach.
He nodded, walking over to me after pulling his shirt back on. “Sorry, someone needs me to quote a job. I thought I could do it tomorrow, but apparently, they’re expecting me to start tomorrow.” He rolled his eyes, something he rarely did, which made me laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow night?”
Though my heart wanted to protest, I nodded. “Sure.”
He kissed me, light and quick, then straightened and marched for the door.
“Wait,” I said, wrapping the blanket around me and almost stumbling over it as I hurried after him to the front door of my half-empty apartment. I grabbed his hand, then grabbed the side of his face, rising on my toes to whisper against his lips. “I forgot to say I love you too.”
His eyes shut briefly, and a ragged breath coated my lips before he kissed me. Our tongues met, and the blanket fell away, his body melding mine to the wall by the door.
“What about the job?” I said between breaths.
“Fuck the job.” Bending, he gripped my thighs and wrapped my legs around him, then carried me back to my room.