CAMILLE, CARA, AND I TAKE a selfie before CJ and I leave. I think I’ve made two new best friends.
“I’m posting this to Instagram. I’ll tag you, Tara!” Camille types away on her phone.
“Shortcake77,” I tell her my user name.
CJ looks down at me with a wry smile. I guess he never stalked me online to know I changed it when I came back from Hawaii.
We say our good-byes to his family and then head out to the car. It was a pretty magical night. I can’t believe I actually started singing Christmas carols to a bunch of people I barely know. But CJ looked so adorable sitting next to me on that bench, I felt compelled to sing to him. That doesn’t happen often, almost never actually, but he owns a piece of my heart. And even if I can’t tell him that, it was a subtle way to show him.
I check Instagram as soon as I get in the car, and sure enough, Camille posted the pic with the caption ‘future SIL.’ I nearly choke. I guess I made an impression.
CJ holds my hand the whole way back to the city. I steal glances at him now and then, wondering how much longer this charade is going to go on. I love being with him, but the more time we spend together, the more attached I become. And if it was a different time in my life, and I was a different girl, I would bring up the whole ‘where is this going’ conversation. Instead, I’m going to avoid it like the plague.
“What are you thinking about over there, shortcake?” He jiggles my hand.
I drop my head back on the seat and lie. “Bed.”
CJ moans long and low in this throat. “Me too.”
I roll my eyes. Incorrigible.
And I love it.
It’s late by the time we get back to CJ’s hotel room. The skyscrapers twinkle in the windows as the snowflakes continuously fall.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” CJ asks as I stare at the snowfall.
“Breathtaking,” I muse.
He tucks some hair behind my ear. “The snow isn’t the only thing that’s breathtaking.”
I smirk at him. Silly.
He pulls me against him and forces me to look up. “I’m not kidding. You’re the most breathtaking woman I have ever been with.” There’s ferocity burning in his big brown eyes.
It makes me ache to know he thinks of me like that. I have been called many things in my life—pretty, beautiful, gorgeous even—but they are all terms that felt superficial. When CJ uses the word breathtaking, it feels one hundred percent real.
He touches his lips to mine, so softly at first I barely even feel it. And with each kiss, the pressure builds until we are pressed together, our tongues curling around each other and our hands roaming the other’s body. The way he’s caressing me is completely different tonight. It’s still fiery, but fueled more with emotion. It scares me, but not enough to push away, because I want him to touch me like this. I want to feel wanted, worshiped by him.
CJ kisses me so passionately, I stop thinking about every wrong thing in my life and just lose myself in him as kissing becomes caressing, which leads to groping and grabbing, and then full-on ravishing. He takes my face in his hands and looks me dead in the eyes between embraces. He’s never looked at me like that before, with such overbearing emotion.
It makes my heart pound. Riotously. I wrap my arms around his neck as he walks us over to the bed. Indulgently, he pulls my shirt over my head, pressing sweet, savory kisses along my collarbone. He undresses me leisurely, unbuttoning my jeans and then lowering the zipper. When I’m left standing in just my bra, panties, and tousled hair, CJ captures my face in his hands once again. What he says next nearly unravels me.
“Tara, you are the most unexpected, but best thing, that has ever happened to me. I have let plenty of women into my bed, but none of them into my heart.”
My stomach flips—half from guilt, half from elation. I want to be the only woman in his bed and his heart, but I can’t bring myself to articulate what I’m feeling. So instead, I kiss him, grabbing at his pants and stroking his erection. He moans eagerly as he puts his hands all over me, lightly brushing his fingertips against my bare skin. Before long, his clothes are lying on the floor next to mine, my underwear a distant memory.
He lifts me right off the ground, forcing my legs around his waist with our lips fused together. CJ lays me on the bed and uses his mouth to revel in my body, starting from my neck and licking his way down over my breasts to my navel until his breath is tickling my slit. He urges my legs apart and plants his face between my thighs. I immediately jump from the soft feel of his tongue against my clit. He moves it so methodically, it catches me off guard. He’s purposeful with his flicks and the way he circles the tip around my flesh. I’m moaning like crazy from the carefulness of it all.
“CJ . . . CJ . . .” I grab the sheets and squirm on the bed as he lifts me higher, watching my every tortured move.
Of all the times he’s gone down on me, it has never felt like this. Never felt like more than just a physical act.
I begin to shake, an orgasm hovering and my feelings breaching.
He slashes his tongue against me one last time then pulls away, leaving me a quivering mess. He wipes his mouth on the inside of my thigh then grabs for a condom.
Sheathing himself quickly, he pins me beneath him and slides his cock between my wet folds. I twitch from the teasing friction. Clasping both of my hands, he breathes erratically while sinking inside me. I spread my legs wider, trying to accept as much of him as I possibly can.
“That’s it, baby.” His voice is rough. “Open those legs and let me have you.”
CJ grips my hands tighter and buries himself balls deep until I’m completely full, completely stretched, and completely his. As he thrusts, his pelvis massages my burning nub, but not in a frantic, bloodthirsty fuck like usual. This is emotive, terrifying, and climactic all at the same time. This is crossing oceans and demolishing boundaries. The way he’s looking at me, kissing me, making love to me.
“Tara,” CJ murmurs my name like it’s a prayer. “Tell me you want to be with me as much as I want to be with you.”
Oh, shit. I knew where this was headed, even though I didn’t want to believe it. It was too good to be true. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to be honest, either.
I pant beneath him, trying to keep my wits.
“Tara?” He thrusts in deep, and I arch in ecstasy.
“Yes, I want to be with you.” I cave. “Every day, every night.” I try to catch my breath, but he feels so good, it’s paralyzing.
“How do you feel? How do you truly fucking feel?” He grills me, all while delivering unearthly pleasure.
I screw my eyes shut and concentrate on just his body, the rhythm of his hips, and the way his cock commands me.
“Baby, tell me.” He buries his face in my neck and sucks on my skin, moving upward toward my ear. My breathing quickens like bullet rounds until his hair is tickling my cheek, and my pussy is throbbing so hard it hurts.
“Tara, tell me a secret,” he appeals, and my eyes instantly water with tears.
“I can’t,” I protest, my heart ready to implode.
“Why?” He looks down at me, completely buried to the hilt.
“Because if I say it, I can never take it back.”
“That’s the point.” He leans in and kisses me as a tiny tear escapes down the side of my face.
“Tell me a secret,” he urges, driving into me again. My stomach muscles contract in distress.
“I love you.” The words leave my lips before I can even attempt to stop them. It’s my truest of truths. CJ told me to tell him a secret before I left Hawaii; it’s how the whole thing started. So I did . . .
“Tara, tell me a secret.” He hugs me tightly outside the airport doors.
With a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, I hide my face in his neck and force out, “I could fall in love with you.”
It was the last thing I said to him before I escaped into the airport.
“I love you, too.” He exhales as if he’s relieved. As if it’s finally real.
The tension then cracks, and we both feel the pressure. It’s building unbearably between my thighs.
I whimper and moan, so ready for a release.
“You going to come for me, baby?”
He pumps his hips a little harder, making sure he grazes my clit with every thrust. Making sure he drives me insane with lust, and I know how hard he is for me. The overstimulation against my slit and the fact that I am so madly in love with this man all pools in the lowest part of my belly.
“You’re the only one I come for,” I expel as every single one of my nerve endings ignite.
“Oh, fuck,” CJ sounds taken by surprise as he tumbles over with me, gyrating his hips and whimpering like a wounded man as my pussy chokes him. He grips my hands so tightly as he comes, it cuts off the circulation to my fingers.
He collapses on top of me once his climax passes, the two of us sucking in air as if it’s becoming extinct.
“I think that was the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“What?” I ask, mindlessly twirling a piece of his hair around my finger.
“You’re the only one I come for,” he quotes me.
“You liked that?”
“I loved it.” He looks up at me with his head still resting on my chest. “I meant it when I said I loved you, too.”
“I would hope so.”
“You know what this means, right?”
“No?”
“You officially belong to me.”
I nearly burst out into tears. There isn’t anything I want more than to belong solely to CJ.
“I’m all yours,” I pledge as my throat burns from unshed tears.
“Good.” He sucks one of my nipples into his mouth. “Because I am ready to hear you scream ‘I’m the only one you come for’ all over again. Roll over.” He forces me onto my stomach.
I feel him get off the bed to throw away the condom and then hear him open the nightstand drawer to grab another one.
“Hands and knees.” He pulls me up and grinds his semi-hard cock into my ass. “Maybe I’ll fuck you here this time.” CJ presses on the tight little ring of muscle between my cheeks.
I throw my head back, tossing my hair. “I told you—Anytime, anywhere, any way you want.”
He growls behind me. “You’re going to be the goddamn death of me, woman.”
“There are worse ways to die.”
“Yes, there are.” CJ kisses all the way up my spine.
“Look up.”
I tilt my head back expecting a kiss or my hair pulled, but he drops something shiny in front of my face instead. He dangles it for a second before he clasps the necklace around my neck. It’s dark in the room, but when I touch it, I can make out exactly what the little charm is. “A music note?”
“Mmm hmm. A treble clef, to be exact.” He nuzzles my neck, giving me chills. My eyes water for the umpteenth time tonight. “Now, no matter what happens, I’ll always be next to your heart.”
I’m pummeled with emotion, convinced he’s trying to kill me.
I fiddle with the charm between my fingers, feeling the rough crust of diamonds.
“I love it.”
“I love you,” he says so earnestly, my chest tightens. I am the worst person on the face of the earth, but no matter what, I won’t give CJ up.
“I love you, too.”
“Good.” He smacks me on the ass. “Now, let me fuck you.”
I actually tremble with need from the sting.
“I’m all yours,” I purr.
“I know.” He stretches my butt cheeks apart. “That necklace is my version of a collar since you won’t let me put a real one on you.”
I crane my head to look at him as he spreads my arousal from tip to tip of my slit.
“I might consider it if it has diamonds.”
CJ’s eyes sparkle with mischief as he gazes back at me, all while penetrating my hole with his thumb.
“Don’t fuck around with me, Tara. Because I will go out and buy you one tomorrow.”
“As long as it’s pretty.” I stipulate as he sinks one finger into me, causing me to tense.
“It will be goddamn fit for a queen.” He slides in one more digit and I shudder.
“Mmm . . . fine, then.” I relinquish myself as he scissors me open. I stretch like a cat on the bed, trying to acclimate to the continuous waves of desire and discomfort. Trying to relax enough to hand myself over. “Fuck me,” I mewl. “Fuck me hard and show me just how much you want me to wear your collar.”
CJ is seething by the time I’m stretched and ready for him.
“Tell me I’m the only one you fucking come for.” He pants like a thirsty dog.
“You’re the only one I come for.” He presses the head of his cock into my now enlarged button hole. My body doesn’t accept his invasion easily, but CJ persists, pushing in and pulling out until his cock is swallowed up whole. I grab the sheets as I’m pelted with pain and rewarded with pleasure with each of his long, measured strokes.
“Say it again.” He fucks me slowly at first.
“You’re the only one I come for.” I clench my teeth, grabbing tighter onto the sheets.
“Again.”
“You’re the only one that I come for,” I huff out.
“Oh shit, your sweet little ass.” He’s no longer gentle as he keeps a firm grip on me, making sure my cheeks stay spread.
“Oh, fuck . . . oh, fuck . . .” He starts to lose control. “Touch yourself, Tara. I want you to come. I want you to fucking milk me while we both come.”
I’m so oversensitive; I feel every single centimeter of his engorged cock as he fucks me, every minuscule expansion and contraction of my tiny, abused rosebud.
I barely find my clit ring as he saws in and out of me.
“Come, baby, come,” he stresses the last command with his hips, his straining length tearing me wide open, “and tell me what I want to fucking hear.” CJ quakes behind me, as close to an orgasm as I am.
It doesn’t take much as my pussy is already throbbing, begging for another blinding release, dying from the exertion. The distraction.
I rub myself off until I’m grinding against both my hand and CJ’s cock, the two of us moaning out loud like wild animals.
“You going to come for me, baby?”
I gasp, consumed with pleasure. “You’re the only one I come for. You’re the only one I come for!” I proclaim as I fly off the hinges, screaming and crying as my entire lower body throbs.
“Fuck! Just me,” CJ grinds out as he comes. “Just. Fucking. Me.” He punctuates every word dominantly, matching the same rhythm of his punching cock.
We both collapse forward, our limbs quivering as we recover in a post orgasmic bliss. I close my eyes. CJ’s warm body blanketing mine as I fall straight into a deep sleep . . . Dreaming of diamonds and collars and dancing music notes.