Chapter 22
Reese
“Daddy—look what Reese showeded me today!” Brenton shrieks excitedly as he holds up the paper canes that he and I worked on right before dinner.
Leo looks down at them and corrects his son. “Showed, Brenton. It’s showed, not showeded.” He and I glance briefly at each other and exchange a smile.
In that quick eye contact, Leo’s expression tells me everything I need to know.
He feels it, too.
That throbbing tension pulsing between us, that hankering need for more—it’s not one-sided. He feels it, too.
Brenton gives his father an impatient look and speaks with annoyance. “Okay, okay.”
Sensing the disappointment in his kid’s reaction, Leo’s eyes go soft. He squats down on the back porch so he’s at eye level with Brent and gently cups the little hand where the tiny paper cranes lay. “Well, this is cool.”
The child’s face lights right back up. “It is. Isn’t it?”
“Y’know what?” Leo says.
“What?”
“I’d bet that these cranes know how to swim!”
“Really?!” Brenton’s eyes bulge.
Leo assures him with a nod. “Sure.”
The little boy looks up to me for confirmation. I bob my head and smile.
“Wow! That’s so cool!”
Leo stands to his full height and now he’s towering above both me and Brenton. “How about we go home and fill the bathtub and watch them swim around a little before bed?”
“Yay!” the boy screams before tearing off in the direction of the house next door.
Leo and I share another smile, but this time, it’s too hard to look away. God—I want to kiss him. If I were a braver woman, I would. But I just stand there, watching him as he watches me.
I trap the corner of my lip between my teeth to keep from blurting out how much I want him, how much I’m craving the feeling of his body crushing mine into my mattress. A gasp spurts out of my chest when he reaches up and presses his thumb right beneath my mouth, causing my lower lip to pop free.
“Don’t hide that sexy mouth from me,” he whispers and brushes his thumb over my wet lip. I shiver at the mere touch. I’m aching for those hands all over me.
He’s struggling, too. His expression tells me how much he wants me. His eyes close as he cups my cheek in his hand and leans toward me. He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to kiss me. Please, let him kiss me.
“Daddy!” Brenton’s voice rings out, startling us both. Leo’s head snaps in the direction of his back porch. “Hurry up!” the child whines.
Guilt slips over Leo’s features, sharpening the disappointment in my own chest. He tucks a wayward tuft of hair behind my ear and takes a step back. “Good night, Reese,” he says hoarsely as he backs away.
This night is anything but good. I clean the kitchen and watch a bit of TV before going upstairs. Sleep doesn’t come at all when I climb into bed. After tossing and turning for a long while, I step up to my window and look at the back porch next door.
I’m not the only insomniac on the block.
Propelled by lust and false courage, I throw on a sweater and some sneakers and trek across the lawn with my heart in my throat. Leo is sitting on the bottom step again. That cigarette is perched in the corner of his lip and a small plastic cup is in his hand. He looks at me as I approach and the intensity in his eyes causes a tremor to zip down my spine. But nothing will deter me now.
The wood creaks as I take a seat next to him on the shaky stair. We sit together and a long silence stretches between us. I can feel his body pulsing in the thick night air.
This attraction is mutual. We had sex and it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t something we did to get it out of our systems. If anything, the lust is growing stronger with each smoldering gaze we share, with each fleeting touch.
As we sit together, the tension becomes overwhelming and we both know that the inevitable is about to happen.
Leo sighs heavily and drops his half-burnt cigarette into his drink. He leans back onto his elbows and I can feel his stare on the side of my face.
He reaches up and brushes my hair over my shoulder, his fingers grazing my skin. His body shifts and slowly, he closes the space between us.
His nose hovers at the curve of my neck. I feel his breath on me even though we’re not touching. I’m shivering with arousal, I’m silently screaming for him to take whatever he wants.
So turned on, I breathe out his name. “Leo…”
It hangs in the air for a beat.
"I'm a bad decision for you, Reese.” His voice is low and ominous and hot against my flesh. I can smell the whiskey, the cigarettes, the lust. It’s driving me crazy. "I'm not the kind of man you need."
I turn my head and our eyes collide with a thousand pounds of force. His fingers trail up the vertebrae at the back of my neck and get lost in the hair at my nape.
“You're sweet. So innocent." My eyes are riveted to his plump, wet lips as he speaks. I can't look away. “I’ve barely got my head above water.”
“I don’t care,” I hear myself whisper. I lean in and steal his lips. A sound of relief spills out of me when his soft mouth presses against mine. My fingers tangle in his hair and I pull him closer, greedy for my fill of him.
His hand falls to my thigh and trails up higher and higher, closer and closer. “I want you so much,” he groans. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I want you, too,” I sigh against his mouth.
He touches his fingers to the hot and needy space between my thighs, over the thin lycra of my leggings. He cradles my pussy through my clothes and pulls his face back just enough to look at me. "I can give you what you need here," he whispers, stroking my core. And then his fingers flit up my chest over my heart. "But here?" He closes his eyes for a brief moment. "I can't..."
I’m not listening. I don’t care about his excuses. I just want him inside of me. My every thought, my every breath revolves around that need.
His voice strains in the darkness. “I don’t want to hurt you, Reese. I can’t be your boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. He says the word with such raw contempt. Like he disdains everything it represents.
“We don’t need a title. We don’t need to be together. We can just be…lovers.”
He shifts back and lifts a brow. “Lovers?”
I speak more confidently now, channeling my inner small town Carrie Bradshaw. “Yes…Lovers.”
“Have you ever had a lover before?” He’s not taking me seriously. The sudden amusement in his voice makes me feel like a little girl playing dress-up in her mommy’s heels and pearls. I’m not a little girl. I want him to see me as a woman. A grown woman. An adventurous woman.
“I have a long list of ex-lovers,” I say assuredly with a rather aggressive nod.
“Really?”
“Really.”
His eyes canvass my face for an instant. He squints, hinting at the possibility that he may be convinced.
I smirk. Good—he doesn’t seem to realize that I’m just pulling Taylor Swift lyrics out of my ass.
Oh, the lengths a girl goes to when she's horny for the angsty, off-limits single dad next-door.
As he brings his lips closer, wearing a smirk of his own, my heart rate is an escalating drumbeat. “And here I was worried that I was corrupting you.”
“Not one bit.” I smile and my eyes flicker. I’m dizzy off of his proximity.
“Not one bit...” he echoes. “You’re skilled and experienced.” I glance down at his crotch and—how do I say this?—he's bursting at the seams with enthusiasm.
“Uh-huh,” I groan as his lips invade mine. His sweet, smoky whiskey taste raids my senses and his warmth overruns my limbs. The kiss makes my head light and I hold the lapels of his shirt to keep from evaporating completely.
He teases me, biting along the flesh just beneath my collarbone. He growls. “Shit—I’m not sure I have the qualifications to handle a woman like you.”
I laugh softly. “Don’t worry. I provide on-the-job training.”
His big palm cups my breast and kneads the meaty globe. I mewl. “Lucky me,” he says, squeezing my pointed nipple through the fabric. “So you’ll teach me a thing or two, lover?”
“Count on it.”
His arms rope around my waist and he draws me in like a lasso. Now, I’m in his lap, straddling him, my legs braced around his thighs. His head tilted back, he sighs up into my mouth and our tongues tangle together.
I feel his fingers move beneath the fabric of my sweater and smooth over my skin. “You realize that if we do this, it’s just sex. No hand-holding. No sleepovers. No whispering sweet nothings in the dark. I can’t fall in love with you.” His palms sweep electricity up and down my ribs. The hard length of his cock presses up beneath me and I can’t help myself—I grind my core along it, desperate for its friction pistoning through my hungry channel.
My words float out on a breathy moan as he rolls his hips against me. “I understand.”
He drops his head to my chest and growls. I hear his hunger in the low, rumbling sound. He’s still hesitating. He’s a good guy. He wants to do the right thing. Despite what he thinks, there’s nothing wrong with him and me finding escape in each other’s bodies.
I hear myself begging. “Say yes, Leo.”
On a heavy sigh, he looks up at me. He searches my eyes in the half-light and after a long moment of consideration, he breathes, “Yes.”
Victory dances at my nerve endings and I bite back a smile. His hand slips beneath my ass and he rises, taking me with him, carrying me like I weigh no more than a feather. My mind buzzes as frantically as my body does. I’m primed and ready to plunge into his bed, to feel him moving inside of me.
Carefully, he opens the door and carries me through the dark house as I suck at his earlobe, his neck and his jaw like a nymphomaniac. He growls low and menacingly as he dodges around boxes, carrying me up the stairs and past Brenton’s closed bedroom.
When we get to his room, he shuts the door softly and tosses me onto the bed. My pulse kicks up when he reaches behind him and I hear the click of the door lock. I imagine all the things he’s about to do to me and excitement flurries through my stomach. I’m scared that I’m not woman enough to handle it.
I sort of overstated my qualifications earlier.
Maybe I shouldn’t have talked such a big game, maybe I shouldn’t have bragged about all that experience I supposedly have. Still, I’m too damn horny to let something as logical as fear hold me back. With a wide grin on my face, I slither into the center of the mattress as he rips his t-shirt over his head.
I lie there and stare, completely mesmerized by the undulation of his beautifully-honed muscles as he undresses. He’s so virile, chiseled and downright spectacular. His body is a fine piece of architecture, designed by the genetic deity to inspire lusty and very inappropriate fantasies in sexually repressed members of the population such as myself.
And he’s far less patient than I am. “Take off your clothes,” he orders me.
A shiver slides through me at the rawness of his voice. Our eyes stay locked as I peel my sweater from my shoulders before dragging my tights down my legs. I’m so damn nervous.
His gaze is predatory as he lowers himself to his knees on the floor and wraps his fingers around my ankles. I yelp when he drags my body right to the edge of the bed so that my ass is hanging off. Kneeling on the carpet, he plants my feet on his shoulders.
“Oh god,” I whisper as he kisses a slow line along the inside of my thigh toward my pulsing core. I feel his breath on my sensitive skin. I’m buzzing from my awareness of him. My hips buck slightly, eager to feel his touch.
Just before he leans all the way in, just before he tastes me, his gaze moves up my body and connects with my eyes. “No strings, Reese. No feelings.”
In that moment, I’d say anything, I’d do anything for the sweet gratification of his tongue swirling through my folds. “Just lovers,” I promise. He searches my eyes until he finds the validation that he’s looking for.
His handsome face disappears between my thighs and all I see is the top of his head, that bushel of wild dark blond hair, and his fingers gripping my thighs, pushing them apart. That first slide of his velvety tongue through my folds pushes all the air out of my lungs. It’s not quite a scream that comes out of my mouth. It’s more like a croak.
He tongues me again. One slow, lingering, slide of his tongue follows the next. He licks me, wicked sounds pouring out of his chest as if he’s feasting on a decadent, forbidden dessert. “You taste so fucking sweet,” he whispers into my flesh. “I never thought I’d get the chance to taste you.” His hands slip under my ass and he hoists me up, closer to his face.
“I’ve wanted this…” My voice trails off as he slides a finger into my slit and flicks it back and forth. “Oh…oh…”
My pussy quivers in a vulgar, debauched way. I feel him smile, his cheeks swelling against my quivering thighs. “How come you taste so sweet?”
“Must be all the cupcakes…” My laugh mutates into a long groan when he jams another finger into me and sucks my clit between his lips. “Ooooh!...Ooooh!” My voice grows louder now as the pleasure sharpens between my thighs.
He blows a stream of warm air over my folds. “Must be the cupcakes.” He slants his head to the side, pursing his lips on my clit, assaulting me with his fingers and tongue. And the lust just grows stronger and more urgent inside of me. It invades every one of my cells.
I'm not even sure if my body is touching the mattress. My sensory perception suggests that I may be levitating at present. Holy fuck!
I bite into my bottom lip, sinking my teeth into the flesh to keep from screaming as my vision blurs with stars and my body shudders with the violent orgasm. His tongue is unyielding against my flesh as my desire spills from my body like lava cake.
When the eye of the storm has passed, I glance down at him. He’s sitting on his haunches, gaze sweeping over me. The intensity in his stare causes my stomach to clench. No man has ever watched me like that.
He smiles at me, licks his fingers like they’re covered in banana pudding, runs the back of his hand over his slick chin. So messy. So insanely hot. I whimper just looking at him.
He places reckless kisses along my skin as he smooths his hands up my sides. I feel the tickle of his stubble along my ribs and I squirm. When he reaches my breasts, his tongue rolls over one nipple as he massages the other globe in his hand. “Love these pretty tits,” he whispers as he moves his lips across my chest to the neglected nipple. “One day I’m going to come all over them.”
I gasp and arch my back, offering them up to this sex god like a sacrifice. “Tonight?” I ask, cheeks flushing at the desperate tone in my voice.
His laugh is deep and throaty. “No, not tonight.” He reaches into the bedside drawer and pulls out a string of condoms. “Right now, I just need to get my cock in you before I go crazy.”
In a second, the condom is on and he’s angled at my slippery core. My quivering sigh fills the air as he strokes the tip on my sensitive clit.
“This is what you want, Cupcake Girl?” I hear the taunting lilt in his voice. “This cock in your pussy?” He flicks me back and forth.
My tongue rolls over my lips. “It’s what I want.” I shift my hips and swallow him into my pussy.
His head drops as we both adjust to the feeling of him stretching me out. “Shit…” he mutters, chin tucked against his chest. His shaft is so broad. He fits so snugly inside of me.
He begins to move slowly, driving his cock into me in smooth, controlled thrusts. I follow his lead and roll my hips in perfect sync with his. God—and it’s already starting to build. The tension winds tighter between us. I look up at him and he’s so beautiful. Forehead creased from his restraint, biceps tight and corded as he braces himself above me. His eyes snap shut and he tilts his head away.
With a rough grasp, he picks my hips off of the bed and rises onto his knees. He pounds into my body in a rough and animalistic rhythm. I can hear the splash of my wetness every time his body crashes into mine. Fuck—I love it. My tits bounce and my bones vibrate. My clit sings from the repeated friction with his pelvis.
It’s getting so good, so intense. I’m not sure that I’m can handle the pleasure. “I’m gonna die!” I whimper.
“Take it!” Leo grits out through clenched teeth. “Take it!”
That look on his face, though...The beastly concentration, the crude strength. This orgasm is going to split me in half.
I groan louder this time. “Oh, god! I’m gonna die!” There’s a note of panic in my voice.
Leo’s hand clamps down over my mouth as he continues to slam into me. His eyes shine with laughter. “Jesus, girl—you’re gonna wake up my kid.” Oh, right. I almost forgot. He searches my expression. “Do you want me to stop, Reese?”
I shake my head no. Hell fucking no. I need this so much.
“Do you want me to keep going?”
I bob my head approvingly, even more turned on by the gag over my mouth.
“Do you want me to fuck you until you’re coming so hard on my cock that you see stars?”
I nod again, feeling wild and unhinged. My body is so tight right now, so ready. I have no choice, I have no escape.
The orgasm tears through me, starting at my core and exploding along my nerves. With my lips trapped under Leo’s hand, I scream into his palm. My short fingernails claw at his shoulder blades as my whole universe goes to pieces.
My pussy squirts a river of wetness onto his erection as he drives his cock in and out of me. He wants to hold off but doesn’t have much willpower left in him. His fingers fall from my mouth and clench the sheets near my head.
He’s coming now, his cock spasming inside of my tight hole. A muted roar comes out of him. His labored breaths fan over my breasts and I can see his heart hammering wildly beneath his skin as he pumps his hips until the climax fades away.
Groaning, he collapses heavily on the mattress next to me. He throws a muscle-corded arm over his eyes as his pulse comes under control.
I can’t take my eyes off of him. He’s so perfect.
A sharp feeling assaults my chest and I hear a nagging voice in my head, questioning me, asking me if I’m really okay in a no-strings arrangement with a man as intense and virile and damaged as Leo Montgomery, if I can come out of something like this unscathed. I don’t have answers to those questions.
“That was so good.” His fingers intertwine as he stretches his arms above his head and I watch his landscape of muscles swell and roll majestically.
I smirk. “It was okay.” I ease out of the bed, moving in a casual, detached way. I rummage around for my discarded clothing and slide into them, exhibiting the nonchalant movements of a woman who’s used to being fucked by this kind of man.
It’s all a ruse. I’m gonna need a referral for an osteopath. There’s no way my lumbar spine hasn’t been severely dislocated after that pounding.
Leo rises onto his elbows and watches me as I slide my panties back on. He chuckles in his chest. “Judging by your shaking knees, I thought that maybe it’d been better than okay.”
I laugh, too. My cover’s been blown. “I was trying to act smooth. Unaffected.”
He comes up behind me and I feel one of his arms around my waist as his fingers crawl down over the front of my panties. He cups my pussy in his palm. “Don’t do that again,” he says with his lips on my earlobe. “Don’t deny how good this feels. My fragile ego can’t handle it.”
He works the heel of his palm against my clit as his fingers brush back and forth across my sore nether lips. “Okay…” I sigh, pliant and willing in his arms.
He drags me back into the bed. “Now, come here. I didn’t say you could leave yet.”
I giggle softly as he pulls me down on top of him and kisses me hard. Those stupid questions ring out in my mind again.
Can I really be okay as just fuck friends with this man?
I don’t know the answer to that question. All I know is that Leo Montgomery is the best sex I’ve ever had. And I’m aching for every gorgeous, muscular, delicious piece of him.