CHERISH (75 page)

The taste of her is enough to wash away my anger. I start working every fold and bump with my lips and tongue, my fingers still lodged deep, curling and touching the little spot that makes her body flood my mouth with her climax.

She’s howling like a wolf on the counter, and I have to drop my hand from her throat and steady her crazy hips, trying to stay on top of every buck and thrust, so she doesn’t knock us both onto the damn floor. She’s letting go, and I’ve never seen or heard anything more beautiful.

I let go for a second to let out the forged steel that is straining to get inside of her.

Before she can gather her next thought, I pull her sweet ass with legs wide to the edge of the counter. I sniff, smile and sink into her in one push. Her eyes go wide, and she makes that special sound reserved for when my cock is tapping at her limit and filling her completely.

Her body clutches around me, and I wait because she’s not breathing. She’s frozen around me, and I run a hand up her belly to her throat, touch her there softly until her eyes come back to me.

“Shhhh, babe. I’ve got you. Take a breath and just let it go. Let it all go, and let me take you there.”

When I see her chest rise and her eyes flutter then close, I slowly glide out of her, feeling every beautiful, amazing inch as I go.

Fuck, being inside her is nothing like anyone before. It really is like two beings becoming one. I take a long, deep stroke, watching each change in her face, every inflection of her noises. I want my cock to be her Master and give her everything she’s ever wanted.

She’s wildly tight, and I give her a hard thrust, driving the air from her lungs, then draw back, doing everything I can to control my urge to destroy her. She’s twitching her hips because I’m teasing her, leaving just the tip of my cock inside her soaking opening, waiting for her to relax.

“Let it go, babe. Give me all of you right now. Give it all to me, and see what happens.”

I hook my hands in the crook behind her knees, lifting her legs up and out, spreading her, and then when she softens under me, I give her every inch in one, deep thrust.

Her chest comes up like a shark out of the water, making noises that are completely new, but I hold her open, completely at my mercy and slam into her with a barrage of my hips.

“Don’t you ever run from me again. Are we clear?”

She’s already gone. I’m riding her hard and keeping her hips canted just right, pulling and pushing and grinding against her, letting her feel my dick coming up inside her belly, owning and claiming. Branding her.

She curses and nods, her arms flailing around finding only the faucet to hold onto, but that doesn't help her. I’m strong as fuck, and with her legs in my hands, no way she’s going anywhere.

I lock into her pussy, deep, holding her against me, raising and lowering her open folds, grinding my body into hers until I feel her drench every inch of me as she starts to speak in tongues, lurching around my dick with her climax.

I raise her legs straight up, resting them on my shoulders, and go to town on her. Looking down, watching her body soak me and take my thick length in and out, has my balls tight and ready to send out the troops.

I growl at her in a low whisper that comes in grunts and breaths. “You want me to cum inside you? You want my cum?”

I let my hands stray over her body. They settle on the baby-blue oxford she’s still wearing, and I tear at it until I get to the soft, white cotton bra underneath, and then I do the same to it.

With her laid bare, my hands cup and pull on her tits. It hurts, I want it to. She fucked up and sometimes the sex will be like this. All about the rough, because it’s what she needs.

From the way she’s arching into my hands, we’re on the same page.

“You like it, babe? You like that dick deep like that?”

“Yes.” Her eyes light on mine as I set myself as close to her womb as I can.

“Tell me you want my cum, babe. Beg for it.”

I watch as she takes in my words. I see her moment of hesitation, and I bat it away with a deep thrust, spinning her eyes to white.

“I didn’t hear you.” I rebuke, her eyes coming back down, regaining their ability to see. As a punishment, I stop moving.

“
Please
, yes. Please cum inside me.
I want you to
.” I start thumping in and out before her words finish, her voice lilting high in response.

“Cum with me, babe.” I grunt each word, intent on her face, and then let my hands settle flat on her soft belly until I feel her tense and her hips wiggle and dance, her neck arching. The sounds she makes push me over the edge with her.

We cum together with a scream and a groan. Her body milks every drop from my balls. I’ve never felt anything more amazing than sinking head deep, letting her have all of me in her own moment of bliss. It is as close to giving her part of my soul as I can ever imagine.

“I love you. I’ve loved you so long.” The words come out of me in a hot panting breath as I gently bring her quivering legs from my shoulders, kissing her ankles, each of her toes.

I’m not done. I scoop my arms around her waist, gathering her limp body against me.

“Get those legs around me babe and hold on.”

“I don’t know if I can; my legs are shaking so bad.” She manages to get her ankles behind my ass and her arms around my neck. She’s so warm and soft; I drift into that place that imagines us like this for the next hundred years.

Carrying her to the bath, I’m overwhelmed with my feelings of responsibility for her. The same feelings that were planted the first day I saw her face in that courtroom—listening to a mother tell her child she’s unwanted, watching that little girl’s face turn to stone. I knew from that second; she belonged to me and that it was my life’s mission to make sure she never felt unwanted again.

“Just tell me I know everything. Give me everything, Promise. No more secrets, no more lies. We can’t be who we are destined to be with that between us. Okay?”

“I know. I promise. I want you to have everything. I want it; I won’t hide anything ever again. I’m sorry, it’s just this life . . .” She takes a shaky breath. “It teaches you things. . . . I promise, I’ll give it all to you.”

That’s it, what I need. A promise.

Beckett

Two days later we’re in her apartment, and Bruce is staring at the check I just put in his hands. Then at me. Then back down at the check.

“Uh, well, for this amount of money, I’d hide a body for you. She’s moving out; I just asked for thirty days notice. This is like a
dowry.
She’s not my daughter; you know that, right?” Bruce can’t help his chuckling snort as he pushes his glasses back up his nose. He is his own biggest fan.

“I don’t like to leave people hanging.” I tap my fingers on the counter, then look over toward the hall where I hear Promise talking to herself.

“Hey, she said you got a book deal? You’re like some hot, SEAL, badass, sugar-daddy artist. You know anyone you can set me up with?”

I nod and laugh with him.

“Naw, sorry bro. But, yeah, I signed a deal yesterday. It’s all coming together for once. I wouldn’t say I’m on the sugar-daddy level, though.”

“These drawings are the shit.”

Bruce flips the pages on one of my notebooks. Promise insisted we bring it. She wanted to show it off before letting it slip that the drawing in her room was the first one. The one that started it all. Chicks love that romantic stuff, and my little angel seems no different now that she’s back in the land of the living.

She’d beamed when telling him I’d given her that drawing ten years ago and that I’ve been waiting for her ever since.

“Did you decide yet? About going back?” Bruce is ex-Army and gives me a sympathetic smile.

“Naw. You know how it is. Those guys are my brothers. We just lost two of us, and Pipes has decided he’s not doing another round. Brendan’s not coming back either . . . his wife divorced him, and he doesn’t want to lose his kids, so he’s staying put here at home. I don’t want to abandon my team. There’s only four of us left.”

Thinking about them takes me back, the blanket of darkness comes down around me. Jakes and Randolph went home in boxes because of me. It doesn’t matter that the investigation showed no fault—I was driving. I made the decision to drive over that bump in the road and not have ordinance check it out first.

The echo of the bomb concussion still wakes me up at night. I can still see the inside of Jakes helmet filled with blood. Randolph’s wife was pregnant with their first baby. That’s never leaving me. My brothers didn’t deserve to die on the side of a fucking road like that.

“Not me.” Bruce’s voice pulls me back to the moment. “I did my two tours, and I never looked back. I still have sand in my ass crack. And, it sort of cramped my style, if you know what I mean. None of that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ when they had my ass sign on the dotted line. I had to stay under
deep
cover. When I got back, I decided that was enough. No more closet for me—not one more blessed day—and I came out
swinging
.” Bruce raises his eyebrows and looks at me from under his lashes with a wink.

He breaks into a smile so big, his eyes shut for a second along with another round of his infectious laughter. I want to laugh along with him, but I can’t shake the gray cloud over me.

“I’m stuck.” I try to keep my neck from twitching, but I lose. I run my hands back and forth over my head, landing on the back of my neck and holding on. “I don’t know how I can leave her, and I don’t know how I can abandon them. I have a few weeks to decide, but I might just flip a fucking coin.”

I couldn’t tell him she sobbed for an hour when I told her I might go back. That shit tore my aorta right out of my chest.

“She’s a mess, you know.” Bruce points down the hall where we can hear her fussing about not finding any matching socks. Bruce grins and makes the sign of the cross over his chest with a smile. “I’ve done what I can, but between you and me, I’m ready to pass the baton.” He takes a sip of coffee and pinches his brow together in sympathy.

“I know.”

“And, her damn room.
Lord almighty
. She should
not
live with a gay guy because we like our shit neat. I smacked her hand more than once to get her to keep her disaster inside those four walls. That girl can wreck a room by walking through it.”

“So, we square?” I nod at the check and extend my hand. Bruce flutters his eyelids and gives me a distinctive look up and down before shaking.

“
Yeah
. I want her to be happy. You better make her happy.” He jabs a finger into my chest and sounds a like an overprotective father.

“That’s the mission objective. She’s not gonna make it easy.”

“You got that right.” Bruce nods and laughs again. “Okay, I gotta go. You guys do what you gotta do. And, one more thing . . .”

“What?”

“I hated that other guy. I’m glad she picked you.”

“I didn’t really give her a choice.”

He lets out a loud snort with a dramatic nod and yells down the hall toward Promise’s room. “
Bye!
You better be back at work by Monday! Enough drama, dang.”

Then he’s out the door, and the room seems to lose a little of its magic.

I’ve been keeping her on lockdown in the loft the last couple of days. We’ve cooked and fucked and talked and slept and loved. I’ve lived more in the last two days than I have in a long fucking time.

She makes me that way. Makes me feel.
Everything
. It’s like finally seeing color after living in black and white your whole life. I’m awake with her; I can see things I didn’t see before. Hear the crisp beauty of words. Feel the texture of everything my fingers touch.

She is more mine every second, and I scare myself thinking of anyone that might wrong her and the things I would do to protect her.

The shy girl that barely knew how to raise her eyes and form a sentence around me when I met her in my father’s room at Windfield has changed. She yakked my damn ears off until three in the morning last night.

Mostly about her brother but without the tears. She wanted me to know everything about him, and I devoured every word. Whatever makes her happy, makes me happy. And, I fucking mean it. You think people just say that in an offhand manner but for me, my happiness is her happiness.

It may not make sense to other people, but like I give a shit. I’m pushing up on thirty years old, and I’ve just now figured out what it means to really be alive. I love her like she’s my own blood.

I can’t explain this consuming need to protect her like a father, to know everything about her from the moment she drew her first breath. Her every thought, however insignificant she might think it is, I find joy in. I also want to fuck her until her screams peel the damn paint off the walls. So, it’s a big bite, taking her on, but I’ve never understood the difference between joy and happiness until now.

She brings me joy. There is something infinite about the emotion. It’s not fleeting like happiness. I’m happy when I get a new car or have a few laughs with my boys. Then, it’s gone.

But with her, the joy she brings me lives so deep in my soul, it can no longer be separated. Crazy shit, but it’s true.