Welcome to Sugartown (38 page)

I didn’t
actually, but I don’t doubt his sincerity now as he says
it.

“
I love you,”
I blurt out, and for the first time, I feel vulnerable telling him
that. Since he got out all I’ve done is try to shove him into a box
he never fit in to begin with. Elijah was never my friend. Someone
that you love and desire that much could never be just a friend. It
was stupid of me to believe we could be anything less than
this.

“
I know,” he
says, and his face lights up with the admission. He brings his lips
down on mine and lifts me so that I have no choice but to wrap my
legs around his waist. I can feel the length of him pressed against
my belly and it starts a heat unfurling again in my core, seeking
him out, calling out to the fire within him.

“
I want
inside you so fucking bad, baby.”

“
I want that,
too. I’m just … scared,” I mutter.

Elijah cocks
his head back to look at me. “Of me?”

I shake my
head. “Of the pain. I’m terrified, actually.”

“
I promise
you, baby girl, it’s not going to hurt. I’m gonna kiss you all over
and then I’m going to eat you out until you’re screaming my name,
and then I’m going to do what I should have done the day we met and
make that beautiful pussy mine.” He grasps the nape of my neck, and
kisses the space below my ear that drives me crazy.
“Okay?”

His lips keep
up their wonderful assault on me and I can only nod my
acquiescence, and then he’s shutting the water off and carrying me
into my bedroom without bothering to dry us off.

He lays me
down on the bed and covers me with his body. His lips seal over
mine, his tongue gently coaxing. There’s none of the brutality that
usually comes with the two of us clawing at one another in an
effort to get closer, and I think I understand why now. Because now
there’s nothing between us, there’s nothing holding us back, all
our cards have been laid on the table and there are no more
secrets. There’s also no more fear. Just love and desire and an
aching need to fill one another up.

Elijah
intensifies the kiss and I fall willingly into him, into moulding
my body to his. I can feel his heartbeat echoing my own, a steady
pounding rhythm that reverberates throughout my entire body and
centres itself in the core of me.

I moan into
his mouth and he answers back by easing himself away from my lips
to stare down at me. His big hands smooth the hair back from my
head and he places a gentle kiss to my nose before kissing a wet
trail from my throat to my breasts. He sucks a nipple into his
mouth and pleasure arcs through me. I moan and he ceases sucking
long enough to smile up at me. “You like that baby
girl?”

I nod. “I
love anything that involves your mouth.”

“
Well, isn’t
that a nice coincidence? I fucking love using my mouth,” he
chuckles, and trails that perfect mouth down over my stomach,
coming to a stop over my pubic bone where he places a series of
gentle kisses before darting his tongue out to tease my clit. He
settles himself between my legs and gently licks and sucks all
around my lips, avoiding the one spot where I need to have
him.

“
Please,
Elijah?” I beg, “I need to feel you on me.”

He groans and
lowers his head to my mound, gently prying apart my lips. His
tongue darts out once as his eyes meet mine up the length of my
body. “I’m gonna take real good care of you, baby girl.”

And then he
begins laving at my clit, suckling and stroking and I feel my
insides quicken. He eases one finger inside and then another, and
begins working them the way he did that night in the lounge room
and my brain goes into meltdown, though the desperate need to come
is suddenly replaced with the urgency of having more of him inside
me, around me, driving us both toward release.

“
Elijah
please?” I beg, unable to stand the wait any longer. I’ve been
waiting for this moment since the day we met, and now that he
finally gets a green light he wants to dick around? “I can’t wait
any longer. I need to feel you inside me.”

“
Fuck me,
Ana. Do you have any idea what you do to me when you
beg?”

I smile
because I know exactly what it does to him, and he smiles back
because he knows that I know.

“
You drive me
fucking crazy, you know that, right?” he asks, but it’s said with
such reverence that I feel tears sting my eyes.

“
I love you,
too,” I whisper and he smiles down at me with this huge goofy
grin.

“
Don’t
suppose you have a condom in here?”

“
No. You
don’t have any in your room?”

“
Well, no,
considering the one woman I want to bury myself deep inside
rejected me. I haven’t needed to use one since …” he peters off,
and I know we’re both thinking the same thing—the night he fucked
Nicole. I wait for the anger and hurt that usually surfaces within
me when I think of that night, but it doesn’t come.

“
I’m on the
pill.”

He narrows
his eyes. “Since when?”

“
Since Holly
got pregnant, and no I’m not sleeping with anyone either. I just
thought it would be a good idea in case what happened with Scott
happens again. It’s one less thing to worry about.”

“
It’s never
gonna happen again, you hear me? I’m never gonna let you outta my
sight,” he says with such vehemence that I feel my heart swell. “I
should have been with you that night. I—” I place my hand over his
mouth and he frowns down at me.

“
I don’t want
to talk about that,” I say and wait for him to nod before I take my
hand away. “I don’t want to talk, I just want to feel
you.”

“
Yes ma’am.”
He smiles and lowers himself over me again. Taking his cock in his
hand, he glides it through my wetness from front to back. I’m
almost giddy with anticipation, but a small part of me is scared
shitless, too. I know that Elijah would rather die than hurt me and
I trust him implicitly, I just have to learn to trust that I’m
alright in his hands.

I feel him
press against my opening and gently edge his way in. He can’t have
gotten very far when I feel my muscles clench around him,
tightening to prevent him from entering me. I’m catapulted back to
that night in the cane field when Scott shoved his way inside me,
when he brutalised me. I close my eyes, willing it away, wishing I
could concentrate on the here and now, wishing there was some way
to forget.

“
Hey, you
okay?” Elijah asks in a gentle voice that just about shatters me
from the inside out. Tears roll down my cheeks and he kisses them
away. “You need me to stop?”

I shake my
head, even as my mind and body are both screaming for me to
run.
God, I’m such a fuck up.
I’m much too psychologically damaged for someone
like Elijah. He’s a man who clearly likes to fuck women and I’m a
broken little girl who can’t even crawl outside of my own head long
enough to allow myself this one shot at happiness.

“
Ana, look at
me,” he commands. “I love you, baby girl. So fucking much. It’s
just you and me here, we got this, baby. If you tell me to stop, I
stop. Anything you want, it’s yours. Just let me do this, let me
take care of you and we’ll erase him together. We’ll erase every
bad memory, every nightmare, every second you’ve thought about it
since. We’ll do it together, okay?”

I swallow
hard and nod my head. There’s no point searching for words because
all my senses are jumbled up and I feel hurt and raw and I’m afraid
if I open my mouth I’ll start bawling and I won’t stop, so instead
I take a deep breath and relax my body enough to allow Elijah to
push in a little further. He shifts his weight and snakes his hand
between us, running his fingertips over my clit, coaxing me to open
further for him. He slips the rest of the way inside, until I feel
him hitting the end of me.

I’m not met
with blinding pain like I expected to be. Instead I feel full to
bursting, but I find I kind of like it. His fingers keep working
against me and heat unfurls inside me, burning all the way from my
toes to the roots of my hair.

I moan with
the intense pleasure of it and then, when he starts to gently
thrust inside me the pleasure intensifies, and I let myself get
swept up in the delicious sensation of it all. “You’re so fucking
perfect, Ana,” Elijah whispers in my ear as he moves into a steady
rhythm inside me. “So tight and so fucking beautiful it
hurts.”

The pressure
builds within me to a point where it almost hurts to stave it off,
but I don’t want to come without him, so I try my best to bring
myself back down and into our own stratosphere. Elijah’s thrusting
continues, harder, faster and I bite down hard on my lip; it hurts
but it’s all I can do to keep from losing it.

“
Don’t hold
back, baby. Come for me, I wanna hear you scream my name as you
squeeze my cock.” Seconds after he says this, I do. I let go of
everything. Every hurt I ever caused him, of every time he made me
cry, of everything that Scott did to me and everything that’s
happened since. I let it go as I’m catapulted into sensation and I
cry his name over and over as he pumps into me and my orgasm rocks
through me from head to toe.

“
Fucking
incredible,” he whispers in my ear after giving me a second to bask
in the afterglow, and then he shifts and places, his hands under my
bottom, lifting me so that we’re both sitting upright, my legs
wrapped around his waist. I grind my hips against his as he rocks
into me.

“
My turn,” he
whispers as he tightens his arms around my waist, pulling me as
close as he can. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and we rock
into one another slowly, delighting in sensation and the unhurried
heat of pleasure building inside. When I think he’s close I slip my
hand between us and circle my fingers around my clit the way he
does.

“
Fuck that’s
hot,” he pants.

I smile down
at him, my body begging for release. Elijah pumps into me, once,
twice and then we’re both crying out, getting lost in the pleasure
and the sweetness of it all.

When we’re
satiated and spent he falls back on the bed and takes me with him.
We lie there for a moment, luxuriating in the warmth of each other.
He traces a finger up my spine and I shiver and then he grasps the
nape of my neck and forces my mouth down to his. That one kiss
contains more heat and desire than any we’ve ever had because for
once, it doesn’t symbolise the end.

It’s a
beginning.

And a damn
good one, too.

Acknowledgements

There are so
many people to thank when it comes to bringing a book baby to life,
but at the risk of sounding like an Oscar winner blubbering their
way through their acceptance speech, I’d like to take a minute to
thank the incredible people in my life that helped make this book a
reality.

To my darling
Ben, who supports and loves unconditionally. Who puts up with a
partner who spends more time inside her own head than she does in
real life—without compliant—I love you more than you could ever
comprehend! Thanks for being an amazing partner, an even more
incredible father, a freaking awesome (first) cover/web/swag/blog
designer, a sounding board, a saviour, a warrior and my best
friend. The ideas man reigns supreme!

To my babies
Ava and Ari, I love you like crazy! Thanks for sharing mummy with
the voices in her head. I hope when you grow up you’re lucky enough
to have a job you love as much as I do mine, and above all I hope
you never stop dreaming.

To my niece,
Z
ӧ
e Jean—my Ana.
Thank you for agreeing to let me plaster your beautiful face all
over Sugartown. You went above and beyond for our photo shoot and
I’m so incredibly grateful. You’re not only beautiful, but your
grace, humility and humour make you an incredible young woman, and
I couldn’t be more proud.

To my mum for
being the most amazing woman I know … Thank you!

My family and
friends, thank you for understanding that writing a book isn’t just
about stringing together a few pretty sentences, it’s spilling your
blood and guts all over the page and rolling around in it for
months, sometimes years, on end! Now you know why I’m so bloody
crazy.

To Lauren K
McKellar—the greatest editor in all the land—thank you! I gave you
a very messy manuscript and you made it sparkle like a diamond!
Yes, exclamation points and all!!

Heartfelt
thanks to my amazing beta readers: Ali Hymer from Ginger-read
Reviews, Debbie from Talk Supe and Keep Calm Read Romance, and
author Emma Silver. I adore each and every one of you! Thank you
for loving these crazy kids as much as I do, for championing and
swooning—Ali, you’re messed up, but I wouldn’t have you any other
way ;)—right alongside me, for creating teasers, leaving AMAZING
early reviews and helping to spread the word of
Sugartown.

Ali, thank
you for cyber bitch-slapping me when I’m freaking out—which, let’s
face it, happens a lot—for encouraging, and for just plain
getting
me. I don’t know
what cruel fate, soulless entity or cataclysmic events decided/lead
to us living on opposite sides of the world, but I am a better
author, person and friend for knowing you!