We may suck at talking, but this, this we do well.
I let him pull me through the door, hear it click closed behind me. Let him guide me across the room.
He sucks the sensitive skin beneath my ear and my eyelids flutter. His hands drop to my ass, crushing me to him, dragging me down when he sits on the bed, the buckles of my boots jingling as I climb onto his lap, knees either side of his hips. If this is a mistake, it doesn’t feel like one. His hands slide up my thighs beneath my skirt until his fingers twist in the lace waistband of my panties. I roll my hips and my mouth drops open. I can’t think past the delicious friction. Can’t focus on anything other than his hands, his lips, his hard body beneath mine.
He growls against my throat and tugs my panties to the side, the drag of denim against my needy flesh drawing a hiss from my lips.
I lean back and reach for the button of his jeans, still rocking against the hardness straining to be released, my sharp breaths lifting my chest with every jagged inhale. His mouth leaves my skin, and he leans past me to retrieve the condoms we left on the nightstand earlier, before ... before it all went to shit. My shoulders sag. My fingers stilling on his zip.
He lifts his gaze to mine as if reading my thoughts. He doesn’t have to say he feels shitty about what he did, it’s written in the upturned tilt to his eyebrows. In the way he lifts his chin to press a slow, gentle, kiss to my lips, his gaze never leaving mine.
He helps me release him, sliding the condom on with barely more than a glance at what he’s doing.
I can’t look away from the depth of feelings there when he lifts me onto him, filling me slowly, stretching me until my head spins and pressure builds up my spine. Until there’s no space between us. Until there’s no room to doubt this. Our noses touch, our lips brush. I can barely breathe past the words I want to say but don’t know how. The words I can only hope are as clearly written on my face—in my touch—as they are in his.
I circle my hips, grind down on his length, revel in how entirely we’re joined and the sparks tingling in the base of my skull. Maybe I can do this. Maybe we can make this work. Prove them wrong. I wrap my arms around his neck and nip his bottom lip, crush my breasts against his warm chest. He releases my thighs and yanks the bottom of my tank from where it’s tucked into my skirt, dragging it up my body and over my head.
His mouth finds my nipple over the lace bralette, his gaze still on mine. Heavy-lidded, hot, determined.
I can’t get close enough, can’t press hard enough, can’t take him deep enough. We rock and moan and writhe and grind. His hands splay across my back, his teeth graze my skin, tease my nipples, bite my jaw. Pleasure builds from my core to the very tips of my toes. It saturates my mind. Tightens my muscles around his hard, fast thrusts. Pushes me closer, higher, farther until my release blankets my senses, leaving nothing else but his drawn-out moan as his own climax finds him. Only us. Here. Now. No room to think or doubt or worry.
Forehead pressed against the triangle tattoo between my breasts, his arms wrap around my waist, and he pulls me tighter to his body. I trail my fingers through his damp hair and down the back of his neck until the haze clears and the sound of distant waves rolling against the sand floats through the open window, easing my heartbeat and calming my breathing.
“I should have told you about the concert.” His lips tickle my skin with his words before he pulls back to look at me.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said.” My teeth find my well-kissed bottom lip. “Men messing with my music, messing with anything to do with it is a sore spot, but that’s no excuse.” The pricking of my tear ducts makes my chin wobble. “I’m sorry.” I blow out a long breath until I’m sure I won’t completely embarrass myself by snotty crying all over him. “I want this.”
“Then I’d say our odds are up.” His grin crinkles his eyes and dimples his cheeks. “We should get some sleep. We’ve got a gig to start planning tomorrow.”
I’ve barely wiggled out of my skirt before I’m wrapped in his tattooed arms and dragged down beside him. In seconds sleep pulls me under, a smile still tugging at my lips.
My nose twitches and my eyes grudgingly blink open. Nina’s ringtone blares from somewhere on the floor. It’s still dark. Panic has me jerking upright. Still the middle of the night. Nothing good comes from calls from kids in the middle of the night.
I slip from the bed and dig my cell from my skirt pocket, swiping the screen as I tiptoe towards the door. “Nina? What’s wrong?”
The sob I’m greeted with congeals the blood in my veins. I glance back to Sonnie’s sleeping form, then pull the door shut behind me. “Nina? What’s happened?” I pull the cell from my ear and tap the connect video icon.
“Mom’s boyfriend came back—” Nina’s voice cuts off then back in as the video flashes on.
My gaze goes directly to the split in her lip and the dried blood around her nose and a sharp protectiveness I didn’t think I was capable of stabs at my chest. “What the hell happened?”
She touches her fingers to her mouth, wincing as she takes a shallow breath. “Mom happened.” The attitude that usually laces her words is gone. Without it her voice is small and scared, and my God I swear I will kill that fucking woman. “I told mom that it was him or me.” A fat tear escapes her eyes and her breath hiccups in her throat. “She didn’t choose me. We argued. She flipped.” She pulls in a shuddering breath.
I need to get back.
“Where are you?” I’m already through my bungalow door and stuffing the last of my clothes into my backpack. My insides fold over themselves in their attempts to figure out how to deal with the rage of fear and guilt and hopelessness of being so far away. “Where is she?”
“Mom left. I’m in my room.” Her face crumples for real this time. “I’m to be gone when she gets back.” Another hiccup joined by another fat tear. “But, I don’t have anywhere to go, Stan.”
“Go to my place.” I grab the flyer from my first day on the ferry from where I dumped it on the bedside table and flip it over. Ferry times. I’ve got half an hour to make the next one. I’ll book a flight while I’m moving. Be home by dinner time. I hold my cell closer to my face to make sure she’s listening. “You hear me, Nina? Get outta there and go straight to my place. There’s a key under the big rock by the gate.”
I still when she doesn’t answer. The blue of her eyes glitter as she shoves her tears from her cheeks with the butt of her hand. “You’ve still got a week left—you can’t—why would you?” Her words are cut off by another shuddery breath.
It breaks my actual heart. “Nina. Listen to me. I will be there by dinner time. You gotta trust me.”
She nods jerkily, her chin still trembling. “Okay.”
“Call me when you get there.”