I grab his helmet off the Ducati and stand on my tippy toes, raising it to his head. He dips so that I can put the helmet on him, smirking with a satisfied curve to his lips.
And in those few seconds, a tiny bit of theshitin my head organises itself. What happen to Perry wasn’t his fault. It was Jimmy’s and. . . maybe even his own for believing he could trap me using borrowed power from the likes of Jimmy Storm. He lied to me about who he was. Something Bronson would never do; he has never pretended to be anything other than exactly what he is. I used to be the same. I’d like to be that again. I tap the side of Bronson’s helmet with my palm. “Let’s go, nutcase.”
During the ride back, I think about how much I need to talk to him about that day in the park. It’s a dangerous entity whirling around us. I don’t want to get swept up in it, but I do want to acknowledge it.
After we arrive at his house, we eat and then shower. I sit on the mattress, naked and drying my hair with a towel, wondering how long I’m going to pretend I don’t have a house and a life in Darwin. Am I staying with him? Should I bring Akila here? I know the answer, even though it seems completely crazy. I know I’ll never want to leave. We can pick up where we left off. We can. . .
He slides his naked body in behind me, taking the towel from my hands, drying my wet strands.
“You said you wanted me to stay with you.” I sigh, feeling his fingers massaging my scalp from the other side of the material. “Did you mean-”
“I meantstay,”he murmurs by my ear. “Be with me. Bring Akila home. I’ll take care of both of you like I always wanted to.”
And that’s just it. I’ve had enough of people taking care of me. “I think I should take care of myself from now on.”
“Fine.” His breath hits my neck. “Take care of me too.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, but he can’t see it. I look out the window at the canals behind their house, at the rooftops on the other side. Memories flow back. “I need looking after, baby.” He licks the shell of my ear, mouthing it and taking it into his mouth. “Ever think of that?” he says, kissing from my ear to my neck. “That maybe. . .maybe I needed you much more than you ever needed me.”
I think about how painful it was without him. Going through that again. . . I don’t think I can. “I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
“Do you think we can just pick up where we left off?” I sigh, the concept impossible after everything we have been through. “Just. . . I don’t know. Move forward.”
“We can try-“ Quickly he pulls me backwards with him, rolling me onto my stomach. My damp dark-hair fans out all around the sheets. I inhale quickly as he mounts me, his cock slapping the crease of my arse. “You wanna pick up where we left off? Well, do you remember the first time we made love, baby?” He places a hand on either side of my head on the pillow.
Of course, I remember, Bronson.
Twisting my head, I peer back at him. “Yes.”
“Remind me,” he teases, looking down at me like the boy I fell in love with at thirteen but with the body of man, skin adorned with ink and muscles and stories. “How did it happen?” His eyes grow heavy as he strokes his cock between my arse cheeks, jerking himself off with my body. I watch him, licking my lips at the vision of how indecent and delicious he is. “You snuck into my room on my seventeenth birthday.” I smile. “You brought me red roses. You told me you didn’t want to buy them. That it was a copout. You wanted me to have roses that were never meant for anyone else. So, you picked wild ones and sliced the thorns off with the knife you kept in your boot. Your blood was on the stem of one where you cut yourself and I thought nothing was more romantic than that.”
He crawls down my body, reverently kissing every inch of skin along my spine. I roll my face around the pillow, close my eyes and just. . .feeling him.
“You wanted our first time to be special,” I say. “You waited so long for me. Max was already having sex, but you weren’t. You never made me feel bad about it, either. But I knew you needed it this night. I saw it in your eyes and was so nervous. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. So . . . you pushed me onto my stomach and told me to grip the sheets.”
Bronson runs his fingers up my sides, little shivers rushing along their path. He moves my arms up and feeds our fingers together, moulding mine around the sheets and blankets, just like he did all those years ago. Lifting my pelvis off the mattress, he tucks a pillow under my hips.
“Keep going,” he whispers beside my ear.
“You knelt either side of my thighs and played with my pussy,” I say as he follows my words like a command, sitting on his heels, his thighs either side of mine. I moan when his fingers touch the wet swelling lips between my legs.
He hums in a deep, raw cadence. “You have a perfect pussy, baby. Smooth. Tight. Your beautiful pink inside is hidden from me until I part these lovely, tanned lips.”
Jesus christ.
I moan at his words. At his touch. His fingers are worshipful in their slow and skilled exploration. I rub my hips into the pillow, tilting my pussy to him. Writhing and humming, I struggle to think or form thoughts, let alone words.
“Then I licked my fingers,” he says for me, because I’m too intent on giving myself over to the soft sensual torture he is subjecting me to. “I wiped your juices on my lips so I could taste you while I made love to you for the first time. I wanted all my senses to be full of you. My entire being to be absorbed by you. Only you.” His hands leave my aching, needy core. I twist my face further to watch him coat his lips withme. No man has ever made every part of me seem like a meal. Like a treat. He closes his eyes as he licks at his fingers, forcing me to moan my arousal.
Opening his eyes and staring down at me, a glimmer of sadness shifts through his eyes, but then it’s gone. Before I can think more about it, he drops to his elbows, his hard body stealing my air, labouring my breaths.
His forehead presses to my hair, lips touching my ear. “Then I sank inside you.” Reaching down, he manoeuvres us both. Slowly, he pushes inside me, squeezing my legs together with his thighs, tightening the hole he’s dipping into. I whimper at his excruciatingly slow speed.
“I told you I loved you. I told you how good you were doing,” he says around deep rumbling groans, his voice coiled and near breaking. “I love you, Shoshanna. I love you. You’re such a good girl to me. . . You take mesogood.”
“Bronson,” is all I can manage; my voice is trapped in my throat with all my sorrow and happiness and melancholy. Feeding his hand beneath me, he presses it to my lower abdomen, and I nearly break on a sob. His palm rests right over the spot our baby was growing.