"The fact you have"—he rocked into me like he was trying to demolish walls—"something to say"—and dislocate my hips—"proves you want me to use you even rougher."
"No, Jed, not rougher," I begged. "No, I can't—"
"No?" He pulled out but kept his hands on my thighs, brushed his thumbs over my backside and the spot where my legs met my center. It was uncomfortable like this, contorted and empty. I wanted to be filled, moved. And yes, used. "You want me to stop? You've changed your mind?"
It hurt, this emptiness. It was an ache, deep and true, and I couldn't go on this way. I couldn't live another minute without him inside me. I clawed at his chest, reaching for as much of him as I could get. Anything I could get. "You owe me," I snapped. "You still haven't made up for the time when you didn't wake me up."
His thumb tapped my clit once, twice—and then he went back to kissing my damn leg. "Do better," he said. "I know you can do better than that."
"No, not when I'm still mad about it," I replied. "If I wasn't enjoying it, I would've woken up and told you as much. I wanted that one, Jed."
Scraping his beard up my leg, he laughed into my skin. "You know this isn't a punch card situation, right? You're not working up to a free fuck, Bam."
Still chuckling, he shifted my leg to kiss my ankle. My damn ankle. "Oh my fucking god, Jed. If you don't put that rolling-pin dick inside me and keep going right now, I'll leave here and set fire to the tavern."
I wasn't finished issuing that threat when he was seated all the way inside me and we were crying out, a chorus of groans, growls, wails. The way he bent me made it feel like his cock was everywhere. It was almost too much, but only almost. It reduced my world down to him, me, us. It emptied my mind and took away the itchy need to control anything.
"There you go, Bam." He grinned down at me as if I'd learned to tie my shoes and rewarded me with a slow, slow slide of him inside me. "That's how I want you."
"You like that?" I asked. "You enjoy the idea of me burning down the tavern?"
"I do," he admitted. "I want you so desperate that arson makes sense and then I want to fuck you so good all you can do is take it." He pressed two fingers to my lips. "No more talking. You're not the boss here. This isn't one of your conference calls."
I raked my nails over the octopus inked into his shoulder. He answered with a rumbly groan and I clenched around him without thought. "I hate you."
"Go ahead and let yourself believe that, sweetheart."
* * *
It'd happened onceor twice and I'd written it off each time, never paying it any mind. It wasn't a big deal and there was no reason to create drama where none existed, so I didn't. It didn't mean anything.Thisdidn't mean anything.
But as I lingered in JJ's bed more than thirty minutes after orgasms had been achieved and the condom was discarded, his arms tight around my body and my head tucked under his chin, the wordsignificantpulsed behind my eyes. This was becoming significant, and I didn't know how to find space for more significance in my life. I didn't know whether I wanted to find that space.
He ran his palm down my flank, over my hip. "Are you good, Bam? Are you going to be able to walk all right?"
"Why? Are you tossing me out?" My words came out like the crack of a whip, much harder than I'd intended. "It's fine, I mean, I should go—"
"You really know how to wind yourself up," he murmured. "It's the middle of the night and it's snowing. You're not going anywhere but I want to know if you need a hot bath or something. This time was a little—"
"Savage?"
He shrugged, pressed a kiss to the crown of my head, my temple, the corner of my mouth. "Nothing wrong with savage if it gets you where you need to go."
"Tell me more about that, Jed," I joked, expecting him to say something about turning women into pretzels in order to give them black-out quality orgasms. "Where do I need to go?"
"You need to get out of your head," he replied softly. "So far outta your head, Bam."
Significant.
For the second time in far too recent history, tears filled my eyes. "I have to go," I said, fighting his embrace. "Seriously, this isn't one of those situations where I want you to hold me down and ignore my protests. I have to go."
"It's the middle of the night." He locked his arms around me, pinned my legs with his strong thigh. "It's snowing. It's been twenty minutes since you were semi-conscious and ten since you stopped shaking. You're not going anywhere."
I was prepared to argue, to kick and fight. To do all the things I usually did to keep people away.
But then he said, "And I don't want you to go, Brooke."
Resentful, overwhelmed, significant tears streaked down my cheeks and I turned my face toward his arm. "You don't get to say things like that."
