“What are you doing?” she whispers, her voice husky.
It sends a jolt through me, and I will my dick not to respond. Down boy.
“Taking care of you,” I tell her simply before kneeling beside her on the bed. My hand drifts up her thigh, urging them to part. Laying back against the pillows, she rolls her lips in and stares up at me, that same nervousness back in her eyes again. When she finally lets her legs fall open, I take my time cleaning her up from the mess I’d made of her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Her eyes soften then, that mouth that I could spend the rest of my life tasting tilting up at the corners. “No.”
“Good,” I breathe, smoothing my palm over her hip and up to her waist. I can’t stop touching her. It physically pains me to stop running my fingers along every bare, soft inch of her body. She’s my worst addiction, and I have no chance in hell of kicking it. Leaning down, I kiss her, slowly, deeply.
I’m a goner for this woman. Mind, body, soul. It’s all hers. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Sighing against her lips, I peck one more kiss to her mouth and then stand, rounding the bed to bend low and grab my underwear, jeans, and t-shirt.
Sitting upright in bed, she pulls the sheet back up until it covers her breasts, her eyes wide as she watches me. “Are you leaving?”
“I figured you wouldn’t want me to stick around, with the kids here.”
I stop what I’m doing to face her as she nods stiffly, then drops her eyes to her fingers, which are twined together in her lap. The sheet is tucked beneath her arms over her chest.
“Right. Sure,” she whispers. “Will you umm, can you hand me my robe, please?”
Dammit. She’s doing that shoulder hunch thing where she curls in on herself, making herself shrink. I hate when she does this, like she doesn’t understand how fucking amazing she is. I sit back on the edge of the bed, gripping her chin between my finger and thumb and force her face up so that she’s looking at me again.
“Hey. Don’t do that,” I whisper, my gaze flitting over her face. She swallows hard and a fissure opens up in my chest. I realize then what my swift departure must look like to her. Swiping my thumb over the curve of her bottom lip, I tell her, “I didn’t think you would want the kids to see me here… but I would much rather stay here and hold you, if that’s what you want. I’m not ready to let go of you, yet.”
Her lower lip trembles and I lean forward to kiss her gently. She nods just the slightest. “Yes, please.”
“Come here,” I whisper against her mouth, pulling that damn sheet away from her body again and dragging her into my lap. Sliding the fingers of one hand up through her now tousled blonde waves, I curl my fingers into the strands and pull taut, limiting her range of motion. Her mouth falls open beneath mine in a soft, breathy gasp, and the sound goes straight to my dick. I sip at her lips. “I will do whatever makes you happy, Teddy. If that means sleeping in this bed holding you all night and sneaking out early as fuck so Dalton doesn’t catch us, that’s what I’ll do.”
She laughs lightly, almost hesitantly, her lips pecking at mine, like she can’t fathom ending the embrace either. Her hands bracket my jaw, her fingernails scratching lightly at my beard. It sends goosebumps down my arms.
“I’m really mad at you,” she whispers, though her tone says the opposite. I chuckle, tightening my arms around her. She feels so good in my arms.
“Yeah? Why’s that?” I tease.
“Because those were some of the best orgasms I’ve ever had,” she laughs, dropping her face into the curve of my neck.
“And that’s a bad thing?” I ask, laughing, too.
“No,” she teases quietly, “but it’s going to make me want to keep you around.”
Pressing a kiss to her forehead, I repeat on a whisper, “And that’s a bad thing?”
Teddy inhales slowly, her ribcage expanding with the breath, then lets it out slowly, her lips trailing against the side of my neck. My heart thuds heavily in my chest. Even though she hasn’t said the words, I know what she’s not saying.
That she and I both know that there is a very real possibility that we are both going to want something that I can’t guarantee.
Buzzing wakes me up, and I groan, reaching over to turn my alarm off.
Swiping up my phone, I glare at it, my vision blurry without my glasses, because it won’t shut off. What the hell? Squinting at the brightness of my phone screen, I realize it’s only four am. Why the hell is my alarm going off at four am?
A heavy, deep sigh from behind me makes me go still, my heart pounding in my ears. Oh shit. Xander…
The mattress shifts beneath his weight as he rolls over to the other side and then the light of his phone screen glows as he lays back down behind me, and I realize it was Xander’s phone ringing, not my alarm.
“Yeah?” is his only answer as he picks up the call. His voice is rough and husky from sleep, and he doesn’t try to hide the fact that he just woke up to whoever is calling at this ungodly hour. I lower myself back to my pillow and half turn onto my back, glancing at him over my shoulder. “Oregon? How many acres? Shit. Okay.”
Leaning up onto his elbow, he rolls toward me, planting a kiss to the tip of my bare shoulder. It sends my heart skittering inmy chest, and those butterflies in my belly are currently at a rave. He’s listening to whoever is on the other end of the phone, but his lips are dragging along the back of my bicep and my shoulder.
