Page 55 of Worth the Wait

“And I like the way you fuck,” she says seconds before I lift her hips up and push my dick into her.

Every inch of my body vibrates from wanting to come instantaneously, at how incredible she feels wrapped around my cock. Every. Single. Inch.

Her lips slant over mine and she takes control as she slides her tongue between my lips to urge me to move.

And I do.

Her room suits her. It’s bright and eccentric and a little bit of everything thrown all together, but it works.

At least that’s what it looks like from where I’m sitting, propped on a shit ton of pillows against her headboard, staring at her.

“Why don’t you come back here and lie down?”

Her hand freezes midway to whatever she was reaching for. Yes, Desi, that means I’m not leaving here. That means I’m not done with you yet. Not by a long stretch.

She turns and looks at me from where she stands looking out the window to the darkness beyond. She’s still naked, her hair a mess, but I can tell she’s already trying to figure out her next move, when that next move is going to be coming back to bed with me.

It takes her a beat and for me to pat the bed, but she slowly makes her way and slides in beside me. I feel her stiffen when I pull her close to me so her head is against my shoulder and my arm is wrapped around her back.

We sit in an awkward silence as she tries to come to terms with what this cuddling thing is. It’s almost comical how I can feel her tense every time I shift a millimeter as if she’s afraid to touch me, when minutes ago I was buried balls deep in her.

But slowly she relaxes, and her fingers begin to draw aimlessly on my arm.

“What are your tattoos of?” It’s the first time she’s spoken, and it doesn’t surprise me that it’s to shift the focus elsewhere.

Everyone has a story to tell...they are my story. I sigh. My mantra. But this is Desi...and for some reason I want to talk when I normally don’t. For some reason, I feel compelled to tell her my story. “When I was younger, I was a real piece of work. I was out of control. Always in trouble.”

“And you’re a cop?” She laughs.

“It was the only thing that saved me. I was walking that fine line—could have gone either way, convict or cop—and I chose cop.”

“Do you mind me asking what happened?”

I lick my lips and trace my finger up and down the line of her spine. “Rough upbringing. My dad thought fists were the best form of fear, but what he didn’t understand was that it made me crave that form of attention. Eventually, I didn’t fear the bad, just the good.” I chuckle at the thought. At the memory of the sound of his voice when he’d call me “Sonny boy” and how those two words meant I was about to get my ass kicked. “I started doing petty shit. Stealing this or that. Vandalism. I fell into the wrong crowd as you’d expect, and one night I went on a ride with them, not knowing what they knew. They’d brought guns along. Held up a convenience store and the minute the shots were fired, they ran to flee while I stood there staring at the blood seeping from the clerk’s chest.”

“Jesus, Rez.”

“Yeah, well...they left without asking me to go. Thought they’d leave me there to take the fall for them since I was clearly on the CCV television the store had. I stayed all right, but I also called 9-1-1 and applied pressure to the wound to help stop the bleeding.” I can still remember the taste of fear in my mouth. Watching his blood stain between my fingers as I pressed against the wound with my T-shirt. “Obviously I didn’t cover for the kids but pointed them out. That put a target on my back so...I left. Moved a few cities north to one where I could get lost in its population, and joined the Academy.”

“That’s crazy,” she says. And she doesn’t even know the half of it.

“What about you? Why the dog grooming business?”

She snorts. “Because dogs are way more loyal than men.”

Ah, we’re back to that here?

“Is that so?” I take advantage of her head tilted to look at me and press my lips against hers. I kiss her gently, my tongue slipping between her lips and teasing her without any sense of urgency. Her body softens as I worship her mouth in a kiss that I can feel all the way to the bottom of my balls.

Jesus.

The woman knows how to knock a man on his ass.

And just as quietly as we slipped into this kiss, Desi pushes away from me and sits up. The draw of her breath is shaky and the way her hands play with the quilt on the bed, anxious.

I study her. Fear is rolling off her. “You just can’t do it, can you?” I ask into the darkness of the room.

“Do what?”