Then he kisses me with hail and lightning. Crashing in with a persuasive tongue. Lighting me up with dominant strokes. Owning me with the thunder of his heart.
I wrap my entire being around it—the kiss, the look, the stolen moment that could’ve so easily slipped through my fingers. But our path is set, fated and indelible.
He gathers me close and shifts us up two more stairs. “We should—”
“Here.” I reach for my fly and release the button. “Right now.”
He’s on board, already tearing at his belt and zipper and breathing as hard as I am. His mouth doesn’t leave mine as he drags off my boots and everything beneath my waist. His jeans are next, shoved down to his thighs.
Then we’re on each other, panting with need, burning with desire, and trembling with hunger. He bites my nipples through the wet t-shirt, and I yank on his hair, writhing beneath him, aching, pulsing, grinding to get closer.
His fingers find my hot, wet center, and he sinks two inside, groaning against my lips. I buck against him and reach for his cock. I’m too worked up for foreplay. It’s been too fucking long to draw this out.
“Please, Jarret.” I squeeze the steely length of him. “Hurry.”
He glances down between us, lips parted as he glides the head of his cock along my slit. “I haven’t been with anyone.”
“Me, neither. And I still have the IUD.” I release a breath and meet his eyes. “Someday… Not now, but someday, I want kids with you.”
His cheeks lift with a smile he can’t contain, and he grabs the side of my head, his other hand clenched around his dick.
“Fucking love you.” He thrusts hard and deep. “Ahhhh, Christ, Maybe.”
His forehead drops to mine. His hands fall to my hips, and he doesn’t give me time to adjust. He fucks me with a speed and urgency that bounces my breasts and stretches my inner muscles.
Arms sliding beneath me, he leverages me off the steps and prevents my back from grinding into concrete. His hunger, his power, his love—all of it slams into me, rough and fast, like a hammering piston as he unleashes a year and a half of celibacy.
I palm his ass, delighting in the flex and clench of hard muscles as he wedges himself deeper, harder between my legs, bowing over me, forcing me to open wider, demanding I accept every long vicious inch of him.
His eyes stay with me, absorbing my expressions and cementing the connection. Our hips move in tandem at the quickest pace we’ve ever fucked, but our heads hold together, foreheads touching, breaths joined, gazes locked in a trance.
“You’re going to make me come.” I lean in and lick his lips.
“I’m with you.” He presses a hand against my lower back and grinds against my clit, deepening the strokes. “Come on my cock.”
My entire body erupts, pulsing and clenching. I open my mouth to scream, but there’s no sound. No air. Only him and the overwhelming pleasure he ripples through us.
He comes with me, jerking his hips, his face slack, and his low long groan reverberating through the stairwell.
“Fuck, Maybe.” He braces his hands on the step on either side of my head, staring down at me, breathless. “That felt so damn good.”
I clench around his softening cock, exquisitely replete and struggling to focus.
“Don’t bother getting dressed.” He rocks his hips, stroking in and out. “As soon as we get upstairs, I’m spreading you out on the bed and worshiping you properly.”
The bed that’s currently occupied.
I close my eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
It’s after one in the morning when I pull the truck under the archway of Julep Ranch. Maybe’s head lolls on my shoulder, her minty scent teasing my inhales and warming my blood.
I still can’t believe she took me back. I hoped. Fuck, I hoped with every goddamn breath I took, and I would’ve never given up. But when she ran out of her apartment in the rain, the sight of her suspended me in a dream.
I’ve yet to wake from that dream.
We have a lot to discuss, eighteen months to catch up on. Not to mention the reckless stunt she pulled with my father.
My hand clenches around the steering wheel as anger reignites.
When she told me Rogan conned her, I wanted to kill him all over again. Then she described her rescue mission with Raina. I had to lock my rage down tight. Punching walls and roaring at the top of my lungs wouldn’t have been the best way to welcome her back into my life.
She’s alive and unharmed, and I’m focusing all my energy on that. Her punishment will come later.
Beside her, Raina curls up against the door, frozen in the kind of stiff sleep that doesn’t bring rest.
She hasn’t spoken since I found her in Maybe’s apartment five hours ago. She’s barely been conscious. I looked over her wounds. A lot of bruises, welts, and knife cuts. But nothing appears infected or broken. On the outside.