Page 50 of Cloud Nine Love

This town was small, and word got around fast. At least a hundred people had mentioned it to me at the wedding tonight, asking if I was okay, telling me that we could work things out, or trying to set me up with people. Which was really annoying considering the one person I wanted to be with wouldn’t give me the time of day.

“They know you broke up, but no one knows that Misty is pregnant or that she cheated on you.”

I had no idea why we were even talking about this. It had nothing to do with us. All I’d been able to think about since I met the woman standing in front of me was her. She had consumed my entire waking and sleeping life. But if that’s what she wanted to know, I’d answer her.

“I’m not really sure. I don’t…” I took a breath and considered the question. Why hadn’t I told anyone that she was pregnant and had cheated on me? I exhaled as I gathered my thoughts. My head shook back and forth as I explained, “No one here really knows Misty. She’s a good person. Her actions don’t change that. But if people knew, they would judge her on them without any context. She doesn’t deserve to be judged. I was…gone. A lot. I thought I loved her. I really did, but now…” I stopped myself from saying, “Now that I met you and know what real love feels like, I know the love I felt for her wasn’t enough.”

Taylor didn’t have many tells. Her expression was typically indecipherable, but her breath told me everything I needed to know. Her chest rose and fell in short pants. She felt what I was feeling; she was just better at masking it.

“But now what?” She prompted me to finish what I was saying.

“But now, I know it wasn’t enough. Misty deserved better. She deserved more.”

Her mossy stare swam with confusion. “I don’t understand how you can be so…calm about everything.”

“Calm? I’m not calm.” I grabbed her hand and placed it on my chest, pressing her palm flat against my pounding, racing heartbeat. “Do you feel that?”

Her head nodded as her lips parted and her eyes widened.

“This isn’t because of a broken engagement. Since the moment I saw you sitting in that bar, I have come alive. I have felt more this past week than I have since…” I swallowed hard over the words clogging my throat as I began to realize the magnitude of what I was about to confess. “I haven’t felt, not like this, not alive, not whole, since before my dad died.”

Her eyes closed, and for a moment, I thought that what I’d shared might have been too much for her, that things had gotten too real.

“That’s not fair,” she breathed out.

“What’s not fair?”

Her eyes opened, and in them, I saw a softness, an openness, and a vulnerability that hadn’t been there since the night in the hotel. “How am I supposed to resist you when you say things like that?”

I couldn’t help but grin as my fingers gripped hers, still flat against my chest. “I think the point is, you’re not.”

She lifted up on her tiptoes, her arms wrapped around my neck, as she kissed me with a passion and force that nearly knocked me off my feet. The momentum carried me back several feet, until my back slammed against the wall in the kitchen.

Once I got my footing beneath me, I gripped her ass and lifted her up off the ground. I spun around, so she was the one with her back against the wall. Her legs wrapped around me, and my waist and my hips pinned her in place.

With a flick of my finger, I untied her cloth belt, and her robe fell open, freeing her beautiful breasts, revealing she didn’t have a shirt beneath it.

“Are you naked?” I asked.

“I have on underwear.”

A moan rumbled through me as I lifted my hands and squeezed her full mounds, before lowering my head and ravishing her perfect, perky nipples. I sucked them both into my mouth, hungrily devouring first her right then her left nipple. My teeth sank into the tight buds as the tip of my tongue flicked across their flat surfaces.

“Yes,” she encouraged repeatedly as her hips rolled into me, causing her sex to rub against my rock-hard length trapped behind its zippered cage.

As I continued lavishing her with open-mouth kisses and love bites, tension coursed through her body. I could feel her body getting close to release. The last time I’d made a girl come by dry humping was my first year in the Army, and I had no plans on going down memory lane tonight. When Taylor came, I was going to be tasting her, feeling her, touching her.

My hands gripped her hips, and I walked two steps and set her on the kitchen table. I dropped to my knees as her cotton robe slid down her arms pooled around her on the wooden tabletop. She hooked her thumbs in the strings of her white lace panties and started to shimmy them down, but I stopped her.

“Leave them on,” I commanded gruffly.

Taylor’s emerald stare was glossed over with arousal as she stared down at me and removed her hands from her waist. Her arms fell beside her. Our gazes remained locked as my fingers trailed up her inner thighs, pushing her legs farther apart. When my touch reached the apex of her legs, I traced the outline of her feminine lips over the lace covering her sex. Her body trembled as I ran my fingers up and down her core.

“So pretty,” I breathed as I leaned forward and kissed the thin scrap of material. My tongue traveled up and down, coating her panties with my saliva.

When her thighs began to quiver, I pulled the lace to the side and pressed my tongue against her soft, dewy flesh. A growl of male appreciation resonated low in my throat as her arousal hit my tastebuds. My dick swelled painfully as I licked her folds, pushing the tip of my tongue past her seam. Her hips ground against my mouth as her hands fisted in my hair, holding my head in place.

I took my time, licking her everywhere but where she wanted it most, teasing her most sensitive spot. I took special care to trace circles around her distended nub, never actually making full contact. After several trips, her sex began to pulse, and I picked up my speed.

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