My voice died away, the instincts that had been hard coded into me stopping me from saying more, but Van wasn’t standing for that.

“When you got home, what, Kendall? What?”

“You just want me to tell you how beautiful you are.”

I ground that out between clenched teeth.

“Beautiful…?” He couldn’t be that surprised. People blew smoke up his arse all the time and then, some of the girls just blew him. That had my eyes raking across his bare chest, taking in the swells of taut muscle, taking in the way the shadows turned his skin to tarnished gold, right before my eyes slid down. “You didn’t think…”

He was mine now, that’s what he was saying and for a moment I felt the sense of having everything you ever wanted and feeling sure it was about to be snatched away. It was like finding out you were a lottery winner when you were down to your last dollar, and I couldn’t seem to get my brain to understand it. That my fingers didn’t need to flex on the air but could slide over his skin. That when I touched him, he sighed, then hissed out a breath like it hurt to feel me, but when I went to pull away, it hurt more for me to stop.

“Tell me you weren’t up the hall, aching in your bed for me, just like I was you.” I felt his words rather than heard them, his voice low and quiet. “Tell me you didn’t need me just as much as I needed you. That you would’ve been prepared to risk your parents’ wrath to get to me because that’s how much you needed me.”

“I can’t,” I replied, staring into his eyes, willing him to see it. The thing I’d never dared admit to… anyone really, not even myself most of the time. “I can’t, Van. I fucking hated you.” A little flinch at that, as if I’d slapped him rather than told him my truth. “But I…” I swallowed frantically, my throat now bone dry. “I wanted you just as much, maybe more.”

“More.” He nodded slowly, surging forward, taking my mouth, my neck, as his hands moved frantically, undoing the button of my pants then sending them fluttering down by my ankles. I did the same, no longer OK that those thin cotton shorts were between us.

And nothing else.

His cock felt like it seared my hand when I wrapped my fingers around it and he hissed as if it burned him too, going so very still. I slid my thumb up and down the underside, and he shivered, bearing that tiny caress for as long as he could before shoving my hand away.

“I’m so fucking close.” His eyes shone as he confessed that. “Feels like I’m always on edge around you, Kendall, but I’m not blowing on your thigh like some dumb teenager. Baby…” I always hated cute nicknames before this, but he could call me baby any damn day of the week because he said the word with such sweetness, such desperation. “I spend my fucking days wanting to crawl up inside you as deep as I can go. Tell me I can have that.”

Something tightened, then flexed and fluttered, like he was already buried inside me. And maybe he was in some way, both of us lodged under each other’s skin, like a burr. Instead of plucking it free, we wanted to push those little barbs deeper, locking each other together in ways that would never be separated.

“Yeah, I want that.”

He tried to strip me bare, but my shoes were tangled with my pants, so I dropped down to sort that out, easing them off only to be confronted by his cock. It was long, hard, and twitching in the air, which was perhaps why I moved. Licking a stripe up the centre of his dick to the musical sound of his protest turning into a moan.

“Fuck, baby…”

I’d sucked plenty of dicks before this, but never had anyone said anything like that with such reverence. Nor had anyone cradled my head with gentle hands as I swallowed as much as I could. That little thrust, nudging at the back of my throat, the way his hips mimicked the suck of my mouth had us both working harder, faster, when he forced himself to pull away.

“Not like that.” His dick throbbed in time with his heartbeat, telling a whole other story. “Later, but not now.” Van pulled me upright, kissing me once before turning me around. My hands were pressed against the foot of the bed frame, forced to feel how well he’d sanded the timber. “I remembered how blowing down your throat felt all fucking day, but now I need something else.”

It became clear what he meant as he slid his hand through my folds. He groaned when he felt his fingers come away wet.

“Fuck, you need it too…”

“Yes,” I hissed as he pushed his fingers inside me far too easily. They created a little stretch that was an echo of last night, but it wasn’t enough. His fingers were torn free, leaving me gasping, right as they slid around to strum my clit. When I felt something big and hard brush across my seam, my stance widened, my hips tilted back.

“Ready for me already, baby?” I heard a rustle, felt a shift on the bed, but I couldn’t focus on that, not when I felt Van notch the head of his cock against my opening. I tried to push back, to engulf every inch, but I didn’t get a chance. He slapped his hand down on my hip, holding me right where I was. “Need to take this slow. Been dreaming of this too fucking long to rush shit.”

“And here was I, just trying to dream.”

My eyes flicked open to see a naked Connor kneeling before me.

Chapter 42

Connor

They thought they were oh-so-quiet, but I woke up the moment the door clicked open and then stared into the darkness as Kendall and Van entered the room.

I watched Van kiss our girl then recite savage poems to the beauty of her breasts, but it wasn’t until she said that one word, yes, that I felt like I could take a full breath. My head was all light and spacey, like I was oxygen deprived, as I watched them together, but it was Kendall I needed, not air.

It was like my lips were kissing her neck and shoulders, like I was telling her how much I wanted her, then I was silenced as I sucked her nipple, feeling the hard bead roll around my mouth. But it was Van who did all those things, getting Kendall naked, the thin bars of moonlight tracing the shape of her body as he turned her around. Her fingers clasped the baseboard of a bed frame I’d worked hard to sand smooth and when she leaned forward, gasping, I knew what Van was doing. Rubbing his cock all over that wet little pussy because I’d be doing just the same. I’d had flashbacks of doing just that all fucking day, getting hard at inopportune moments as I remembered the velvety suck of her cunt as I pushed in.

“Wasn’t sure if you were coming home tonight,” I croaked, catching the moment her eyes met mine. “But fuck, I’m glad you did.”