Page 70 of Love Notes & Lifelines
I’ve never felt this way with a man. He’s the only one I’ve been able to give myself over to so completely, and none of it’s real—it doesn’tmeananything. It’sjust sex.
What will we do tomorrow?
Beck tugs on my nipple, dragging me back to the here and now. His fingers work the button, then the zipper on my pants, and my chest expands until I can’t take in another breath.
I lift my hands to his shoulders, and he takes his time scanning my entire body before he meets my gaze. The want and need I’m experiencing is reflected in his cool green irises.
“Say yes.” His words hang resonant in the dead of night.
“Yes.”
It’s the only thing I can say—the only thing I want to say.
Whatever he’s been holding back is unleashed with that one word. He strips my pants away as easily as if he sliced through them with a pair of scissors.
He shifts us, then kneels between my legs on the sofa, and stares down at my near-naked body.
“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles. “So damn beautiful.” He says it like it makes him mad, like he wishes it weren’t true, and my self-esteem takes a nosedive.
I hug my arms around myself, but I have no chance of hiding—not when he shakes his head with a determined, heavy-lidded gaze.
“No, not tonight. For one night I get all you have to offer, and then I’ll spend years playing it over again in my mind.”
My chest heaves. There’s too much inaction. It gives me too much time to think. Too much time to question, and finally he understands. His thumbs hook into the tiny strings of my panties, and he shreds them from my body. Scraps of cheap lace slip through his fingers while his gaze eats me alive.
“Beck?” He can’t just sit there staring. I’m losing my mind. I need him to move. I need…wait. If this is one night, I don’t have to need anything. I can take. And trust me, I want to take.
I sit up abruptly, forcing him back on his heels as I move forward. My fingers fumble with his button and zipper, then he’s lying back while I shuck his pants from his thick thighs.
Our bodies tangle and I trail kisses down his hips as I attempt to remove his boxers. When I tug them again, revealing an inch more skin, his cock springs free and smacks me in the forehead, directly over the cut from my mother’s nail.
I wince and move along quickly, but he studies me too closely. He sees everything, and before I can lower my mouth to his erection, I’m flat on my back while he kicks his legs free of his pants.
“Whatever hurts you will not be me. Not my body, or my actions, and definitely not my cock.” Does he hear himself? Does he know the pain his words have already caused? Then he leans over me so his heavy erection rests against my thigh and I lose the ability to think.
My core clenches in anticipation, moisture pooling between my legs.
He’s big—long and thick—and he moves his hips in a way that makes me shiver with anticipation.
His lips land softly, gently, on the cut, and he takes the opportunity to stare at it up close and personal. He drops his gaze to mine, but I’m too embarrassed to comment and stare over his shoulder instead.
“No more pain tonight, Stella Jane. One night of pleasure to remind ourselves that life doesn’t have to hurt. One night.”
One night. It hits like an atomic bomb, and perhaps that’s what he’d intended. He’s told me over and over again he doesn’t need me. Perhaps it’s time I started listening to truths instead of wishing on lies.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BECK
Trust doesn’t comeeasy for either of us, and yet, we’re about to do just that with our bodies.
It should register as a warning. It should trigger something in my self-control to step away and stop this, but it doesn’t. It begs and teases me onward. It makes me a believer, if only for tonight.
I fucking hate that anyone or anything has marred her perfect skin and there’s nothing I can do to fix it, but I can make her forget—for a little while anyway.
I kiss her forehead, the tip of her nose, the divot at the base of her neck, then I slowly, meticulously make my way down her body to her bare pussy. It beckons me forward with her scent of sex, drugging my thoughts.
My mouth waters instantly. It’s a response that’s out of my control because my body has been waiting for this moment for an entire year. The way she mewls and clenches her thighs claws at my self-control and it’s addicting—every piece of her makes me want more.
