Page 47 of Setting Limits

His hands are on my shoulders, and I know he wants to flip us, but I slam myself down on him too fast for him to shift us. His eyes clamp shut, and he groans, his hands lowering to grip my hips.

He’s perfectly vulnerable, so I start shifting forward and backward before I add a slight lift. My head tips back, my hair grazing my ass and likely his balls too.

Everything about Wes feels utterly perfect. His rock-hard cock inside me, his hands tight around my waist, even how his body feels between my thighs.

“Goddamn, Chelsea. You’re fucking incredible. Fuck.” He slides his hands forward and cups my breasts, tweaking the nipples between his fingers, which pulls a moan from my chest.

With that, he sits up and leans forward, pulling my nipple into his mouth. When his teeth clamp down, a thrill runs through me, and I shriek but keep bouncing on his lap.

As he massages my breast and laves at my nipple with his tongue, all while I keep moving up and down on his cock, I have the best orgasm of my life. And when I’m done screaming his name, utterly spent, my head drops to his shoulder, where it stays while he lifts my hips and pistons into me until he comes too, not far behind me at all.

We sit holding each other and breathing heavily for a minute or two before he kisses along my shoulder and up my neck, shifting me to my back and laying me down. Again, he hops off the bed and takes care of the cleanup, leaving me in bed utterly satiated.

I’m half asleep already as he climbs back onto the bed, curling around me and tucking me into him.

As I drift off, I feel nothing but at ease and safe, surrounded by warmth and spice.

Chapter 24

It’sbeenaboutaweek of Wes and I being together. It’s been nothing short of amazing. Even though we have to sneak around, it’s not really that sneaky since Lochlyn and Shay are together all the time and almost exclusively outside the dorm. It’s easy for Wes to be in my room, and nobody would think anything because, apparently, he spends a lot of time out. They probably just assume he’s with a new girl, which he is, though they’d never guess it was me.

We’re lying facing each other, our fingers laced together as we talk about deeper things. Wes is an only child, but revealed that he always wanted a sibling, just never asked his parents because he didn’t want them to feel badly about not being able to have one. He was a bit of a miracle baby himself, which makes me twice as happy to have him.

“I know that everybody thinks I’m a selfish bitch, that I need to have everything my way all the time.” Wes opens his mouth to talk, but I hold my hand up. “Don’t. I know it. And I won’t deny it, because Ihavebeen that way.” To say the very least.

“I think some of it comes from feeling so forgotten, that I had to make sure the people I still had stuck with me. But it was a major overcorrection to being controlling of them. To needing them to be with me all the time and do as I say. I think it helped me feel a tiny semblance of control of my life, because I could decide what we were doing and how and when.”

A deep breath shudders through me as I prepare myself to continue. Wes inches closer and puts his hand on my hip, but I can’t meet his gaze. There are too many emotions fighting for first place, that I can’t add what I’ll feel looking at him.

“Even growing up, Lochlyn always was the center of attention. I was the same bossy self, but not to the extreme it became. Lochlyn played sports, like t-ball and other peewee games. He didn’t really stick with anything through school, though he could have. Because of course he was talented like he is at everything else.”

Wes gives my thigh a squeeze to bring me back to the matter at hand, which ismynonsense. And while Lochlyn has something to do with it, dwelling on his sports isn’t the problem.

“One year, I was doing ballet while Lochlyn had some kid version of baseball. It was beyond t-ball but still for kids. I was eight, and so excited for my recital. We had these really pretty, full pink tutus, and I’d been practicing so hard. Well, the date of my recital was the same as one of Lochlyn’s games. Not even a big one; he’d had a few before and would have more in the season. But my dad didn’t feel like ballet was worth his time. So, you know what happened?” With what he knows, what I’ve already shared and I know Lochlyn has told him, he can connect the dots.

“I can probably guess correctly, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

“They didn’t come. None of them. Even Lochlyn, at eleven, could see how much it meant to me to be having this recital. He caught me practicing in my room and the living room all the time. He told my parents that he wanted to skip the game, go to my recital, or at the very leasttheyshould, and he’d have Jay’s parents bring him home.” Quickly, I turn my face away and swipe at a stray tear. They’ve done far worse since then, but this one, it still gets me.

“Let me guess, that’s not what happened.”

“Not even close. Dad said that Reynolds men weren’t quitters. And while Lochlyn tried to argue that he wasn’t quitting, he was just missing one game, Dad argued that he had to follow through with his commitments, and that included going to the game. That also meant that my parents went, because Dad wasn’t going to miss it, and Mom always followed him everywhere. I was the only kid at the recital with nobody there for them. Well, except for Shay’s parents. But they were there for her. She hated ballet. She did it because her parents wanted her to dosomething,and she figured being with me was better than being alone in something else.”

My mind quickly runs through the event. Shay was in tears because she was nervous. She never liked being the center of attention, and even though we were all on stage together, she still hated it. I was trying to keep a happy outlook for her, but was dying inside. My parents weren’t there. Other girls had extended family out there, and my own parents couldn’t be bothered to come, prioritizing my brother.

“Chels, come back to me, sweets.”

Shaking away the memory, I turn to Wes to find his eyes filled with worry. “Shay’s parents have always been wonderful. To me, to Lochlyn, and Shay…she always had a family I dreamed of, even though her sister was a little aloof and then moved across the country without another word. But when we got out on that stage, I saw her parents beaming…atbothof us. They had two small bouquets of flowers, and two little signs with our names on them. Always looking out for me, those two. And Shay, too. I know she had something to do with it. Even at eight, she was wise beyond her years and overly observant and went out of her way to please people.”

Two equally strong emotions snake through me. The one that loops around my heart is pain, a reminder of distrust, while the one that tickles my mind is love and acceptance. But they’re not from the same people.

“It was that day that I realized Shay had something special. Something I’d come to always want. She had the family I didn’t. After the performance, her parents took us both out for ice cream, and when they took me home, they raved about how wonderful I was while I stared at my feet, sure it was landing on deaf ears.” The memory alone makes my eyes fill and my throat tighten. It’s been over ten years, and it’s still such a painful memory.

“But when I got upstairs, there was another bouquet of flowers on my bed and a card that had a ballerina on it. It was a birthday card and “Happy Birthday” had been crossed out and—” I glance at Wes, who has wide eyes and shake my head.

“Anyway, the point is, the flowers and card were from Lochlyn. As I was looking at them, he knocked on my door and told me that he made Mom and Dad stop on their way home to get them for me. Even at eight, I knew that he and Shay were my rocks. That I needed both of them because it was clear I didn’t have anybody else. That only grew stronger as time went on and they both had my back time and time again.” And how many times there were. Every breakup, every time there was a new guy and Lochlyn went into protective mode.

I always pretended to hate it, and some part of me did because it was a bit over the top, but he was playing an important role that nobody else would be. I’ve known for years that when it comes to asking somebody for permission to marry me, it won’t be my father’s blessing they need, it will be Lochlyn’s. Just like my father won’t be giving me away at my wedding. It’s a no-brainer. He hasn’t been in my life, so he has no business playing that big of a role in the biggest day of my life.

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