Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

“Trent. Sweet, sweet warrior.”

I felt like I’d been impaled by her words. Fact she’d call me that. While she looked at me like she recognized me.

She cut right through me. The girl splayed me open until there wasn’t a single place I could hide.

She met me thrust for thrust. Our bodies slick. Arching and begging.

And I felt myself getting caught up.

Lifted.

Elevated from the depths and dragged into the light.

Where it was bliss.

Where it was beauty.

Where only me and this girl could exist.

Twining. Knitting.

My spirit getting loose and weaving with hers in an intricate web.

A piece of myself I no longer possessed.

Euphoric.

Terrifying.

I panted and she gasped, and her nails dragged and scraped against my chest, clawing for a way to get closer. “Do you feel that?” she whispered.

But it was her.

Feeling me in a way no one else ever had. In a way no one else could. “It’s you, Eden. It’s you.”

She whimpered, her legs dropping wide, taking me deeper. I hooked her leg over my shoulder.

Fuck. So good.

A hard exhale burst from her lungs. “More.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

My hand drifted, squeezing her thigh, her ass, fingers dragging through her cleft before I angled so I could brush my fingertips over her swollen clit.

Eden was already right there.

On the brink.

Her body bowed.

Her nerves alive.

Could see them in the room.

A glow of colors and shapes.

And I stared down at this girl as I drove her to ecstasy.

Stared at her through the haze of this faltering reality. As the promise I’d made to my brother echoed in my ear.

One reason.

One reason.

I took her.

Found her.

Eden whispered, moaned, dragged me deeper into the well of that sweet, sweet soul. “Trent…I’m…”

She scratched her fingers into the stubble on my jaw.

Awe.

Adoration.

And I felt it, too.

The crumbling.

The crashing.

The fall.

But I doubted there was much I could do to keep either of us from tumbling over the side. Girl going over.

Falling.

Falling.

So, I jumped with her like I could be her safety net, pressed my forehead to hers and whispered, “I won’t let you go.”

A faulty, foolish promise.

One that slipped like finality from between my lips.

My lips that took hers as I felt her body hit that highest point. When she broke apart, that energy whipping and lashing, kissing every inch.

It set me off. Every stroke bliss.

Pleasure raced my spine.

Tingles and fire.

One thrust later, I split. Coming apart.

Lost in her body. Her eyes. That heart.

I clutched her as I came, shouting my praise. “Eden.”

Felt so good I nearly blacked out. Pleasure rushed out through every nerve. An explosion in every cell.

I could no longer see. Could no longer make sense of the mess I had made.

Instead, I heaved for air in a bid to come back down, to remember who I was, but at the end of that fall was her arms.

Her sweet arms that she wrapped around my body like that was where they belonged.

Couldn’t do much else except wrap her in mine, and I shifted us so I could tuck her to my side. I pressed a kiss to her sweat-drenched temple and brushed back the blonde hair that clung to her stunning face. I gazed at her through the shadows of the ghosts that haunted my room. “Won’t let anyone get to you. Not ever.”

And I prayed it wasn’t the greatest lie I’d ever told.

Twenty-Two

Eden

I stared at him through the bleary darkness, my fingertips running over his swollen lips.

Awed.

Floored.

Unsure if any of this was real or if I’d lost myself to the shock from earlier and had slipped into a dangerous fantasy. One where I was his and he was mine.

His body burned me up where we were tangled, our flesh slicked with sweat and our muscles still ticking with aftershocks.

He kissed my temple in this adoring way that made me want to come apart all over again. “Be right back.”

Trent climbed out of his enormous bed. Completely bare. Almost every inch of his body was covered in colors and designs. Strength rippled from his sinewy, imposing form, the man this stunning work of art that I got to fully appreciate as he walked into his bathroom.

I didn’t know whether to hide my face or ogle his beauty.

I was miles away from what I knew. So beyond my comfort zone. Treading far, far outside the bounds of familiarity.

He disappeared into the bathroom. The faucet ran, and I clutched the sheet and brought it to my nose.

Trying to figure out where I stood. Wondering if it was possible for us to remain here—where we’d met in the middle.

Two people so different crashing together, joining, like we were made to fit.

There was no stopping the redness that streaked across my already overheated skin when he reappeared in the glaring light of the doorway.

An outline of power. An etching of desolation. A pen line of hope.

He sauntered out, no shame, just all that rigid, fierce cockiness carved in every muscle. I had to bury my face farther into the sheet when I saw his huge penis was still partially hard. I thought if I asked him to take me, he’d be ready for me all over again.