My hand slides up, then down, and he fixes me with his tawny gaze, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
I bend over, take him in my mouth. He groans and I can feel it in his cock. One big hand tangles in my hair, and he thrusts a little into my mouth.
I kind of love that he can’t help himself. I’ll never forget the first time he made love to me. He wouldn’t let himself come, punishing himself for something he’d played no role in: the death of his family.
Since then he’s changed. He has let himself relax and live. Feel. He smiles more. And he lets himself lose control. With me.
Like now.
I suck him in as deep as I dare, lick the underside, make sure to toy with the barbells—and reaching between his legs, I find his balls and roll them in my hand. I want this to be good for him. He’s been so great all this time, never pushing me, never asking for anything, getting up at night to check on the baby, helping me.
I want him to come apart. To lose himself to pleasure.
And he seems really close. I recognize the rhythm of his harsh breathing, the white-knuckled hold he has in the covers, the way his legs tremble and his cock swells in my mouth, flooding my senses with his salty taste and his musky scent.
I drag my lips along his length, flick my tongue around the head, then take him deep, and he comes with a strangled shout. He’s salty, and bittersweet, and perfect.
“I love you,” I tell him afterward, when he can move again, and the first thing he does is wrap me up in his arms. “So much.”
He pulls me down with him and throws the covers over us. “Not as much as I love you.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Rafe
That girl… My girl. She killed me last night. She blew my fucking mind. I’d needed that, to feel her, to have her want me again. It eased my mind, and I slept through the night, only waking up once to check on Zay who was wailing until I held him in my arms for a while.
I think about this as I brush my teeth in the morning, listening to Megan cooing at the baby as she feeds him. Thing is, I’ve been worried about Zane.
But before that, I was worried about Megan. She’s my woman, my lover, my best friend. I love her with all I have. She and our baby are everything to me. Meg is amazing, and she’s always been strong, stronger than me. When her family screwed her over, when she had a killer on her ass, she didn’t waver. She never gave up.
Unlike me. I almost gave up on life. I was too fucked up in the head, still fighting the pain over the death of my family so many years later.
She’s the one who pulled me out of the mire, who gave me a reason to live and to smile again.
But from the start there was one thing that scared her: babies. That was because her mom lost a baby after a bad beating she got from one of her many boyfriends, and Megan had to see that. It haunted her. It frightened her—how fragile life is, how easy it’s to kill a baby.
And then she got pregnant, and I was the one afraid. Afraid she’d bolt, or freak out and leave me.
But she didn’t. She proved once again how strong she is. She was scared to death throughout her pregnancy that she’d do something wrong and cause the baby to die, but it all went smoothly, thank fuck.
Sometimes, though, I have this horrible fucking doubt in my mind. Is she happy? Is she really happy? Did the fear fade without traces?
In my experience, fear always leaves scars.
I’m not saying that the fact she went down on me proves she’s happy again. But she didn’t pull back when I kissed her, when I went down on her. She enjoyed it. And she was the one who touched me and decided to blow my dick, and consequently my mind.
The memory seems to interest my dick. It stiffens and starts to rise between my legs like a pet seeking attention.
Down, boy. I’m thinking.
And I need coffee if I’ll be able to function today. Despite a good night’s sleep, the worry is a heavy burden. Worry about Zane, about Megan, about the shop now that we have expanded it, about the wedding and the possibility of Megan’s mom coming, about everything and nothing. Every little thing seems to require my attention, and stress is making me jittery.
Deep breaths, Rafe. Fucking deep breaths. You’ve got this.
But although I can give my girl a damn good orgasm, hold my son when he cries, keep the books at the shop and hang around the police station hoping for news, what am I really doing? How am I taking action to make sure the people I love are safe and well?
Truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing, and that’s a fist in my chest, squeezing my fucking heart. Sometimes at night I lie awake and try to control the panic, a panic that never really left me since my family died. The fear that tells me I may still lose it all, lose everyone I love, and that it’ll be my fault for not reacting fast enough, not acting when needed.