Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters 2)

I can’t tell what he’s going to do, and that mystery instantly draws me to him. I take a couple steps forward and then stop halfway, a few feet separating us. He stands tall, his masculinity so apparent in his build and hard jawline. I think I could live underneath Ryke Meadows, under his weight and protection, and be satisfied for life.

The thought pulls my lips upward. I ignore the pinch in my cheek, the slight pain of the motion. I want to smile, dammit. So I’m gonna smile.

He watches me closely, all my small movements under scrutiny, and then he steps forward. One foot near. I inhale strongly, smelling his woodsy scent, like water and earth. I’m too curious about his thoughts and actions to touch him first.

His eyes meet mine and then fall to the collar of my hospital gown. He never looks at me like I’m half of myself, too beaten to love, too fragile to handle. Instead, his gaze rakes me like it’s our first time being this close again.

One more step and his chest brushes against mine with each deep breath. He leans forward, and I go rigid. His lips tickle my ear. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

I smile wide. Those words mean so much more now than they ever did before. “Say that again.”

“How about I just fucking show you?” His hot breath warms my neck, and then he kisses that very spot, deeply right away. Just like that, my body responds by curving towards him. He holds the back of my head, sucking the nape of my neck with such diligence that every nerve lights.

“Ryke,” I breathe softly, a high-pitched moan following.

My arms slip underneath his, holding his back like he belongs to me. I can’t believe I’m turned on after being cooped up in a hospital. But my sore limbs loosen like jelly at his possessive touch.

He unties my hair, slipping the band on his wrist. Then he messes the long locks with a rough hand, as he’s done so many times before. It dizzies me, and my heart palpitates.

His lips return, trailing my collar. He fingers the ties on the back of my gown. I only wear panties, having put them on as I started dressing earlier. The hospital fabric slips off me, the cool air nipping my skin. Goose bumps run along my bruised arms and legs. I stiffen, thinking he’s going to pull away at the sight of all the purple blemishes, but he only gently kisses around them, being careful with me but not so much that he’d let me go.

I wish I could kiss him back. Even if it didn’t hurt, Ryke would never allow my lips to near him, not wanting to cause me pain. But his kind of TLC is the best kind. His hands slide along my hips, edging towards my yellow cotton panties, daises printed on the backside.

My mouth opens as I watch his kisses descend to my boobs, already exposed for him, no bra to unclip or fling off. His head lowers to the top of my right breast, and as he nears my nipple, I have a flash of what happened with Ian. The sharp pain. Biting. Blood.

I jerk back in fright, and Ryke says nothing about the panicked flinch. He just lifts me up to his waist, my legs wrapping around him, and then he brings me to the bed. I lie on the soft blue blanket, and Ryke hardly misses a beat. He splits my legs open, kneeling between them before he kisses the same spot beside my nipple.

Only this time, he watches my expression as he sucks the sensitive skin, his eyes on me the whole time, studying my response. So that’s why he moved me. I like this position better. His pelvis is right up against my pelvis, and I hook my ankle around his to secure me to him.

I hold my breath as he kisses my nipple, his tongue skimming the hard bud with only a desire to light my body. It works as soon as his other hand kneads my left breast, and a sharp cry entangles with my gasp.

He sucks a little harder, and I tense, so he slows, which feels… “Ahh,” I cry again. Wow. His forceful passion stays, pulsing the spot between my legs with new need and want. I ache for something harder. An ache I’ve never experienced to this degree.

“I want you so badly,” I say with another gasp. I claw at his back, his shirt riding up. My hips are thrust upwards against him with so much pressure that he groans, the noise deep in his throat.

He strokes the sweaty hair off my forehead, and then he sits up, his hands running along my long slender legs. He stares at the length of them with a newfound hot and heavy lust. “I love so many fucking parts of you,” he says huskily.

I clutch the blanket on either side of my hips, grinding harder into him. “Take off your jeans,” I practically whimper. Usually I want the guy to keep them on, for the uncomfortable moment to end faster. This is so foreign. And I adore every single second.

“We’re not having sex yet, so store that fantasy for later, sweetheart.” Sweetheart.

I smile. No pain. It’s drowned beneath my arousal.

Ryke says sweetheart with so much force that it conflicts with the mildness of the word. I wonder if that’s us. Soft to his hard. Sweet to his rough. Wild to his stone.

I like it.

He grabs my ankles, unhooking them from him, and he bends my legs. He pauses once, listening for the silence, hearing my breath, and I think he’s discerning how much time we have before someone catches us. We are in a hospital. A public place. But he has a way of making it feel like the most private, safe place on Earth. Thankfully he looks satisfied to continue.

He kisses the top of my knee, and then his intense gaze meets mine. He takes two of his fingers and slips them in his mouth for a short moment. Just watching that—my hands dig harder into the bed. With my head on the pillow, he’s too far away to clutch.

His hand glides underneath my panties, and his two warm fingers enter the pulsing spot, I clench around him almost immediately. I moan, my mouth permanently open. The corners of his lips rise, and he unlatches one of my hands from the bed.

“Have you been this wet before?” he asks me. He presses my fingers to the same spot that he’s inside, and my cold touch feels worse than his warm. I am not just wet. I am soaked. And I feel so swollen with need.

I shake my head. “You’ve done what I have trouble doing to myself.”

“It’s time for that to fucking change, don’t you think?”

I smile wider.

“Don’t smile,” he says. “I don’t want to fucking hurt you.”

“There’s no way you can.” He’s only ever been the opposite in my life. The most positive force there ever was. He’s like that to everyone he meets. I’m sure of it.

“Still,” he retorts.

I bite my lip to keep from grinning, and he lets my hand go as soon as he begins moving his two fingers inside me, finding a sensitive place that I’ve been searching for, for years. I wish I could see his hand beneath my panties, his fingers so deep in me. That’s a visual I’d keep planted near the front of my brain.

I don’t want him so far away. I slowly sit up while he fucks me with his fingers, and he gives me a stern look like you can’t fucking kiss me.

I rest my forehead on his chest and stare down at the way his hand moves beneath the cotton. He has to adjust a little inside me, but he finds the right place again. He holds the back of my head with his other hand. Out of need and instinct, I rock my hips, driving him deeper. I cry at the new sensations.

“Easy,” he whispers, but now that I’m so close, he pulls my panties down to my thighs, showing me what he’s doing.

Just seeing Ryke, his hand, right between my legs, his fingers all the way inside me, it nearly sends me over. “Ryke,” I gasp. “RykeRykeRyke.” I clutch onto his back and keep rocking my hips in sync with the movement of his fingers. I am climbing a gorgeous mountain that I have never even neared before. And he’s the one taking me there.

He leans my back on the blanket again, but he doesn’t pry me off him, so in result, I’ve taken Ryke with me. He hovers over my body, so close to me. Even if he’s fully clothed and I lie naked, I feel safe in his possession.

“Don’t stop,” I cry. “Ryke.” I grab his bicep for support.

I meet his wanting gaze once before my toes curl, my spine arches, and my eyes roll back. Every part of me explodes like a thousand fireworks inside my head and body.

I go off.

And I come for the very first time.

Finally.

He keeps me full while my breath slows and I clench a few more times.

I laugh because that was one of the best things I’ve ever felt. Period. And he hasn’t even pushed his cock inside of me yet.

“Better than chocolate?” he asks, wiping my lips that stay parted. His forearm rests beside my head, propping up his body as he stares down at me.

“I don’t know,” I pant. “I think I need to test this out five or six more times to make a definitive answer.” I smile playfully.

“I have a strong fucking feeling that we’ll hear your answer quickly.”

“I love your strong feelings,” I tell him.

“I love watching you come,” he says like it’s a simple fact. But it’s not simple at all.

“How much?”

He kisses my good cheek and then whispers, “More than you’ll ever fucking know.”

Damn. He slips his fingers out of me, wiping them on the blanket, and then he slides my soaked panties off my legs at an extremely slow rate. So slow that my body clenches all over again. When they’re off my feet, I turn on my stomach and moan into the covers. “Just take me now,” I say into the muffled blankets.

He’s on his knees, and he lifts me by the hips so I’m on mine too. “That’s not how I take women,” he says, squeezing my ass.

“You torture them,” I say, turning my head. “I can’t come twice before we have sex.”

“Want to fucking bet?” he says with narrowed eyes.

I grin. “Yes, I do. Let’s test it out now.”

“We don’t have time,” he says, shutting it down. It was worth a shot. He wipes between my legs with the blanket, and then he swiftly grabs me around the waist and sets my feet on the floor. Completely naked. I watch as he grabs a clean pair of panties from my bag.