Going For Gold (Providence Gold 4)

Before it could go even further, I reluctantly pulled my mouth away from hers and waited for her to open her eyes.

When I saw her baby blues looking back at me, I whispered, “I don’t want to take this somewhere you’re not ready for, Lottie. This isn’t just a one-off for me, so there’s no need for us to rush into it.”

Reaching out, she grabbed up her pad from the couch and started scribbling on it. I could throttle that bastard myself for many reasons, one of them definitely being not being able to hear her voice right now. Passing it over to me, I read her uncharacteristically untidy writing.

I’m fine. If I didn’t want this with you, I wouldn’t have kissed you. Trust me to know what I can take and to tell you if I can’t take it. Please!!!!

The underlined words and amount of exclamation points made her tone obvious, but even more so was the fact that she’d almost torn through the paper with how hard she was pressing down with the pen when she’d written them.

Taking a calming breath in, I passed it back to her. “Ok, but the second you feel like you’ve hit your limit, I want you to promise that you’ll either tap my shoulder or smack me across the head. Can you do that?”

Grinning at me, she nodded her head.

Getting to my feet and wincing when my knees cracked as I straightened them, I leaned down and picked her up. I’d intended on carrying her to the bedroom like that, but she twisted slightly at the last second and wrapped her legs back around my waist.

“You’re determined to push my buttons, aren’t you?” I murmured, the grin on my face showing how I really felt about it.

This was one of the things I liked about Lottie – she knew her own mind. I didn’t want someone who went along with things just to make me happy or for an easy life. I wanted to know what my partner wanted, to look forward to the unknown with them instead of it being dull. I wanted to be challenged by them. Life wasn’t easy and I needed a brightness there that made it easier to handle, and Charlotte was that brightness for me.

I’d toed off my boots when I got in like I did every time I came home, so my footsteps were silent as I walked us in the direction of the bedroom. I could feel my heart racing, and I’d be lying if I said my hands wouldn’t be shaking if they weren’t full of her ass cheeks at that moment.

Almost like she could sense exactly how nervous I was, she leaned it and started gently kissing the side of my neck, almost making me trip when I felt the first brush of her lips.

Here’s something that I’m sure romance books and movies don’t show – there were downsides to having a beard. I had mine because I hated shaving, I suited the beard, I liked the beard, and it kept me warm in the winter. Simple, right? Well, it was also the current fashion – everyone went on about beards and alphas, and how sexy they were, so the beard definitely caught people’s attentions.

What they didn’t explain was that beard hair falls out, and at that moment I had a mental image of her getting a strand of it in her mouth and choking or spitting it out. That’s one of the not so sexy sides of having a beard, along with food getting stuck in it and people not washing them.

And for the love of fuck, men of the world, beard oil was made for a reason – use it. It’s no lie that with great beard came great responsibility, so look after it and it’d look after you.

My worry about her choking on a beard hair went unfounded, though, so that was a huge relief. I brushed my beard, conditioned my beard, and I oiled it so that it was a well looked after beard machine, but I’d still have gotten rid of it for her. With tears, lots of tears.

My knees hitting the bed pulled me out of my inner beard ramblings, and I realized exactly how nervous I was. Sure, I thought about beard stuff every now and then, but to do it when I had Charlotte wrapped around me, her ass filling my hands? It was all out of desperation to not embarrass myself any second. I needed to shake it off before I kissed her again, or this would be a disappointing experience for her.

Gently lowering her down on her back onto the mattress, I braced myself with my hands either side of her, not giving into the need to just kiss her yet.

“I need to tell you something.” When she nodded at me and rubbed my forearm, I went with just laying out the truth for her. “I’m nervous about this. I’m scared of doing something wrong, I’m scared of scaring you, I’m scared that I won’t notice if you tap me on the shoulder or slap me on the head… but I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”