Josh & Hannah (Redwood Falls 1)

His head had lifted and he turned to her, watching her intently as a primal expression came over his face. He reached for her with a brawny arm and pulled her into his side with such force that her breath hitched in her throat. “Now I am,” he rasped, his fingers biting into her flesh in exquisite possession.

She was immediately eclipsed within the circle of his arms, and the world disappeared as she held him tightly and gave him whatever refuge she could. She wanted him to hold her forever, and the sensations he was making her feel began to spread like hot lava through her body. Her hands lifted without her volition, and wrapped around his shoulders, holding him, wanting him closer to her. Hannah wanted to make him forget everything that was troubling him, and she tried to express that with her touch. She pushed her body against his, and he shifted, lifted himself over her on the bench seat and thrust his bent knee between her legs where it pushed against the juncture of her thighs. His hands wrapped around her face and his mouth fell on hers at the same moment and the feeling was exquisite and immediate as her senses were saturated with pulsing need.

She pushed against him, moaning into his mouth, and she felt his answering groan. The kiss went wild as he stroked his tongue inside her mouth, and then out and then in again in a rhythmic dance that even in her innocence, she knew replicated the motions of sex.

They kissed for many heated minutes, until one hand fell from her face and encircled one of her breasts in a grip of pure, unadulterated ownership. He squeezed her flesh through the material of her shirt and bra, and when he found her nipple with his fingers and thumb, she arched her back under the sudden lash of consuming pleasure. He continued to tease her nipple as his mouth stayed on hers.

As her arousal grew and she began to unconsciously undulate against him, his kisses became rough, almost biting, and even more enthralling. He lifted his mouth from hers, and the fingers of one hand sank in her scalp while his other hand stayed molded to her breast. She opened her eyes and found him looking down at the hand that held her breast. His eyes flared. His hand left her breast and slid to the other one, where he gave it the same attention as the first. He rolled her nipple between thumb and fingers, and before Hannah could come to grips with the intensity of the arousal she was feeling, his fingers left her breast and within the blink of an eye, he released the buttons on her shirt and pushed it aside.

Hannah focused on his face as he looked down at her white cotton bra that seemed to glow in the black of the night as she tried to pull oxygen into her lungs. His cheekbones became tinged with red and his nostrils flared. His eyes lifted and tangled with her gaze. Scalding heat flooded through her as he sank his hand over the material of her bra, fisting it in his grip between her breasts. While he held her eyes with his, he pulled the material down until her breasts were released. At the same moment he did it, he pushed his thigh hard against the softness between her legs. The shock of his actions only intensified the arousal that sent currents of pleasure down her spine.

Josh let the feel and the scent of Hannah take over his senses as he stowed away the angst he’d been feeling. He didn’t care about anything else; he damn sure didn’t care if his father wanted to stay or to leave. Josh ruthlessly compartmentalized the events in his life and focused only on Hannah, and let her soothing balm wash over him. With her naked breasts below his line of vision, Josh’s gaze clashed with hers as they both raggedly panted for breath. He was aware of her chest rising and falling, and the expression on her face was something he wanted to memorize and carry with him forever.

She was beautiful, incredibly precious to him as she looked back at him with total trust and innocent need glittering from her eyes. He couldn’t stand it anymore, and dropped his eyes down to the white silken breasts tipped with tight, pink nipples and felt his arousal grow until it became a physical pain. He felt his breathing roughen even more, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and swiping his thumbs across the pink tips that were begging for his attention. Hannah let out a sweet little whimper at the same time her torso jerked and he knew in that instant that he barely retained any control. If he kept this up, he’d lose it completely. Feeling as if he were divided in two, he obeyed the protector and denied the predator as he sucked in a breath and took one last look at her small, white breasts before he pulled the bra back up and into place.

Hannah let out a ragged sound of disappointment, but he had to cover her back up. He knew himself well; he couldn’t trust himself if he took her clothes off. And he’d never do that do her. He’d never take advantage of her innocence.

She whimpered again, and he leaned down and kissed her. She was sweet and tasted so good, and when she moaned softly into his mouth, he reached between them and found her nipple again. Steeling his guts against the vicious need that held him by the throat, he allowed himself to pet her over the material of her bra. She began panting as hard as he was and with one hand on her breast, without his brain giving permission, his other hand slid down to the heat between her thighs and pressed against her. Ravenous sexual hunger gripped him, and feeling the damp heat against his hand, he began petting her harder, stroking her more firmly.

As they kissed, she mewled softly in the back of her throat, and the way she was responding to him became all-consuming as the feminine scent that was hers alone drifted to his nostrils. He began to sink even deeper under her irresistible spell, and he knew they had to stop soon, or he was going to come in his damn pants.

But he could handle a few more seconds; he knew he could, if he imposed strict control. Just a few more seconds of the heaven of touching her stiff little nipple, of feeling her wet heat through the material of her jeans. Just a few more seconds of kissing her, kissing her because she belonged to him, kissing her like she would always belong to him.

Josh felt it the moment she stiffened against him and her moans became one continuous exhalation. Caught off guard, he realized that she was coming. She was coming apart in his arms, and the elation of it hit him from all sides, and he petted her even harder, wanting her to feel it, wanting it to consume her.

Her cries of passion finally quieted and then stopped altogether as she slumped against him. Primal possession gripped him as he still kissed her, seizing every cell of his being, and he savored the gift she had given him while hot, sharp pleasure inundated him. She may not know it yet, but with the orgasm she’d just given him, she’d sealed her fate. If there had been any residual question about who she belonged to before now, it had been completely obliterated in the blink of an eye. She was his; he was claiming her. She’d need to learn how to yield everything to him, because she was irrefutably his.

He ended the kiss slowly, attempting to give her a moment to adjust. He caressed her softly at the juncture of her legs for a few seconds before gripping her there firmly one last time before he lifted his hand from between her thighs and grasped the side of her face. Slowly, she opened her eyes and they flared into his.

She was so beautiful … so his. So beautiful, so sweet, and so … shocked. He bit his bottom lip to keep from kissing her again and slowly smiled into her dazed eyes. “Hey, baby,” he whispered.

“What … what—”

He held her eyes, never wanting to let them go. “It was an orgasm. You came for me, Hannah.”

Her eyes got big and wide, but she remained silent.

Josh didn’t want to embarrass her. He absolutely knew she’d never been with a guy before. Hell, she’d never been kissed before he’d come along. He didn’t want to embarrass her by asking a bunch of intimate questions she wasn’t ready to answer. But he really, really needed to know, so he kept the question simple. “First one, princess?”

Her eyes closed but she nodded her head and in that moment, Josh felt the addiction he had for her grow even stronger. He’d had her first kiss, and now her first orgasm. Damn, if he didn’t want her first everything. He was digging his grave even deeper and deeper with this girl and from the feeling in his gut, it was absolutely okay because if

he could have her forever, he’d die a happy man. Just one look, that’s all it had taken. Hannah McIntyre had walked up to the concession stand at that damn football game and knocked him off his axis. It was hard to believe. He’d barely known she was alive before then, she hadn’t even been a blip on his radar. And now look at him. Totally fucked up in the head ever since, and by all accounts, happy about it.

Yeah, he’d pulled the short straw when it came to who had fathered him, but now the asshole was gone, out of his life, he hoped for good, and Josh could concentrate on more important things.

Hannah.

Yeah.

It was all good.

****

Josh tried over the next few months to get Katie to agree to press charges and she wouldn’t even listen to him. Sometimes she would turn ashen and then lock herself in the bathroom, sometimes she would cry and walk away.

But he had no luck and all Josh could do was stay diligent and help the sheriff out by being one more set of eyes and ears as they watched Jesse and waited for his next move.

Josh thought more and more about what the sheriff had asked him and he decided that he’d give law enforcement a try. He wanted to stay in the community, and close to home. Maybe it was shortsighted of him, but he didn’t want to try to find a job too far away; he wanted to keep Hannah near her parents, and he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that if it were up to him, Hannah would be in his future. Hell, Hannah was his future. If he stayed close by, it would also be a big relief to his aunt, as well. She was as clingy as any mother could be, and with a mild feeling of pleasure somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, he knew that her maternal feelings extended to him and he admitted to himself that he liked it.

He’d been raised without a mother, and the only maternal love he had known had come from his Aunt Diana, even though she was only his aunt by marriage. But the years his father had kept him isolated from the rest of the family had taken their toll.

He had a hazy memory of a time when he was seven or eight, when his aunt had caught him alone without his father being close by, and she’d wrapped her arms around him and told Josh she loved him. Of course, she told him regularly now. But that time when he’d been a little kid, was the only time before he was thirteen years old that anyone had told him that they loved him. He remembered feeling confused and wary. He didn’t really understand love; he’d never experienced it in his life. Love was just a concept. Love was something the kids in school had. Love meant new clothes for the boys and pink ribbons for the girls and mommies holding their kids’ hands when they picked them up from school. Up until Josh was thirteen, all he had were fresh bruises and old scars from belt buckles and cigarette burns that dotted his body. And certainly there’d never been anyone to drive him to school. There was a school bus he’d ridden back and forth to school everyday, even on the first day of kindergarten.

Five years after his escape from hell, Josh now understood his aunt did love him. He could feel her love for him, it was so strong. She was soft and gentle and he never wanted anything or anyone to hurt her, ever. She touched him often, stroked his hair and begged him to stand still for her hugs. And he’d slowly allowed her to have her way about it. After all, she touched and hugged Katie all the time as well.

At first he’d just wanted to feel safe, and he’d been the best kid he could possibly be, because he’d been scared to death that his aunt and uncle would give him back to his father. He’d been too young to realize that they’d have died before doing that. But at the time, he hadn’t known how hard they’d fought to take him away from his father. It couldn’t have been easy, and Josh knew that his Uncle David’s heart had been ripped apart; he’d had to turn against his only brother to save Josh.

Josh would always remember the night his uncle came for him, shotgun in hand. David Turner had planned well, and had enlisted the aid of both the sheriff and the deputy as back up on that dark, rainy night. The intimidation factor had worked. All it had taken were the lawmen standing outside of their patrol cars with the lights flashing brilliantly but silently in the dead of night—and his father had handed him over without a fight. Not a word to show he was remorseful, not a word to try to keep him. He’s handed him over as if he were an unwanted piece of garbage. Handed him over as if he were nothing more than a piece of shit he wanted to expel from his life.

His aunt had cried softly that first night when she sat down beside Josh in the bedroom they had prepared for him. She had cleaned the fresh cuts on his lip and brow, worried over the new bruise on his cheekbone … and almost had heart failure when she’d seen the old scars that scattered over his torso. That was the first time his aunt and uncle had understood exactly how bad Josh’s life had been. He’d never told anyone what was going on, and until recently, his father had been careful not to mark Josh’s face. His aunt had kissed his brow and quickly assured him that he’d never have to worry again, and then he’d pretended to be asleep when she slipped from the room and came back with his uncle. Josh had continued to feign sleep when she’d lifted the covers to show her husband, but he’d heard his uncle’s pained growl. “I’ll kill him. Diana, I swear to God, I’m going to kill my brother.”

His aunt had pleaded through tears, “You can’t. We need you here with us.” Her breath caught and with his eyes closed, Josh felt her hand land gently on his hair in a soft, loving caress. “We’ve got two children now, and I need you here with me to take care of them, not in prison somewhere.”

That night had been the first time in his life he could remember feeling even halfway safe. His aunt had told him she loved him again that night, but it was the first time he had allowed himself to believe her, even a bit.

Josh pushed the unpleasant memories aside and focused on his future once again. He found that thinking about his future had become a ritual, an obsession that he focused on everyday. He supposed at his age, and with a four-year university out of the question, at least for now, that what he was feeling was normal; everyone went through some growing pains of indecision and confusion.

He stepped into the steam enclosed shower stall, needing a second shower before he went to pick up Hannah — that had also become a ritual. He picked up the bar of soap and slid it over his body before dropping it back down again. With his face lifted to the spray of warm water, his mind on Hannah and how the hell he could possibly keep from tearing her clothes off for even one more day, his hand roamed down and slid over his wet, soapy cock. His teeth clenched, and a vision of how it would be when she was doing this for him infiltrated his mind. As his abdominals corded with tension, he tightened his fist over his cock and pumped, imagining Hannah’s smaller hand encompassing his erection. His balls tightened with erotic pleasure, and with the picture of her dropping to her knees and taking his shaft inside her mouth, he groaned deeply and jerked himself five more times. He leaned heavily against the shower wall with one hand, a guttural groan erupting from his throat as he jerked Hannah to her feet and pumped himself into the soft little hand that closed around him. His engorged arousal exploded and he came, fast and hard, against the softness of her belly. Breathing harshly, he let the image die from his lust-filled imagination, and looked down as his semen washed away to blend with the water and disappear down the drain.

Josh dropped his head against the tile wall and tried to steady his breathing. He hated to do it, he really did. But jacking off was the only possible way he’d have enough control to deliver Hannah untouched back to her front door when he left her tonight.

But one day, the waiting would be over.

****

Christmas came and went and by the time Valentine’s Day arrived, he and Hannah were solid. Josh was working as many hours as possible at the feed store, and saving as much money as he possibly could. He didn’t have a lot of disposable income for expensive gifts, but he’d bought Hannah a charm bracelet for Christmas and she seemed to love it. At least, he thought she did, if the fact that she wore it everyday was any indication. He’d a

dded a couple of charms for Valentine’s as well.

The kids at school were beginning to talk about prom, and Josh guessed he should go. He’d mentioned not going in front of his aunt, and she’d about come unglued. Katie had already announced she wasn’t going and nobody could say anything to change her mind, and Josh felt bad for her. He’d offered to take her, but she’d politely refused. Katie had some of the same problems that he had, and a lack of money was one of the big ones. She had other reasons for not going, but if she had decided to go, a dress would have to be bought, and tickets and other items would cost even more money.

His aunt wanted him to go so badly that he’d broached the subject with Hannah on Saturday night. “You think your dad would let you go to prom with me?”

Her eyes had flared and Josh recognized the look on her face. It was Hannah’s ‘bad-ass’ look, and mirth threatened to spill over, but somehow, he kept it contained. “I’ll never speak to him again if he doesn’t,” she snapped back with fire in her eyes.

“Okay well, you want me to ask him?”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“I’m really only wanting to go for my aunt, I don’t think it’s going to be any big deal. If you can’t stay out late, don’t worry about it.” Josh really was neutral on the idea, it seemed more of a hassle than anything, but Hannah seemed to want to go, so that pleased him.

After Josh dropped Hannah back home, he slipped inside his house. Somehow, Hannah had managed to talk her dad into a midnight curfew for the weekends, and Josh always tried to have her home by eleven-thirty. So when he walked into the kitchen at eleven-forty-five, and his aunt and uncle were still awake and sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him, he knew something was wrong. He’d just seen Hannah and knew she was okay, so immediately, his mind went to Katie. “Where’s Katie?” he asked in a rough voice he couldn’t control.