A Perfect Mistake (22 page)

But my fear was as
black and as consuming as that hole. And now I was terrified of
something else. Terrified of telling him about our son and watching
that change what we had right now.

Boone let his breath
out slow and easy. “You tie me up in knots and you make me
crazy. I don’t think I’ve had a clear thought in my head
since you came back.”

“You do the
same thing to me, sugar.”

He pulled me against
him, and I was immersed in his embrace, lost in his kiss. As he
popped the button on my shorts, continuing to kiss me, he dragged the
zipper down. His hand slipped inside of the denim, searing on my hip,
then around my butt cheek as he cupped me and pulled me against his
groin. His tongue slipped inside my mouth, and when I sucked on him,
he groaned. A burning glide later, his hand was against my pelvis,
delving into me, finding my throbbing, wet core. Impatiently, he
pushed my shorts down off me.

His touch unleashed
a host of needs that had lain dormant until this morning. Now they
leaped and twisted, wild with the prospect of freedom.

I was so close to
freedom. If I only had the courage to let everything go.

We found his bed,
and when he came down on me, he was completely naked. That boy could
shuck his clothes faster than a gator strike. I took a breath,
soaking up the scent of him all around me in his sheets, on his
pillow, and the hard, tactile stimulation of him.

Just Boone.

He slipped off me
and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching over to turn on the bedside
lamp. At the sight of the flex and give of his back muscles, I reared
up and pressed myself to his back. Kissing the silky nape of his
neck, his hair tickling my nose, soft, smelling so fresh and clean,
then his shoulders, running my hands over the hard muscle of his
chest to his thick, ridged abdomen, and on to the hard heat of him.
I’d really liked touching Boone
there
.

“
Verity,
”
he groaned, thrusting his hips, and arching his back. His head fell
to my shoulder, giving me access to his throat and jaw. I took
advantage and pressed my mouth there, open and needy, his stubble
rough, the salty taste of him delicious on my tongue. Gripping him
gently, I ran the hard heat of him against my palm, gloving him. I
guess I hadn’t been sure how he would feel—certainly not
like satin, the head of his hard-on even softer.

He grabbed my wrist,
his chest heaving, his breathing ragged. “Even though that
feels fucking fantastic, if you don’t stop, you’re going
to jack me off right now.”

I groaned into his
back. It shouldn’t be such a turn-on the way he talked to me,
so raw, but it was honest and it felt intimate. I liked it. A lot.

But I wanted one
more slide, and he was powerless to stop me as I tightened and pushed
my hand all the way to the base. “Geezus,” he panted.
“Geezus.” He rolled his head. “
Fuck
me
.”

I pressed my mouth
to his ear. “Yes, please,” I said, loving that I held all
six feet two inches of hot and bothered Boone Outlaw in the palm of
my hand.

He laughed softly,
the rumble vibrating against my palm, which still caressed those
enticing muscles. “You’re killing me, darlin’.
Fucking killing me so good.”

I let go, and I
think we both knew if I had decided I wanted to…
jack
him off
…I
could have.

He moved then, all
power and hot, bare muscle, pushing me back and climbing over me,
stripping my panties off me.

His hands fumbled at
the buttons on my blouse. I grabbed his face and kissed him and his
hands paused on me as I distracted him completely. I loved the way he
threw himself into each movement of my lips over his succulent mouth.
“
Boone
,”
I whispered.

He sank into my
kiss, devouring me, then he pushed my shirt away, and the cool air
felt good on my skin. But it was soon replaced with his hot mouth,
open and hungry for my skin as he sucked, kissed and licked his way
down my neck to my shoulder. He curled his fingers in the edge of my
bra and roughly pulled the cups down. I gasped and groaned at the
feel of his tongue stroking along my collarbone. Then he squeezed my
breasts, plumping up my sensitive nipples, and he suckled and licked
each crest in turn, over and over as my hips pushed against his hot,
fully aroused body.

I sent my fingers
into his hair, loving the feel of him and the delicious sensations he
aroused. They swept through me in waves, rendering me incapable of
doing anything more than experiencing—the rasp of his tongue
against my nipples, the tug of his lips as he sucked at me, the play
of his musician’s fingers over my rib cage.

He pushed inside me
and I was caught off-guard by the sudden, penetrating thrust. His
hands pressed into the mattress on either side of me. He made a soft
ah
sound and then groaned deeply.
Oh,
my, God
…I
arched my back and he pushed into me again a little desperately, kind
of like he’d lost his control.

Oh, my, God.
Boone out of control was even sexier.

The temperature in
his room jumped at least fifteen degrees.

He did it again, his
hips thrusting as he arched his back, groaning all the way. His chest
lifted, the thick muscles across his chest and shoulders drawing
tight, his biceps taut as he pressed his hands into the mattress. He
was so gorgeous to look at and felt so amazing with his slow, sensual
slide into me, almost like he was trying to resist. The wave of
pleasure was so intense, I came, hard.

He cried out and his
hips bucked in three short, hard thrusts, electrifying me, taking me
higher, until I…until he slowed it down again, pulling out of
me, kissing me and slowly working his way down my body with his
mouth.

Trailing kisses
across my belly, then up the inside of one leg, nipping, licking,
lingering in the tender curve of my knee, then in the even more
sensitive crease where my thigh met my hip.

I rose on my elbow
and reached for him, intending to pull him back up to me, but Boone
caught my hand and kissed it, sucking gently, provocatively, on my
fingertips. His gaze hot and magnetic, caught on mine, his dark blue
eyes glittering.

“Not, yet,
darlin’” he murmured, an unholy smile curling the corners
of his mouth.

My eyes widened, as
he lowered his head and kissed me just above the patch of dark curls.
Hot and cold at the same time, I said, breathless, “Boone, no.”
Gasping, I tried to scoot away from him.

He held me captive
with hands on my hips, his breath blowing warm and teasing across my
groin as he spoke. “Don’t tell me no, Verity. I want to
taste how sweet you are. I want to give you pleasure. I want to make
you ready for me. Let me.”

Without waiting for
permission, he parted me and kissed me again and again, light,
teasing kisses that stole my breath. Sliding his hands beneath my
butt, he lifted me and settled his mouth fully against me, exploring
me, caressing me, arousing me with languorous strokes of his tongue.

Crying out, I fell
back against the mattress, my mind reeling at the pleasure, at the
exquisite agony. In my experience this was forbidden. And I hadn’t
been with anyone but Boone, but he was taking me into womanhood,
pulling me over the edge as if he had the right to my body’s
most intimate secrets. The idea thrilled me in a way I knew it
shouldn’t have, which only added to the excitement. I tangled
my fingers in the black silk of his hair. My hips arched and bucked,
twitching and turning, trying to direct his mouth to some mysterious
sweet spot that he hadn’t quite discovered yet.

I threaded my
fingers through his hair, holding him to me. I felt the crest of my
release rising towards me, and waited, breath held, loving the soft,
wet heat of his tongue, the pressure he applied, and loving, it oh,
so very much when he oh, so very gently…sucked.

Terrifying freedom
from the bonds I had lived within. The crest inside me gathered and
deepened, detonating with the most intense pleasure, strung me out,
his tongue still on me as I came, holding me in thrall to his
mouth…
Boone
.

Boone, one of the
unholy trinity bad boys who had turned out to be so, so good.

Driven past the edge
of control, I felt the way Boone trembled against me as he reared
over me and entered me in one powerful stroke, filling me, stretching
me, touching off another explosive orgasm. He wrapped his arms around
me and crushed me to him, holding himself still as my muscles
tightened around him.

As the spasms eased,
he began to move slowly, pushing me toward yet another peak. He
kissed me softly, tenderly. He stroked the hair from my temples and
smiled into my eyes. That Outlaw grin. Boone Swoon times ten and
squared. God help me.

My breath hitched in
my throat at each reaching stroke. I slid my hands down over his
back, over the hot flexing, sweat-slick muscles. Then my fingers
stretched over the tight, rounded mounds of his butt, and I groped
and squeezed, urging him to increase his tempo until he was thrusting
into me with fast, hard strokes, until we were both nearly frantic
with the need for release.

He buried his face
in my neck, his breath echoing harsh and fast in my ear, and he came,
stiffening above me, his pleasure triggering my own. I was sinking
and floating and couldn’t seem to hold him tight enough. My
mouth was open on his shoulder, tasting him. I was filled with the
scent of him, with the hard length of him, feeling the strength and
heat of his body covering mine, and I never wanted it to end.

Afterwards, he
wrapped me up in his embrace and I curled my arms around his neck and
rested against him, exhausted, replete.

“Boone,”
I whispered against his skin. “My Boone.”

He tightened his
arms around me, needing to maintain contact with me as much as I did
with him. And we cooled off and he drew a sheet over us to ward off
the chill of the air conditioning.

He rolled and tucked
me against his body. I snuggled in against him. I remembered the
night he’d been out of his head with fever and all the things
he’d told me in that vulnerable state. I wanted to clear that
up with him.

“Boone?”

He took a heavy
breath and said, “Hummm.”

“Are you
sleeping?”

“Not now.”

“Oh, I’m
sorry.”

“It’s
all right. What?”

“The night you
had a fever, you told me some stuff. Well, that’s not exactly
true. You told me stuff after I asked questions. I feel like I took
advantage of you. I wanted you to know that I would never reveal
anything you told me to anyone.”

“What did I
say? Some of it I remember.”

“You told me
that no one would give you a chance, see you for who you were and not
lump you in with every other Outlaw that came before you. How you
wanted to contribute, tried to get jobs, how cruel some of the
townspeople were to you. You were only fourteen.”

He went still; then
he roughly expelled his breath. “Really, I told you all that?”

I pulled away from
him so that I could meet his sleepy, sexy eyes. “There’s
more.”

An unsettled look
darkened his eyes. “Shit, really?”

“You said
that’s when you started feeling worthless, and when you got to
high school, you turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain and to
get you through the days.”

He looked away, his
face going a soft shade of red. “Oh, fuck. I didn’t mean
to subject you to all that.”

I knew shame, and
that’s what I saw in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel
that way. “No, Boone, don’t be embarrassed. Not with me.
All of us have done things we’re ashamed of. You didn’t
subject me to anything…I–I want to know more.”

“You do? Like
what?”

“Tell me about
rehab.”

He shifted and
started to pull away, but I clutched him to me. “Boone. I want
to know everything about you. Please don’t pull away from me
now.”

He closed his eyes
and I could see him visibly fighting with his memories. “It’s
not something I like to remember. How I was. What a fucked-up loser I
was.”

“Don’t
say that. You’re not a loser. I was just as screwed up, only I
channeled it into being the perfect preacher’s daughter. I felt
like just as big a loser.”

“What? How?”

“I let being a
preacher’s daughter dictate to me how I lived every moment back
then. I regret letting the stigma of who I was turn me into a
hypocrite.”

He cupped my face,
his palm warm and comforting. He gave me a sympathetic look, like he
knew exactly how I was feeling, and I believed he did.

“I didn’t
have pure thoughts, nor did I believe everything my daddy preached
about. I was sometimes cynical and unhappy in my role. No one wanted
to cut lose around me. They all felt constricted by who I was. I was
always uncomfortable at parties. The graduation party wasn’t
any different.”

He smoothed his
thumb along my jaw, his blue eyes confused. “Why did you go?”

“I wanted to
see you.”

He stared at me,
then inhaled unevenly. “What?”

I looked down. Being
honest with him did some healing of my heart. “I thought you
would be there, and I was hoping to get up the courage to talk to
you. Finally talk to you.”

“No shit,
Verity. I’m blown away. I had no idea.”

“Before I
could, you disappeared, and then I finished the drink with the X in
it and you know the rest.”

His voice was
unsteady when he whispered, “Sitting next to you, breathing in
your scent, the forbidden girl I promised my brothers I would never
touch. But I wanted to. I wanted to touch you. Even then you drove me
crazy. I got wasted so I’d keep my hands off you. Fucking
ironic, isn’t it? That if I had been sober things might have
turned out differently.”