Bedded Bliss (Found in Oblivion Book 1) (24 page)

“Yes.” She let out a weak laugh. “My boy is okay, and that’s the most important part. But God, everything else. It’s all such a mess.”

“Let me reassure you on one point.” He tucked her hair behind her ears. “As for Tabitha, she isn’t an issue. I’d vowed never to touch her again before you. After? I barely remember what she looks like.”

Her huff of breath nearly made him smile. “Sure. Right. She’s a gorgeous girl, and you don’t care about her because you’re married to a mother who hasn’t been out on a date in years. Who doesn’t even recall what it means to have fun and be wild. The one weekend I tried to be the girl I used to be, I ended up with a ring.”

“All right, yes, that’s unfortunate.”

She laughed, throwing back her head. “Unfortunate. Yeah. Except everything with you is so bright and full.
I
feel so full, like I’m going to burst with all the emotions you’ve unlocked inside me. And I can’t. I
can’t
. I’m a mother now. What I need doesn’t rank.”

“You can’t take care of him if you’re not taking care of yourself.”

“I don’t have the time—”

“So let me. I’m standing right here, and I’ll take care of you so you can take care of him.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would you do that?”

There were so many things he could have said. So many reasons. He went with the one he thought she’d understand most.

“My mother never put me first. My father definitely didn’t. They both were too busy looking out for themselves. I see you, and I see everything that my mother should have been and wasn’t. And I see you fighting to hang on by your fingernails, when I have everything available that could help you and I haven’t done one meaningful thing with it. I’ve done nothing, except play a guitar and focus on myself.” He cupped her face and stroked her damp lower lip. “Let me focus on you so you can focus on him. Let me, Chloe.”

F
or about the
five-thousandth time, she left him hanging.

No big deal. It only felt like his chest was in a vise. Eventually the pressure would ease, right?

Chloe’s eyes went too bright before she closed them. “There’s quicksand under my feet. Everything is slipping away.”

“No, it isn’t. I swear it’s not.” Michael pressed his forehead to hers and absorbed the uneven puffs of her breath. “Lean on me for a while. Trust me to be the bedrock you need. That Axl needs.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re right. I don’t play fair when I’m winning back my wife.”

She sighed and the fight seemed to drain out of her. “You can’t win back what you never had.”

“Au contraire. I’ve had you now, and I remember every second. You around me so, so tight. Your pupils swallowing those beautiful browns. Those sounds of yours when you can’t take any more and I make you.”

“Michael…”

“And that, especially that. How you sound so exasperated when you say my name, but still with that little plea that lets me know I’m not alone in this. You feel just as chaotic and needy as I do.” He brushed his thumbs over her cheeks until they met over the seam of her lips. “Tell me you do, Chloe.”

“How could I not?” He moved away his thumbs so she could speak. “I saw you on that stage and you were everything I’m not. Strong. Cocky. So, so talented.”

“You’re all of those things and more. Let me show you.”

Wordlessly, he drew her toward the chaise. He grabbed the blanket and draped it around her shoulders while her gaze roamed his face. She was uncertain and worried, and he should be soothing her with words and not actions she could dismiss. But he had to do more. Not for himself.

For her. Just for her.

He bent to pull off her sandy ballet flats and then encountered more sand on the damp hems of her jeans. “You were on the beach before you came here.”

“Yeah. It’s my safe spot. Always has been.”

Something twisted in his chest. What he’d grown far too complacent in even noticing, she sought for comfort. “Now you can see safety from here.” Watching her face, he undid the button on her jeans and drew down the zipper. “While I show you anything but.”

“We’re outside. All the cameras…”

On his knees, he pressed a kiss to her peach panties as he drew down her jeans. “Tell me you don’t care. That you want this as much as I do.”

“You know I do. I’m destroying my whole life because I can’t stop wanting you.”

He didn’t know what that meant or if she’d ever spell it out for him. As much as he needed to demand answers, he needed this even more.

Her
.

He pulled her jeans down her legs and tossed them on the chair beside them, then went back for her panties, hooking his thumbs in the sides. Above them, she wore a tight Rafferty’s T-shirt that revealed the full outline of her small, pert breasts. Her nipples were already distended, and he leaned up to take one between his teeth through the cotton. She moaned and grasped his head, weaving her fingers into his hair.

Fuck, he loved those subtle little tugs as she lost control. He needed more of them. Now.

“I’m going to recline all the way on this chaise, and you’re going to climb up on my face. And if anyone is taking pictures, I want you to make sure they hear you scream.”

Rather than denying him—and possibly asking if he’d lost the last of his sanity—she clasped the blanket around her shoulders. “Not going to do that through my panties,” she said, making him grin.

“Oh, I could. But for the sake of argument, you win.” He yanked them down her long, pale legs and tossed them on top of her jeans. Then he rose and sat on the chair, leaning back and pulling on the lever that controlled the incline. It was sturdily built, more than capable of holding both of them. He’d never been more grateful for springing for quality than that very moment.

Once he’d lowered the back, he waited, breathing so hard his lungs were starting to cramp.

She was a goddamn vision. Eyes darker than the clouds rolling in, freckled skin flushed pink, her hair nothing but a flame in the dying sun. He couldn’t do anything but hope to God she quickly put him out of his misery.

She moved up the chair and straddled his chest. Biting her lip, she hesitated.

“Uh-uh, Red. All the way. Don’t make me die of thirst.”

Without warning, she turned around, facing the other way. He was sure she’d changed her mind and was going to go inside, maybe leave his place entirely.

Instead she grabbed his belt.

He started to tell her no. This wasn’t about him. He already knew they were taking a risk. As far as he was concerned, anyone could take pictures of them and plaster them all over the web. She wouldn’t see it the same way.

The blanket over the shoulders should be enough to disguise what was happening, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t protect her when he was on his back. Leave it to his dick to do the thinking the minute his brain vacated the premises.

And his dick always made very, very bad choices.

Shit, she’d already undone his jeans.

“Lift,” she murmured, and he did, because he was only a man. Just her using her hand on him would be enough to make him go crazy. Forget anything else.

She pushed his jeans and boxers down his legs, leaving them around his lower thighs like rope. Just one flex of his hips and her mouth was on him, exploring him without any of the reticence he would’ve expected. They were outside, and fuck, her pussy was too far away.

They’d have some tit for damn tat here.

He grabbed her hips and pulled back to his mouth, latching onto her swollen pink slit with a longing he couldn’t hold back. He’d been craving this taste for so long, since the first time he’d gotten a hint of it in the club. Drunk, half delirious, he’d been consumed with the desire to taste her. The reality had nearly killed him, but a long, slow lick from the source was enough to make his body shake from the force of his groan.

She wrapped her insanely strong fingers around his cock, squeezing until his breaths came short and he could only lick her on auto-pilot.

If he passed out between her legs, he’d be grateful for the rest of his life.

He knew she had to stretch to reach him, but greedily, he yanked her back even farther, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of her ass. If he left marks this weekend, he’d kiss every one of them.

She cried out and he buried his face deeper between her thighs, making room for himself. She’d give up every drop willingly or he’d forcibly take them from her. Whatever tricks it took, he’d spend all night in this spot if necessary.

The whole world could watch them. Hell, might as well give them a show.

Sealing his lips around her clit, he sucked hard. Around his head, her legs trembled. Once, twice. Not nearly enough. With one hand, he probed her folds, and with the other still gripping her ass, he inched his fingers toward that tight pucker between her cheeks. She wasn’t expecting it. Didn’t know what to do when he started to slide inside. He could feel her resistance as distinctly as if she’d verbalized it, but he didn’t do anything but suck, and stroke, and slowly, slowly invade.

And when she cried out again, that long, low, hungry sound that reverberated against the mouth, he growled in response. “Mine.”

Almost as soon as he said it, she lifted, raising up above him like the nirvana he would never quite be worthy of reaching. Her tongue skated over the painful head of cock before traveling lower, along the side where his veins pulsed. She grazed the length of one right to the base, bouncing her pussy above his mouth just high enough he couldn’t close the distance. But she gave him her own kind of gift, one he could barely make out thanks to the disappearing sun. Tiny pearlescent drops of arousal clung to her lower lips, on the verge of falling free, and he strained toward her, finally clamping his hands around her thighs and slamming her back down on his face.

Hell yes.

This time, he didn’t hold back anything. He pushed a finger deep inside her while he worked her clit, earning every bit of her moisture. She wouldn’t deny him again. Even if that meant his aching cock bobbed free with only the uneven swipes of her fingers to stoke the fire in his belly higher. He didn’t need even that much. Just his mouth closed around her silky cleft while she pulsed through an orgasm would be enough to get him there.

He teased her between her cheeks again, not entering her this time. When he did that the next time, he’d have lube. Have something to make it easier for him to take her there like she was taking his finger inside her pussy. One finger, two. Three. He thrust them in and she clenched around them, riding his face just the way he’d dreamed. She was so wet. So hot. He slid his arm around her front to rub her clit, fast and hard, while he stroked his tongue inside her, relishing every one of the flutters of her pussy. She was going to come.

Finally, she’d soak his fucking face.

Yet again she darted forward, leaving him hanging as she gripped his erection in her hand and brought him to her mouth. He wasn’t supposed to come first. Shouldn’t have even been that close. But she scooped out the wetness in the little slit on the head of his cock, and that was all it took. Her fingers tightened and her tongue flicked over the swollen head, and he couldn’t do anything except turn his head to bite the back of her thigh along the crease where it met her perfect ass. His hips rose, driving him between her lips, and she didn’t shy away. She took him deeper, making the most seductive little noises in her throat while he emptied. Extending his orgasm almost to the point of pain.

Mindlessly, he bit her again, on the other thigh. She yelped around his still draining dick, which shouldn’t have made him laugh but so freaking did.

He was still laughing, still breathless from what she’d done to him when he hauled her back on to his mouth. He buried his tongue inside her again, and he clamped his arm around her hips to make sure she wasn’t getting away.

Not this time. She was going to drench his goddamn chin.

Circling her clit, he rubbed her until she bore down against him. Rocking against him and clamoring for more in high, thin cries that reached him even where he was nestled between her thighs. The roar in his ears grew louder, and it didn’t even matter that the last trickles of his release had been spent on his belly. This was her moment, and he hurtled toward it with her, yearning for the release as if it were his own.

“C’mon, Red,” he rasped against her folds in between lengthy swipes of his tongue. He never let up the pressure on the plump little bud under his fingers. He wouldn’t settle for some mild little O.

She was going to frigging scream, or he’d be out there all night, eating her until he died from oxygen deprivation.

Her legs shook around his head and she arched, lifting up for a fraction of a moment before she grinded onto his face. He growled against her and unwound the last scrap of her control, sucking her so hard that she had no choice but to break apart. Her wetness flooded his lips and he swallowed every drop, savoring the moans that shuddered through her body.

Once she’d ridden her climax to its end, he grasped her hip to steady her trembles and threw back his head to breathe.

And smiled up at the sky where the stars had begun to emerge from the clouds.

Her blanket dipped toward his nose and mouth as she sagged to his chest. He chuckled and sat up, sliding her down so that she plopped on his lap. His arms encircled her still quivering body, and he kissed the side of her neck until she let out a weak moan.

“I didn’t—I’ve never…” She exhaled. “Outside.”

“Yeah. The free show is over for tonight.” After he jockeyed her enough to pull up his boxers and jeans, he clutched her hand between her breasts. “In my bed, Red. Now.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t go again.”

“Twenty-three, baby. I can go until you can’t walk.” When she scoffed, he scooped her up and stood, bobbling her in his hold. “Whoa, O legs. Good job.”

Her giggle was the sweetest music he’d ever heard. Not his guitar, when he was rocking out during an incredible show. Not when he was nailing it during practice, or jamming during a Slayers’ concert.

She outstripped all of them effortlessly.

Stumbling a little, he carted her down the hall to his bedroom and dumped her on the mattress. He shed his jeans and boxers and joined her on the bed, his intent clear. She squealed out a laugh as he grabbed her leg and wrapped it around his hip, already prepared to go for it when reality descended.

Bare cock. Bare pussy. Dancing eyes that flashed up to his and slowly lowered as her anticipation bled away.

He kissed her to keep from saying the obvious.

No condom, can’t do it.

Of course he had some in the nightstand, but the moment had been lost. The specter of real life had blown up between them like a ticking bomb.

Her kisses tasted like him. He’d come in her mouth, and she’d taken every drop, just as he had. She whimpered and he knew she’d tasted herself too. Her tongue twined around his and he fisted his hands in her hair, loving that she was finally on his pillows. In his bed, in his apartment.

His
.

Truthfully, there was no
finally
to it. A week ago, he’d barely known who she was. But lifetimes could pass in an hour with her.

“Let me go grab your clothes off the deck,” he murmured in between kisses.

She started to argue, then she turned her head away. “Stupid reporters. What do they do, hang out of helicopters?”

“Sometimes.” He’d seen much worse things when it came to his father and his bevy of women. Money made the paps salivate just like it did everyone else. “Just in case. If they saw us, so be it. If they didn’t, well, might as well tidy up the evidence of a very good,” he glanced at his alarm clock, “hour. Shit, really?”

Again that giggle, although he would’ve sworn it was sleepier this time. “You were thorough.”

“So were you, Mrs. Shawcross. O legs, remember? A favor I intend to return.”

For once, she didn’t jolt at the name, just smiled up at him with unfocused eyes. “You didn’t let me walk in here, but trust me, I have them. If they’re still attached.”