Pushing the Boundaries (Picking up the Pieces #3) (25 page)

I wanted to say something, get him to slow down and talk to me, but the minute he pulled his own shirt over his head, flexing all those delicious muscles, all coherent thought fled my mind. My hands lifted as if they had minds of their own and began tracing the intricate designs that covered parts of his body. My own need grew as his skin twitched and trembled under my touch. That deep yearning replaced my concern. I tried to clench my thighs together to ease the throbbing building up, but Trevor stepped between them, spreading them even further.

In the blink of an eye, his pants were unfastened and pooling at his feet. He took one last step, bringing himself as close as possible, and buried his rigid cock as deep as it would go. I threw my head back on a curse as he began an unrelenting pace.

“Every time,” he ground out between thrusts. “Gets better every fucking time.”

“Harder,” I coaxed, reaching around and grabbing hold of his tight ass, digging my nails in as that all-too-familiar tingle built inside me. No man had ever carried me to the brink as fast as Trevor.

“Never get enough of you, baby.”

We breathed as one, our lips so close together but not touching. “I’ll never get enough of you, either.”

At my words, something flashed across Trevor’s face. He pulled me in for another brutal kiss before I could recognize what it was.

“You make everything better,” he spoke softly, trailing kisses from my lips to that sensitive place behind my ear. “Just being near you makes everything better.”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes at his sweet words as my climax built even stronger, threatening to tear me apart.

“Trevor,” I pleaded as I rotated my hips to match his.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and looked at me with so much intensity. “So beautiful,” he spoke, his voice quiet and soft.

“Honey,” I whispered back.

“I love you, Lizzy.” My eyes widened and Trevor picked up the pace, pounding into me even harder. “I love you so much. Fuck, I’ve been in love with you since I met you.”

My head fell back as I cried out, “Oh, God.” Everything in my body pulled taught, a breath away from exploding. I felt like I was going to come apart completely.

“Come,
cher
. Let me hear you.”

He pressed down on my clit and bent to suck my nipple into his mouth. That was all it took. The sting of his teeth against my flesh as he moved and manipulated my body perfectly sent me into a tailspin. My eyes clamped closed and every bone in my body gave out as I screamed my release. If not for Trevor’s strong arms around me, I’d have collapsed back onto the countertop. I barely heard him cry out his own release over the blood rushing through my ears.

“You love me?” I finally asked once we’d both managed to come down somewhat.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Trevor whispered in my ear. “I just needed you to know the truth.” He pulled back and studied my face with an earnest expression. “Tell me I haven’t scared you away.”

My mouth hung open in shock. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t form words. Between the mind-blowing orgasm and Trevor’s confession, my synapses were fried. All I could do was shake my head.

“Thank you,” he said, placing another kiss on my lips.

“For what?” I finally managed to get out.

“For just being here.”

Cupping his cheeks again, I lifted his face so we were eye to eye. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And I wasn’t. There was no way I’d ever be able to walk away from this man. I just hoped he wasn’t able to walk away from me, either.

“Wait…you haven’t said it back?” Kenzie asked after I finished telling her about Trevor’s “I love you” from a few days before. Things between the two of us weren’t strained, and since that first time he hadn’t said it again, but I still felt awful for not saying it back.

“I couldn’t,” I defended lamely. It had been eating at me to tell someone for days, but I knew I couldn’t tell anyone in our circle that Trevor had said those three little words; they’d have flipped the hell out. So after over-analyzing and over-thinking every single, minor detail about that evening, I had finally grown sick of myself. I needed to talk to
someone
. And unfortunately for her, that someone was Kenzie; the one and only friend I had who was just
mine
.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t? I thought you loved him.”

“I did! I
do
. I just…I don’t know. I’m scared.”

“You’re gonna have to give me a little more than that, babe. What could you be scared of? I’ve seen how that man looks at you. You’re it for him.”

“He has a past,” I responded pathetically.

“Who doesn’t,” she scoffed. “If you’re going to hold people’s pasts against them, you should hold mine against me. I’m a single mother who only got the balls to leave her drunk, abusive boyfriend when he raised his hands to our son—”

“That wasn’t your fault,” I interrupted insistently.

“You say that, but I have two four-year-olds who saw their daddy hitting their mommy on more than one occasion, no matter how many times I tried to hide it from them. If I had been strong enough, I would have walked away after the first punch. But I was weak. I subjected them to things I never should have. And there won’t be a single day for the rest of my life that I don’t hate myself for that.”

“But you got them out of there,” I said, reaching across the table to take her hand. “I’m not here to pass judgment on you. I can’t begin to put myself in your shoes. Yes, you made mistakes, but you busted your ass to fix it.”

Her trembling hand squeezed mine as she leaned in closer, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “And who says Trevor isn’t doing the same thing? Huh?”

I let go of Kenzie and ran both hands through my hair. “I know, I know. I see him trying to change, and I really feel like he loves me. But I can’t stop worrying that he’s going to get tired of me one day, you know? That he’s going to realize he had more fun running around with a different woman every night than being tied down to just one. I’m scared that if I tell him I love him and he leaves, I won’t be able to come back from that.”

“Just because you don’t say the words out loud doesn’t mean they aren’t already true. The pain won’t be any less just because you deny it. And you’ll never know if you two can make this work unless you try, honey. Believe me, regret hurts more than heartbreak.”

“I know you’re right, really. But trying to get my brain and heart on the same page is proving to be a lot more difficult than I would have figured.”

Kenzie stood from the table and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Well, all I can say is keep trying, babe. I want you to be happy.”

“Thanks, honey. I want to see you happy, too,” I told her. Then she walked out of the break room and went back to work, leaving me with a lot to think about.

“Just be honest with her, man. That’s all you can do. Sit down and talk about it with her,” Jeremy told me before he picked up his soda and took a drink.

“Are you kidding me with this bullshit?” Luke threw in. “Trevor, don’t listen to this asshole. He’s useless. He should be getting his vagina waxed right now, not handing out relationship advice.”

I was quickly starting to discover that talking to the guys about my relationship with Lizzy was a huge mistake. I’d admitted to telling her I’d loved her, informing my friends that she had yet to say it back. Yeah, I know I told her she didn’t need to say it just because I did, but it had been almost a week since my little confession and honestly, I was starting to grow kind of antsy. I knew she loved me; it was written all over her. But the longer she held out on telling me the more I was starting to feel like I’d seriously fucked up with letting that slip.

“Jesus Christ, y’all aren’t helping,” I grumbled to the two of them, rubbing my hands over my face in frustration. I should have just taken my lunch break and talked to Mickey about it instead of calling all the guys out to Virgie May’s. Thank the Lord Emmy wasn’t working today, or she’d be all up in my business.

Ben propped his elbows on the table in front of him. “You know, I’m thinking that maybe spouting out ‘I love you’ during sex might not be that great of an idea.”

Brett snorted out a laugh. “Please, chicks love that shit.”

“Yes, because you would know.” Gavin shot Brett a sarcastic eye roll.

“Can y’all please just shut the hell up?” I demanded as I rubbed my temples. My head was beginning to throb; this was a serious mistake.

“Seriously, Trevor. You have to romance her,” Luke told me. “Women love all that flowers and hearts bullshit. You gotta pull out all the stops.”

“Yeah, like you have any idea how to be romantic,” Jeremy scoffed as the rest of the guys laughed.

“Hey! I can romance the ass off all you bastards!”

“You know, I hate to admit this, but he might be right,” Jeremy said seriously. “Chicks love romance.”

“So…what? Should I get, like, flowers and candy and stuff? Oh! She loves those little Rolos thingies when she’s on her period. Maybe I’ll get her a bag of those!”

“Holy shit, you suck at this,” Ben told me with a look of disgust of his face. “You can’t just stop by a gas station and hit up the candy aisle. What’s wrong with you?”

“Hey, back off. I think that’s a great idea.”

Well, at least I had Brett’s support. Because the one guy in the group
not
in a relationship is the one you want on your side. Said no one ever.

“Look, if Lizzy’s anything like Emmy, she loves those stupid fucking romance novels. My suggestion is you go home, read one of those books, and do whatever bullshit those douchebags pull off in those stories. Can’t go wrong there.”

“Well, fuck me. Luke actually has a good idea,” Gavin joked.

Maybe Luke
was
on to something. Those stupid books were all over the house. I caught Lizzy reading them all the damn time.

Tonight’s mission: read one of those books, take a shit-ton of notes, then go to the shooting range and let off a couple rounds so I could prove I was still a man.