Hearing the strain in his voice, watching him fight a battle I could tell he was losing, I wondered if this whole time he’d been holding back.
“I know you did everything you could to keep Matt safe. And you and me being together wouldn’t have upset him. He would have given his approval if that’s what you’re worried about.” He still hadn’t moved. I wondered what he was thinking while I poured my soul out to him. “He wouldn’t want us to torture ourselves. He’d want us to find peace with whoever we could find it with. You’re my peace. He knew there was no one that could take better care of me than you. If he knew you felt the same way about me, he’d be happy for us.”
I watched him reach for the shower nozzle and adjust it. Other than that, he stayed still. “Even if Matt was okay with this, I’m not.”
I stared through the glass, willing him to look at me. He wouldn’t. “Why?”
A sharp laugh spilled out of him. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”
“Why?” I repeated.
He was quiet again. The plumes of steam weren’t billowing from the shower anymore. Either the hot water was out, or he just cranked down the heat. Still, he didn’t move from beneath the shower’s stream. “Because you are everything good and beautiful and pure in the world, Bree . . .” He paused, exhaling. “And I’m everything that’s not.”
I would have smiled if this wasn’t all so damn tragic. How could he believe that? How could he actually think he was nothing? I didn’t understand it. I knew I never would either.
“That’s not true,” I said, waiting. He still wouldn’t look at me. “And you’re everything to me.”
Before I moved toward the door to open it up, I paused. “You know where to find me if you want to.”
MY WORLD. IT was reeling. It was spinning. It was turning upside down.
For weeks I’d been playing nice and keeping my damn emotions in check because I knew Bree wasn’t into me like that, but now it felt like everything I thought I knew was proving to be false.
Her lack of interest in me wasn’t the only reason I kept a careful distance though. There was also the issue of her being my best friend’s little sister. The best friend who wasn’t around to give his approval or give a solid beat down for my even thinking about his sister in that way.
But shit, I’ve been thinking about Bree in
that
way ever since she showed up at my door. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. In every way. The way she made me feel. The way I fantasized about wanting to make her feel. I couldn’t get her out of my head.
I’d succeeded at keeping my distance because she’d made it clear we were nothing more than old friends reunited. Had I been missing something? Had I been missing
everything?
God, and then to hear her tell me that the main reason she’d come here was so I could fuck her so she could get me out of her system. I didn’t know how to feel about that. One part of me was extremely turned on by her being so forward and admitting she was here because she’d planned on me getting her beneath me. Another part was ashamed she thought so little of me that I’d have no issues screwing her like it was no big deal. Like I’d just stick my cock in her, get what I wanted, and throw her out like yesterday’s garbage.
As much as I might have wanted to fuck the hell out of her every way I could, never once had that been about using her, then walking away. Never. Bree was special. She always had been.
She meant everything. She always had. I’d been a fool to not see it, an even bigger one to avoid her all of these years, but now that I’d acknowledged it, I’d never go back.
The shower water had been beating down on me, ice cold, for minutes now. I still felt hot. Like I was sweltering. Like I was on fire. The kind of fire that couldn’t be put out by water. The kind that couldn’t be put out the way I was used to fighting other fires.
She was the only one who could douse this kind of fire.
Turning off the showerhead, I slid open the door and stepped out. I grabbed a fresh towel, wrapped it around my waist, and looked at myself in the mirror. Matt’s dog tags were still hanging around my neck. The guilt of the weight of his death still haunted me. The guilt of failing him. Of failing her. It clung to me, moving with me every step I took.
I knew I had a choice to make. The guilt or her. I could have one, but not both. They couldn’t exist together. I wouldn’t want them to. I could choose to forgive myself for failing Matt and have her in my life, or I could choose to hang on to my guilt and say goodbye to her forever.
I never thought it would be such an easy decision when it came to it. I thought it would be difficult. But it wasn’t. It was the easiest decision I’d ever made. I was choosing her. I was letting go of the guilt.
Slipping the dog tags over my head, I clutched them in my hand. “Rest in peace, Matt.” Then I set the tags down on the counter and exited the bathroom, leaving the guilt behind inside it.
The hall was dark, and so was my room at the end of the hall. She could be asleep. But I knew she wasn’t. I knew she was waiting for me to get my shit together and choose her. She’d been waiting.
She’d never have to wait another second ever again.
When I shoved open the door, I found her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the door like she was expecting me right that very moment.
“Decided to take me up on my offer?” Her voice was softer than I was used to, almost unsure.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to just crawl into bed with you tonight.” When she exhaled and looked away, I moved farther inside the room. “I want to crawl into bed with you every night from tonight on. I want to love you and make love to you every night from tonight on.” When her head started to turn my way again, she wet her lips. Those damn lips. They’d been my undoing the past three weeks. I was instantly hard when I realized that now she could wrap them around my cock whenever she wanted. “I want you, Bree. In every way a man can want a woman.”
Her chest was moving quickly, and when her gaze dropped to what was pushing against my towel, I watched her nipples go hard. Shit, I was going to come before I even got inside of her.
She looked up at me from under her eyelashes, and there was a smokiness in them I’d never seen before. Slowly, she swung her knees apart, never looking away. “Then why don’t you get over here and show me just how much you want me?”
I didn’t think.
I moved.
I didn’t even stop to throw the towel off. I just crashed into her and tumbled her body into the mattress, pinning her beneath me. Her tits were so damn soft against my hard chest, the rest of her body pillowing mine like it was built to take me.
She let out a surprised gasp when I moved on top of her, and I knew I should take my time with her, but shit, I didn’t think I could. Even through the towel and the layer of her underwear, I could feel her warmth. I could feel her wet and ready for me. My cock leaked a few drops of cum at the promise of what was to come.
“I have something else to tell you.” She looked up at me, her mouth parted from her rushed breaths. Her heart was pounding against my chest, almost as fast as mine was.
“What is it?” I ran my fingers through her light hair, my other hand sliding down her side to remove her panties. I couldn’t wait much longer. If I came all over myself before getting inside of her, I would never forgive myself. Ever.
Bree’s hips rotated beneath mine. Then she ground her pussy against my erection. A throaty groan vibrated in my chest. She leaned up a little, until her mouth was just outside my ear. Her tongue played with it for a moment, sucking my lobe into her mouth. This time it was me grinding against her and making her groan. Once she recovered, she whispered, “This is my first time.”
When her hips flexed against mine, my hands curled into fists. I couldn’t think straight. All I could think about was plowing my cock as hard and deep as I could get inside of her. “First time for what?” I asked.
My eyes rolled back in my head when she took my hand, still combing through her hair, and moved it to her breast. She squeezed it with me, kneading her nipple with my fingers. Pulling it, twisting it, until she was the one whose eyes were rolling back in her head.
My mouth got jealous, so it took my hand’s place, sucking her hard nipple into my mouth. Her tank top was still in the way, and I was tempted to just rip it off of her so we didn’t have to move, but I didn’t want her to discover how much of an animal I was in bed. Yet. She’d discover that soon enough when I put her on all fours and drove myself into her like a wild, rutting savage for round two.
I was just reaching for the collar of her top when she whispered, “I’m a virgin.”
I might have been ready and horny as fuck, but this, this got my attention. My mouth released her nipple, leaving a big wet circle where it had just been sucking her. “What?” I moved my face over hers, confusion drawing across my face.
“Those other guys?” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to give them this.” She took my hand and moved it down between her legs. She pressed my finger into her wet panties, just outside of her opening. “I wanted to give this to you. I’ve waited to give this to you.”
Now that I was touching her down there, I couldn’t stop. Her panties were so wet, my cock swelled even more. I’d done this to her. She was dripping wet for me. Me. No one else.
“You’re twenty-three,” I said, my prick desperate to get inside of her. To feel all of that wetness fitted around him. To experience a virgin pussy. To be the first cock to break its way into this woman.
She smiled up at me, like she knew how turned on I was. Like she knew how shocked and overwhelmed and about to come all over her I was realizing she was a virgin and asking me to be the one to take her first. “Exactly. You know how hard it was to hold out this long?” Her cheeks colored a little. Bree was not a blusher. I loved that she was blushing for me though. Blushing over offering me her unspoiled body. “I haven’t been able to move on from you. I waited twenty-three years for you without a guarantee that you’d even want me.”
I knew she could
feel
how bad I wanted her, but I wanted to
show
her too. I didn’t just want to show her how much I wanted her with my dick, I wanted to show her with everything else I had too.
When I started to move away from her, her brows came together. “Where are you going?”
I smiled something all crooked and devilish at her. “Not far.”
When I lowered onto my knees on the ground beside the bed, I wound my arms beneath her ass and pulled her almost to the edge of the mattress. “What are you doing?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows and looking down at me like I’d lost my mind.
And I had. It was lost to her and I never wanted it back.
“Showing you just how much I want you. Just how thankful I am that you waited for me while I was being a dumbass.” I pulled her body a little closer to the edge, then my thumbs hooked under her panties and started to tug.
She lifted her ass in the air to let me pull them down. My cock about broke out of the towel when I saw her naked, bare pussy in front of me like that. It was glistening wet and I couldn’t look away.
“I know it’s my first time and everything, but what are you doing down there? Pretty sure your cock’s supposed to be right there, not your face.” She sat up and looked down at me hovering on the ground in front of her.
My hands settled on the outside of her knees. Then I spread her legs wide. All of the way—as far as I could pull them open. I wanted her as open as she could be when I made her come.
“I don’t want your first time to be like this. In my messy room. On my old mattress.” I crawled a little closer and kissed the inside of her leg. Her body spasmed. Then I ran my tongue up it and her whole leg erupted with goose bumps. “I want it to be special,” I said against her thigh, circling the diamond-shaped birthmark with my tongue when I came to it. “I want to take you out to a nice dinner and get dressed up for you and then take you to a nice hotel. That’s the way you deserve to be treated. That’s the way I’m going to treat you. Tonight is all about you.
Only
you.”
When my mouth kept sucking higher, that’s when she understood. She moaned at the realization I was about to suck her off, her legs closing around me.
“Just relax, baby. You’re going to love this. I promise.” I gently opened her legs again, holding them in place until she relaxed. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable that I was about to put my mouth on her and give her an experience she’d never felt before. “Maybe not quite as much as me though.” I glanced up at her for a moment, waiting for her to mirror my smile, and then I lowered my mouth to her.
She gasped, her hands curling into the mattress on either side of her hips.
“I haven’t even gotten to the good part, baby.” I blew against her pussy, moving my hand to her folds. When my fingers spread her lips apart, she tensed again. I couldn’t tell if it was from being nervous or a result of the pleasure she’d already been feeling from this, but in a minute, she wouldn’t be aware of anything but my tongue fluttering against her, driving her closer to her climax.