No perfect hero, p.19
No Perfect Hero, page 19
“Then?” He exhales slowly. “You figure out what you want to feel. What needs to happen for that to be real.”
I don’t know what that is. Mostly, I think what I want to feel is just happy. Hopeful.
Like if I keep forging on, there’s something good waiting for me on the other side.
It’s not so hard to believe it right now with Warren holding me and a bit of the ache in my heart soothed. Even if I despised seeing Eddy today, it was the closure I needed.
Deep down, some part of me was convinced I’d done something wrong to drive Eddy into Britney’s arms. That maybe I’d deserved both of them being such two-faced shits.
But I can feel it in my heart now.
I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t deserve it.
I don’t have to carry the pain they gave me because that’s just letting them win.
And the reason I know is thanks to this huge, handsome complication staring down at me.
I can’t help smiling at him. Warren cocks his head. “I like this look better, Hay. That smile you're wearing?”
Suddenly, he puts his fingers to his lips and lets out a wolf whistle. I burst out laughing, slapping playfully at his chest.
“Mama, lock your boys up –”
“C'mon!” I whack his pecs again, this time a little harder. “You're being ridiculous.”
“Nah. We've got a live one here. She's beautiful and happy.”
I shake my head. “Just thinking through some things. Working my way to a better place.”
“Good,” he rumbles warmly, giving me another squeeze.
I can’t help leaning into him. He makes everything stable just now.
“Hey,” I murmur.
“Hm?”
“You know, I really didn’t give you a fair shake from the start. I just want to say I’m sorry for that.”
He lets out an easy, warm chuckle, gentle and not in the slightest bit mocking. “You serious, Hay? The first time we met, I grabbed you and started barking shit at you.”
I crack a grin. “Okay, fair.”
“And you hit me with a purse.”
“You earned it,” I squeal, poking a finger into his side.
“Yeah, maybe I did.” He shakes his head with an amused sound. “Point is, we got off on the wrong foot in all the wrong ways. We’ve had a few cease-fires since then, but–”
“Not a real truce,” I finish.
“Right.” He tilts his head, fixing those deep blue eyes on me. “What do you say we change that today? If you’re with me, if you're ready...”
His hold on me shifts, gathering me closer, my thigh sandwiched against the powerful bunch of muscle in his leg. Oh, wow.
My body fits against his hip, his side, all too well.
Fits in a way that curls warmth deep inside me and makes me think of far more than just waving the white flag of peace. And when he holds his free hand out to me, I nearly shudder.
Because the thought of touching him is doing things to me, giving me wicked and dark and crazy ideas.
“I’m calling truce,” he says. “You game?”
I know what he’s asking.
If we can start over. If we can try to be friends. If we can see each other as people, but I think it’s already too late for that.
I’ve stopped seeing him as a complete nuclear asshole for some time and started seeing him as someone who makes my days here in Heart’s Edge worth it.
Someone who only makes me so angry because it frustrates me how strongly I react to him, how easy it is for this strange man to make me laugh or hurt. How being so vulnerable to someone again terrifies me.
Terrifies me, but deep down, I kinda like the thrill.
And it's the thrill pushing me to do something crazy. Something wild.
Something I’ve wanted to do since he kissed me.
“Hay?” he whispers my name again, his eyes searching mine.
So I lean closer, slipping my hand into his. “I’m with you,” I whisper. “I’m with you all the way, Warren.”
Then I push myself up, sliding my body against his, and kiss him like the world just flipped upside down.
He’s still for only a second, lost in a startled breath where I think he might push me away, laugh it off, tell me no, that’s not what I meant...
Then suddenly he decides.
There’s nothing but him and me and crashing together as he kisses me back, as he slants his mouth hard against mine with a groan that sounds almost pained, like a beast breaking off its leash.
Searing, wild, furious, he takes over my mouth and leaves no doubt who’s in control here, even if I started it.
I'm breathless, swept away as he bruises my mouth with a kiss that’s all violence and sweetness and everything I need to feel like myself again.
To feel like a living, breathing woman and not some grieving, tattered castaway on the shores of my own life.
I don’t know how I end up straddling him, his body pushing my thighs apart until I’m open for him.
There's just his endless strength against me, under me, and then his hands clutching hard at my ass.
He pulls me down into him as he savages me with a deepening kiss. Every time his tongue chases mine, I feel it in the wettest depths of my pussy.
Like he’s already slipped inside my depths when he’s barely laid a hand on me.
It doesn’t help that he’s so damn hard against me.
His cock rubs between my thighs, dragging against my shorts, already throbbing.
That mad, mad pulse in his hard-on does some wild things to my bloodstream. Just knowing I can do that to him with one sharp, hungry kiss.
I can make him want me, as much as the heat in my blood craves him.
He breaks his kiss off, pressing his forehead to mine, snarling half breaths. “Fuck. Fuck, Hay.”
Those thick fingers kneading my ass nearly make me come right there.
He digs in hard, pulls me down harder against him. His friction and rhythm move me head-to-toe, my breasts caught heavy between us and my nipples aching against my tank top as they drag against his chest.
It’s like full-body foreplay with contact and caresses.
Every inch of his muscular frame stroking over me. Every curve of my body sliding against his until I feel sparks shooting everywhere. And those sparks rouse into flames as he nips my mouth, teases his way inside, curls his hands against the back of my neck and fists my hair and draws me in deep.
“Warren,” I gasp, raking my hands down his chest, catching his shirt, tugging it.
God.
I want skin. I want his tempered bronze, writhing muscle and wild ink hot against my palms, and he shudders under me like some huge machine with its engines grinding into overdrive.
“Fuck,” he whispers on my lips, settling his hands on my hips, holding me still when all I want to do is rock against his bulge until something inside me finally snaps. “You want me in you, Hay?”
My mouth goes dry, but I can’t deny it.
I break back from his lips, looking down at him, then nod slowly, breathing out a shy but completely certain “Yes.”
The way he looks at me then...holy hell.
It’s like he’s never seen me before, not fully, but what he sees now holds him spellbound.
I’m almost worried with the deep intensity of it, the way he seems to take me in.
But then I’m torn from that trembling moment when Warren abruptly heaves under me. And I squeak as his arms come around me, lifting me up against his chest as he stands, caging me inside all his broad muscle.
I'm safe and sheltered and burning apart as he carries me from the living room.
We barely make it into the bedroom before the frenzy comes.
Him tearing at my clothes. Ripping away my tank top.
My bare breasts spill free, aching to the touch, my skin so sensitive I cry out and toss my head to one side as he skims his fingers over their curves and traces patterns against my skin. He’s so heavy over me, this dark thing blocking out the light and capturing me in his shadow, making me his prisoner.
Making me a prisoner, too, to the raw sensations rushing through me.
Warren slowly circles his fingertip over one nipple, then the other, the rough texture of his finger painting heat against my skin and making me writhe, sliding my thighs together.
I’m already so wet for him, so desperate, and I want to beg – but I can’t find my voice to do anything but gasp, whimper, and moan as he gives me the barest taste of what I’m craving.
I’m almost too ready for it when he slides down my body.
My stomach quivers with the rasp of his beard on my skin and the sweet press of his lips below my navel. He’s quick to strip my shorts away, even quicker to toss my panties aside – yet there’s a moment as his fingers slide down, feeling how wet they are.
His eyes kindle bright, sparking and knowing, and he smiles slowly as he presses his mouth to the damp spot, breathes in, eyes narrowing, before he tosses the scrap of fabric aside to leave me naked for him.
Open to his every assault.
I’ve never felt so conquered by a gentle touch.
My body responds like lightning to the slightest graze of his fingers against my folds, the lightest trace of his thumb against the throbbing heat of my clit, the softest caress of a searching, knowing tongue.
I'm electric and he's the wire. Guiding, shaping, owning.
He torments me, rocks me, crashes me in waves of deep pleasure that strike me so hard it hurts.
They make me shake and quiver and roll.
I have no shame. None whatsoever as I spread my thighs and let him stroke me, taste me, lick and swirl and caress with the rough flat of his tongue.
Then I'm just gone, a mess of shaking legs and shallow breath.
His tongue comes faster, thrusting up inside me, giving that empty ache in my cunt some relief, that feeling that begs for something more.
I can't take much more.
I can't.
Between his tracing, relentless tongue and his slow-thrusting, thick, coarse fingers, I’m a mess, dripping, curling my toes against the sheets, digging my fingers in his hair.
I'm already lost to myself and the world as I arch my back, sucking in my stomach, trying not to spontaneously combust.
Is that a thing? Can sex be so powerful it turns a person into a little pile of ash?
With him, it's a big fat maybe.
And when he stops...when Warren stops as I'm right-on-the-edge, I almost break like never before and beg him to fuck me.
He’s right there with me, watching with smoldering eyes as he unzips his jeans, baring his cock.
Soon there's a new reason to gasp.
Huge is a glaring understatement. What he's holding is thick, hard, dense. A line of pearl leaks out the tip onto his palm, and I only have a moment to glimpse it before he rubs the slick, flared head against my folds.
“Pill, darlin'?”
“Wh-what?” I can't even think, much less form sentences.
“You on the pill or something, or do I break out a damn rubber?” The damn rubber part sounds more like something he spat.
“Yeah. I'm good. We're good. Warren...please.”
Relief fills his eyes. He bends down, burying me in another sultry kiss, the heat of his cock returning to my labia, my wetness, my clit.
“Good. Now I'm gonna fuck you so hard you forget Eddy Fuckface ever existed.” His growl is a promise.
A second later, his dick drives deeper, parting me, spreading me open, making me jerk with the sudden sharp feeling of heated flesh stroking me from the inside out.
Holyyy hell. Here we go.
I press my knuckles to my mouth, biting back a whimper.
It’s nothing compared to the cry that builds in my throat as he nudges into me, slipping the very first inch of his cock inside, stretching me open in a way I’ve never been stretched before.
I'm coming unglued, floating in the sweet madness of this, and I reach for him.
He comes to me so willingly, enveloping me in his arms, making me safe.
Making me his.
There's no mistake as he captures my mouth again, kisses me deeper, draws me into him until there's Warren Ford and nothing else.
He slides deeper, reshaping my body to fit his, showing me pleasure unlike anything I’ve ever known.
It’s not something he’s doing to me.
It’s not something I’m riding through alone.
It’s us. Him and me.
Together, moving as one, as he surges slow and deep, kissing me with a rapt and wondering reverence, turning all the violence and wildness between us into something sacred and hot and so flipping total.
My body feels like an extension of his, and his like part of mine. And I give myself up to him completely as this beautiful, wild beast-man arches and gives me all of his strength, his back shuddering under my fingers.
It shouldn’t feel like this with a near-stranger. Sparks shouldn't become entire galaxies. We shouldn't be gasping together, arms and legs entangled, my ass pressed deep into the mattress as his thrusts bury me alive.
But Warren’s more to me than a stranger. More than a chain of crazy, incredible, pussy-claiming thrusts.
And as he pushes me harder, higher, deeper, I just know I'm going to fall so hard.
Eddy? Did he even exist?
I barely remember his name as I gasp out “Warren!”
Then I clutch around him, cracking apart in shotgun bursts of white light and hot tension and flooding sweetness.
His pubic bone grinds my clit as he sends me over the edge; a screaming, clutching, breathless mess too on fire to even call his name again.
Coming!
It's like a full body lick. It's like a pillow of fire, a bead in my brain, an electric hum that starts in my pussy and explodes up the long, singed fuses of my nerves.
I'm coming with a sweetness and an insanity I never even knew. And it doesn't stop as his hips pick up, thrusting even harder, testing the entire bed.
I halfway wonder if we'll go crashing right through the floor as my thighs tense again. My nails dig into his back and my teeth hit my lip.
Holy hell doesn't work anymore. More like holy freaking Warren.
“Goddamn, darlin'. Don't you stop. Not till I fill that sweet little pussy up.”
I'm clenching so hard I could break, hugging his thrusting, manic thickness. It brings us off together, a roar exploding up his throat, then a scorching wave of fire pumping in my depths.
All his seed. All his flame. All him, him, beautifully him.
God, this was reckless. This was impulsive. This was probably the worst thing I could've done when I’m so fragile, so confused, so vulnerable.
And I don’t regret it one bit, even as he holds himself in me for what seems like forever, spilling every last bit until I overflow with our slick, steaming heat.
I take his slow, hungry tongue again and savor every second of him falling apart, trembling and snarling and stealing new moans from my lips with deep, thrusting kisses.
We're such broken, pent-up people, but this time is different.
This time we break together.
12
Taking Over (Warren)
Of all the bad decisions I’ve ever made in my life, this has to be the worst.
And I don’t regret it in the slightest.
I definitely don't regret fucking her three more times till we have to stop before our hearts give out.
Hay comes so many times I've lost track, the last time with her bent over, her hair in my fist, my hand crashing against her ass as she engulfs my cock, sucking my balls damn near dry.
Fuck.
Now she's soft and warm against me, tucked against my body with her curves practically flowing into me to fill all the spaces and hollows in my body. I can still feel that throbbing warmth inside her, even though we’ve disentangled to curl into each other and my cock is spent and sore. Can't forget the way she shivered under me, held fast to me, the burn of her nails still in my back.
Hell, I haven’t had sex like that in...ever?
It's a wild possibility.
And what’s got me fucked up is how deep this feeling is inside me. Like if I let it, this could turn into something. Me, her, I don’t know what.
But goddamn does she make me feel everything in spades.
Anger, passion, possessiveness.
Desire. Warmth. Laughter.
Even when she’s pissing me off, she just soothes something inside me, because she’s like me. All temper and wildcat fury until she calms down and then it’s just steadiness and strength.
That’s what I admire so much about her, I think.
She’s strong.
So damn determined to take care of Tara, herself, and everybody else.
And that just makes me want to protect her that much more.
From the world. From her past. From all the harsh bullshit life hacks up.
But most of all, from that chicken-necked weasel ex of hers.
I don’t know how anyone could ever claim to love Haley and then treat her the way that jackhole did. It’s proof enough he never loved her at all.
His loss.
And if I see him in Heart’s Edge again, I’m going to show him some love by throwing him right off our namesake cliff. If flowers going over it will keep you together forever, who the hell knows what a blood offering might do?
I can’t help chuckling to myself.
I’m being damn ridiculous, deep in full caveman mode, I know.
Against me, Hay stirs with a drowsy murmur. “Mm? What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about your ex.”
“Well...he is pretty laughable.”
“Yeah. But I was picturing the look on his face when I toss him over the cliff and make a wish—and then I realized I’m being a chest-thumping ape.”
She lets out a short, startled burst of laughter, and instead of me thumping my chest, it’s her small hand that thuds down lightly between my pecs. “I think you scared him enough. You got his suit dirty, that's pretty much like a punch to the face for him. You don’t need to go to jail for murder.”
